💜 Lenten Action Challenge – Week 2: Keeping Refugee Families Together

✍️For Week 2 of our Lenten Challenge we invite you to take one small action to stand with refugees and defend their right to family life by signing Safe Passage International's petition to the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, asking her to keep families 'Together Not Torn'.

🚫Last year the UK Government suspended the Refugee Family Reunion route - the main pathway allowing people who have been granted refugee status in the UK to reunite with their partners and children. This decision has already left many families separated indefinitely.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Family reunion is a vital humanitarian route to protection from war and persecution. 92% of those who use it in the UK are women and children, joining family members who have already reached safety here. Removing safe routes like this risks further pushing vulnerable people towards dangerous journeys.

💔There are now plans to replace the current system with a more restrictive scheme, which could keep families separated, only deepening the uncertainty and trauma already impacting their lives. This could leave women and children in protracted states of limbo, living in camps or in dangerous circumstances, unable to join their partners and fathers who have made the initial journey to find safety in the UK.

🇻🇦The right to family life is protected in international human rights law, and Catholic Social Teaching recognises the family as the fundamental unit of society. Pope Francis repeatedly called on governments to welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants and refugees. Likewise, Pope Leo XIV has affirmed that hospitality, compassion and solidarity should shape the Church’s response to migrants and refugees, encouraging Christians to welcome them as brothers and sisters and accompany them in their journeys.

📧 THE ACTION
That’s why we’re asking supporters to email the Home Secretary calling for the suspension of Refugee Family Reunion to be lifted and for the UK to protect, not curtail, safe routes that allow families to reunite.

WHAT TO DO:
1️⃣ Click the link to the email in the comments below.
2️⃣ Send the pre-written email to the Home Secretary.
3️⃣Share this post and action with others.

💜Defending the right to family life is one way we can stand alongside people seeking safety and help ensure that compassion and justice shape the policies that affect them. Keeping families together helps people recover from trauma, rebuild their lives, and integrate into their communities.