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Migrant Voice
February 9, 2012
As we have noted several times in this blog, for many years now the media have been outspoken in their negative portrayal of immigration and migrant workers in the UK. They constantly harangue the Government for being too ‘soft’ with its immigration policies and release often inaccurate statistics concerning the economic or social effect foreign nationals have had on Britain. One could be forgiven for thinking that there are very few members of the tabloid press who will actually present the case in favour of immigration, and we rarely hear from migrants themselves, other than in one-off articles which are easily missed.
That is why we were very pleased to read that Migrant Voice will be publishing its second free newspaper this week. Migrant Voice is a new and important charity which was established in 2010 as a response to the increasingly detrimental and biased way in which migrants are being represented by the UK’s popular press.
This is an organisation which aims to challenge the way in which migrants are portrayed and viewed in the media, and to encourage those who are concerned about the way they and their families are being depicted to ‘engage in positively influencing the immigration debate and changing public attitude.’ It works directly with migrant communities, media, policy makers and other migrant groups to try and explore ways of reducing the hostility of media coverage concerning immigration and improve public attitudes and perceptions of migrants in the UK.
Importantly, the charity seeks to provide migrants with a means of getting their views and experiences heard in the debate which is about them, but which thus far they have been excluded from participating in.
The editor of Migrant Voice wrote a compelling article which we would encourage all our readers to view. She points out the benefits that migrant workers have brought to our economy, with many jobs which British people do not want to undertake being performed by foreign nationals, and paints a distressing picture of the threats and violence that many migrants have endured in this country.
We hope that this organisation will soon achieve its goal and that migrants will finally be allowed a voice.
There are 100,000 free copies of Migrant Voice available from today. Contact them if you’d like a copy.
