UK: “Hostile” Compensation Scheme Fails ‘Windrush’ Victims

UK government scheme to compensate “Windrush scandal” victims is failing and violating their right to an effective remedy for human rights abuses they suffered at the hands of the Home Office, Human Rights Watch said today.

On May 17, 2018, then-prime minister Theresa May apologized for the scandal, in which Black Britons who had arrived in the UK from the Caribbean after World War II were required, after living and working in the UK for decades, to meet impossible government requirements to prove their UK citizenship or residence rights. As a result, they lost jobs, homes, health care, pensions, and benefits. In many cases, they were detained, deported, and separated from their families.