Public Agenda (Accra)
Opinion
9 May 2008
opinion
I wish to draw your attention to a systematic discrimination and human right abuse by officials of the Visa Section of the British High Commission in Ghana.
It will be recalled that on the 8 February 2008, an article featured in the Ghanaian media including Ghanaweb by Kwami Agbodza highlighted some of the systematic race prejudice by officials of the Visa Section of the British High Commission in Accra. Kwami Agbodza's article represented the voice of hundreds of voiceless poor Ghanaians who have suffered silently, discrimination and abuse in the hands Visa Section officials in Ghana.
Marriages have been broken, families have been torn apart and destabilized by officials of the Visa Section of the British High Commission through this systematic discrimination. There are testimonies where customers who provided all the required documentation have been refused visa on the grounds that they are too desperate to travel to the U.K. There are also instances where husbands, wives, sons, relatives who have proven beyond any reasonable doubt of their relationships with their sponsors, and without any interviews, have been denied the right to family re-union on the grounds that they were in a marriage of convenience, or that they were not genuine visitors.
There are also overwhelming evidence based on the compilation of visa refusal reasons to conclude that the British High Commission holds Africans in contempt and treats us as strangers even in our own country, the high percent of visa refusal in Ghana is a testimony to this fact. It therefore appears that, despite the abolition of slave trade some 200 years ago, white supremacy and colonial mentality still exists in the hearts and minds of some minority.
Officials of the Visa Section will go through your travel documents not to offer you the help and the services required but to find vague reasons to deny you a visa in what Kwami Agbodza and many other Ghanaian visa applicants have perceived to be dehumanizing treatment in our own country.
The question I want to ask here is "are Ghanaians who are legally resident in the U.K not entitled to family union". This is where I feel very strongly that our basic right under the current U.K human rights law is under threat.
Overwhelming majority of Ghanaians in the U.K are law abiding, hardworking and making positive contribution to the U.K economy. I wonder how many more Ghanaian families are going to be destabilized before the British High Commission realized the extent of harm they have caused.
Following Kwami Agbodza's article, the British High Commission issued a statement on 9th February 2008 denying these allegations and claiming that over 93% of customers rate their services as either very good or good. The British High Commission further stated that each application is assessed objectively based on immigration rules, and that race is not a factor. However, available statistics prove otherwise, and majority of visa applicants have serious doubts about this assertion too.
Ghanaians, for that matter Africans are often subjected to dehumanizing treatment in visa application, and I could not agree more with Kwami Agbodza when he used the phrase systematic prejudice and race discrimination at the Visa Section of the British High Commission in Ghana
I know the United Kingdom prides itself as one of the most tolerant, honest, fair and above all treats all human beings equal, irrespective of race, gender and religion. Unfortunately, Ghanaian visa applicants receive far less than this British pride. Customer satisfaction is the bedrock of every successful organization, and as customers we deserve firm, but fair treatment and also value for our money.
We as customers pay for your services, for that matter your salaries, we deserve to be treated fairly, and also we deserve value for money, and our rights under the current U.K human rights law needs to be respected.
Discrimination of the type alleged today by Kwami Agbodza and many hundreds of poor voiceless Ghanaians hurts, it destroys families, reduces trust and creates tension between communities. I am therefore calling on the Ghana Government and the British Authorities to look into these allegations in order to stop this toxic discrimination on our own soil.
Jalaal Hakim (UK)
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I will also like to emphasize that fact the British High Commission in Accra Ghana are indeed racist and the situation is so endemic that it should only be describe as institutional racism. By definition Institutional racism is, "the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin" The situation is so bad that the British high commission in Accra have always failed on their duty to prosecute those who they claim to make fraudulent application. On the application forms of their visa… [Read Full Text]
I will also like to highlight that fact the British High Commission in Accra Ghana are indeed racist and the situation is so endemic that it should only be described as institutional racism. By definition Institutional racism is, "the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin" The situation is so bad that the British high commission in Accra have always failed on their duty to prosecute those who they claim to make fraudulent application. On the application forms of their visa… [Read Full Text]
I will also like to highlight that fact the British High Commission in Accra Ghana are indeed racist and the situation is so endemic that it should only be described as institutional racism. By definition Institutional racism is, "the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin" The situation is so bad that the British high commission in Accra have always failed on their duty to prosecute those who they claim to make fraudulent application. On the application forms of their visa… [Read Full Text]
This problem is so horrible, but sadly, I don't think it stops with the British High Commission. I'm an American and my fiance is Ghanaian. He too has had a ridiculous amount of trouble getting a visa and has tried twice. As an American unhappy with the treatment of Ghanaians in their visa process I have done all I can to contact people and have things changed, but nothing works. But as upset as you may be (and rightly so!) please remember that the people of a country are not the same as the government of a country.