SOAS and JRS UK will launch a major new report, Disabled by Design: The Human Impact of the Hostile Environment on People Seeking Asylum, at an online webinar on Thursday 14 May at 6pm.
The report presents new research exploring how the UK’s Hostile Environment not only excludes people seeking asylum, but actively creates and deepens disability. Drawing on workshops with people who have been refused asylum and made destitute, the research brings disability rights into conversation with lived experience of the asylum system, exposing the profound human cost of hostile immigration policies.
Grounded in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), Disabled by Design demonstrates how enforced poverty, denial of the right to work, NHS charging, barriers to healthcare, family separation and exclusion from community life interact to produce physical and mental impairment. Participants spoke powerfully about being disabled by policy design rather than personal circumstance, describing how prolonged destitution, isolation and stress led to long‑term health conditions and deteriorating mental wellbeing.
The research was funded by the Impact & Knowledge Exchange Fund of SOAS, University of London, and is the result of collaboration between JRS UK, SOAS, and people with lived experience of the asylum system.
The report is launched at a critical moment. The UK government continues to extend and entrench Hostile Environment policies, weaponising destitution as a means of immigration control and increasing the risk of harm for people seeking sanctuary.
Disabled by Design shows how these policies fundamentally contradict the UK’s legal obligations under disability rights law, and how attacks on refugee rights also undermine disability rights more broadly.
The launch webinar will bring together the report’s authors and expert contributors to discuss the findings, their implications, and the urgent need for change. Speakers will include:
- Dr Nicolette Busuttil (SOAS University of London), report co‑author
- Dr Sophie Cartwright (Jesuit Refugee Service UK), report co‑author
- Dr Rebecca Yeo (University of Exeter)
- Dr Clara Della Croce (Reader in Law and Director of Clinical Legal Education at SOAS University of London), who will chair the discussion
The event is co‑hosted by the Centre for Human Rights Law at SOAS and Jesuit Refugee Service UK.
Accessibility
The webinar will include automated live captions. Participants who require additional access adjustments are encouraged to get in touch in advance; JRS UK will do its best to accommodate access needs.
Report
The report will be available on the JRS UK website soon.
Join us
Thursday 14 May
6.00-7.00pm (online)
