Safe Passage in 2019

In early 2019, Safe Passage International was formed as an independent and international charity. For the past 4 years Safe Passage thrived within Citizens UK, however, to best meet the needs of the people we seek to serve it was decided to establish the new charity. This meant that the in-house UK legal team was established, able to provide direct representation for the first time in Safe Passage’s history.  

Safe Passage provided evidence to challenge the Home Office in court about delays children were facing when trying to reunite with their family in the UK. The court found that the Home Office failure to comply with the two-month deadline to ‘take charge’ of a case and this was unlawful. Thanks to the judgement children could now reunite quicker with their family in the UK from France.  

In 2019, 50 children were brought to safety and 529 people were supported through our work. Additionally, our expert teams in UK, France, and Greece trained 191 professionals so they can better support people in need of legal assistance.  

We campaigned throughout 2019 to make sure that children could still reunite with family after Brexit. 330,000 signed our petition, 20,000 emails were sent to MPs, and the Government was dealt their largest defeat to date in the House of Lords.   

2019 was also the year that our Young Leader’s Programme was established.  Former Safe Passage clients and other young refugees came together for workshops and sessions to build their skills and provide them with a platform for advocating on issues.

This was a crucial year to set our team up for 2020 when the UK was set to leave the European Union.  

Read in greater detail and find links to reports produced in 2019 in the Impact Report.