Against Borders for Children

Submitted by AWL on 18 January, 2017 - 11:46 Author: Joe Booth

On 14 January, I went with another member of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty to the Against Borders for Children (ABC) conference. The event was about fighting for refugee children, and was organised by ABC, a group that allies with teachers and students to fight for refugee children who are being spied on or even arrested by the government.

Speakers included National Union of Teachers General Secretary Kevin Courtney and National Union of Students President Malia Bouattia, as well as representatives of various refugee rights campaigns. The main focus was on resisting the government’s intention to make schools give pupil nationality data to the Home Office.

The NUT has argued that “schools are not part of policing immigration”, and even Ofsted head Michael Wilshaw stated that he was “amazed by it and shocked by it. Schools shouldn’t be used for border control”.

The ABC’s #BoycottSchoolCensus campaign urges parents to exercise their legal right to refuse to give their children’s school the details of their nationality or country of birth. I believe that we need to organise teachers and students to support the refugees, to show solidarity and to convince and involve the labour movement. We need to get people together, workers and oppressed, to unite against the government and start a mass movement, with agitation, education and organisation.

ABC
@Schools_ABC

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