AIRE Centre

The AIRE Centre is an NGO whose mission is to promote awareness of European law rights and assist marginalised individuals and those in vulnerable circumstances to assert those rights.  We have two main activities: litigating cases before the European Court of Human Rights (as applicants’ representatives or as third-party interveners) and providing free legal advice to individuals and other advisers and lawyers, mainly on EU migration law.  We also carry out trainings and projects.  Our current focus areas include women’s rights, the rights of victims of human trafficking and of survivors of domestic violence and above all migrants’ rights.

AIRE Centre website

Asylum Aid

Asylum Aid has been representing refugees through the UK asylum process for thirty years as well as advocating on behalf of asylum seekers for a better, fairer process in the UK. We are now part of the Helen Bamber group, a charity that specialises in providing care and support for torture survivors.

Asylum Aid has had a specialist focus on Statelessness for the past fifteen years and campaigned alongside ENS for the UK Statelessness process to be created. We have continued to represent statelessness applicants through this process and hope to campaign for legal aid funding in the future.

Asylum Aid website

Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy

Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) is a leading NGO that focuses on investigating human rights abuses in Bahrain. We work in three stages: exposing, supporting victims, and seeking accountability. We have developed a unique yet incredibly effective strategy of lobbying, peaceful protests, the media and creative use of the legal process. As a result, a week barely passes without the human rights abuses of the small state of Bahrain appearing in the news. Through our campaigning, we have drawn attention to the Bahraini government’s use of the revocation of citizenship as a tool to silence dissent. Our Director of Advocacy, Sayed Alwadaei, is a prominent Bahraini human rights defender who was rendered stateless in 2015 as a reprisal for his human rights work. With his exceptional experience and knowledge of the abuses in Bahrain, we are working on a research and advocacy project relating to the activities of Bahraini stateless people in Europe after they have had their citizenship revoked.

Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy website

Bail for Immigration Detainees

BID is an independent, national charity that exists to challenge immigration detention in the UK. We provide legal advice, information and representation on bail to people held in immigration detention and we aim to influence policy to ensure that people are only detained as a last resort and that such safeguards as exist against arbitrary detention are adhered to. We run a telephone helpline, disseminate a self-help book (How to Get out of Detention, available in 5 languages) and run bail workshops in detention centres. We also prepare and present in court a limited number of bail applications for the most vulnerable of people (e.g.  survivors of torture and parents separated from their children) and people who cannot be removed from the UK. We have a strategic approach to litigation and refer cases of unlawful detention for High Court action.

Bail for Immigration Detainees website

Bhutanese Welfare Association in UK (BWA)

The Bhutanese Welfare Association (BWA) is a non-profit organisation established on 27th July 2011. It was established by a group of Bhutanese people within the UK to bring all Bhutanese together to nurture, facilitate, empower and promote Bhutan’s culture, and to aid the population in the development of the skills that are essential for establishing a new life in the United Kingdom. The mission of BWA is to ensure the development of support services that will enable the Bhutanese people to improve their standard of living and increase their self-worth, independence, and autonomy.
BWA’s methods for facilitating the growth of Bhutanese culture, social integration and personal development of individuals includes various activities, programs and guidance. It is an invaluable resource for all Bhutanese to discover their strength and potential to thrive at the start of a new life in a new country, by successfully adjusting to English culture while also retaining their own traditions. 

Bhutanese Welfare Association in UK (BWA) website

British Red Cross

The British Red Cross provides practical and emotional support to vulnerable refugees and asylum-seekers in the UK.  Our services include supporting refugees to adapt to life in a new country through our orientation service as well as peer befriending for unaccompanied young refugees. We also provide one-to-one social and emotional support for refugee women through our women in crisis projects and bring about the reunion of separated families through our family reunion and resettlement service. Finally, we provide short-term emergency support and advice on support that may be available to destitute asylum seekers.

British Red Cross website

British Rohingya Community UK

The Bradford Rohingya community was created in 2008 and later became the British Rohingya Community. We are based in Bradford in the UK and our team consists of members from the Rohingya population that have come to the UK through the UNCHR and Home office Gateway Protection UK. We campaign to ensure members of the Rohingya community in Burma have their human rights realised and are able to live equally and without fear. Our team is also dedicated to raising awareness and increasing media attention towards the plight of the Rohingya in Burma. 

British Rohingya Community UK website

Coram Children’s Legal Centre

Part of the Coram group of charities, Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) is an independent charity working in the United Kingdom and around the world to protect and promote the rights of children. We aim to uphold children’s human rights in law, policy and practice within the context of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights. We work to ensure that children’s interests are represented at every level of the legal process and in the production of policy and legislation. We seek to improve access to justice for children through the provision of direct legal services; the publication of free legal information and guidance; research and policy work; law reform; training; and international consultancy on child rights.

Coram Children’s Legal Centre website

Detention Action

Detention Action is a registered charity which challenges the dehumanising effect of immigration detention policy on migrants and asylum seekers in the UK.  We defend the rights and improve the welfare of people in detention by combining support for individuals with campaigning for policy change.  We work alongside people in detention both to seek their own release and to advocate for systemic change, enabling their voices to be heard.  Formerly known as London Detainee Support Group, our volunteer visitors have given emotional support to people in detention since 1993.  We work primarily in the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centres.  We adopted the new name of Detention Action in May 2011, reflecting our evolution from simply visiting detainees to initiating policy change. 

Detention Action website

Equal Rights Trust

The Equal Rights Trust (ERT) is an independent international organisation, established to combat discrimination and promote equality as a fundamental human right and a basic principle of social justice. An advocacy organisation, resource centre and think-tank, ERT focuses on the complex and complementary relationship between different types of discrimination, developing strategies for translating principles of equality into practice. 


ERT specialises in nationality and statelessness issues, recognising undocumented and stateless persons as particularly vulnerable to discrimination and prioritising the need to strengthen their protection. ERT’s statelessness work is global in scale, with a strong focus on particularly vulnerable stateless communities including the Rohingya of Myanmar. However, much of ERT’s research, advocacy, training, awareness raising and standard setting work is relevant to Europe. ERT’s engagement on statelessness has particularly focussed on the detention and discrimination of stateless persons.

Equal Rights Trust website