Migrants and refugees are facing “increased destitution” and “poverty” according to Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network’s head Rosario Guimba-Stewart. 

Since joining the LRMN in 2010, Guimba-Stewart has been a leading voice in empowering refugees, asylum seekers and migrants to know and exercise their rights and take control of their lives.  

Originally from the Philippines, Guimba-Stewart moved to the UK in 1995 and worked for the Refugee Council before joining the LRMN. 

Although the LRMN also covers Hackney, Greenwich, Bromley and Bexley, only Lewisham has been granted Council of Sanctuary status. Awarded in May 2021, Lewisham has “pledged to be a place of welcome and safety for everyone regardless of their race, ethnicity or gender.” 

Guimba-Stewart, the chief executive and her team are working to ensure more boroughs become a safe place for refugees and migrants. “We were the first refugee and migrant organisation in London who campaigned for Borough of Sanctuary,  but since we started it, other refugee organisations have followed.”  These boroughs of sanctuary can not only “improve” but “challenge policies and practices that are anti-refugee.”   

Guimba-Stewart spoke to Eastlondonlines about the diverse range of people who use the network, many of whom have faced unimaginable struggles. “We sometimes get women with their suitcase and children,” she said. “Evicted by their landlords because they failed to pay the rent or they escaped from their abusive partners. We get clients who have been trafficked, have escaped female genital mutilation or experienced modern slavery.” 

When Guimba-Stewart joined LRMN the charity was a team of three with an income of just under £200,000. Since then, it has expanded its services and geographical remit in order to keep up with demand. 

For Guimba-Stewart, it is critical that those using the network receive the appropriate care as soon as possible.  

“If they need immigration advice or support, they are transferred to the immigration team… If they are women who have experienced domestic violence, abuse or gender-based abuse, they are referred to the women’s team,” Guimba-Stewart explains.  

The network also has a hardship fund to provide a small amount of money for basics but Guimba-Stewart said: “Even with 100 staff members, we still couldn’t cope with the demand, especially with this crisis… more people are coming with increased destitution and increased poverty.”  

“Those who have been supported before are also coming to us because they’ve lost their support system. They’ve lost their job and they’ve lost their network.” 

“I want them (the government) to create/expand safer routes for people seeking asylum, like expansion of Family Reunification and Refugee Resettlement to make it easier for them to join their families in the UK, as many who risk their lives crossing the channels are people seeking asylum who have family connections here,” said Guimba-Stewart. 

The Nationality and Borders Bill has created a two-tier system for asylum seekers. Group one, the “good asylum seekers” as Guimba-Stewart puts it, must arrive in the UK “directly from where their life or freedom was threatened.”  

However, she said, “when Suella Braverman failed to answer a Tory MP when asked how an orphaned teenager could join his siblings, she couldn’t answer because there are no safe routes.”  This leads to most people falling into the “bad asylum seeker” tier, who enter the country illegally.  

Guimba-Stewart said these plans, especially the Rwanda asylum plan “totally inhumane and unjust”. “Stop the hostile policies and practices and rhetoric,” she said. “Like Suella Braverman’s ‘invasion’, or Robert Jenrick accusing refugees of asylum shopping. This rhetoric doesn’t help, it creates hostility.” 

As the laws get tighter and people become increasingly desperate to flee political unrest to join family already in the UK, Guimba-Stewart and her team will keep fighting to protect and help them. 

“People will come regardless of the risk,” she said. “I believe we all have the right to be safe. No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.”