Hackney mother and disabled son win deportation battle

Staying in: Kwasi and Abena Ama

A Hackney woman who feared she and her disabled son would be forcibly removed to a country she barely knows has won her fight to stay in the UK.

Abena Ama, 48, and her son Kwasi, 23, who suffers from autism and mental health problems, were granted indefinite leave to remain on 20 January after a legal battle lasting nine years.

Mrs Ama asked to be allowed to stay here on compassionate grounds when she and her son arrived from Greece in 2003. But the Home Office wanted to deport the pair to Mrs Ama’s home country of Ghana, somewhere she has not lived since she was a teenager.

“For me and my son, going back to Ghana would have destroyed our lives,” she says. “I was 17 when I left and in many ways it would now feel like a foreign land.”

The constant insecurity and years of court hearings and appeals have been a source of stress and worry. But Mrs Ama has been most afraid of what a move to Ghana would mean for Kwasi, who has challenging behaviour and needs special care and education.

“They don’t have the facilities, and they don’t value autistic children in Ghana like they do here,” she says. “There is no special place for him to go, no special school or day centre.”

Although her son’s behaviour can be difficult and is very different to that of other young men his age, Mrs Ama says her neighbours and other local people have been encouraging and supportive.

“People like him here and are friendly to him,” she says. “He knows the neighbours and they say hello. Yesterday we were coming home from Hackney Central and a lady said ‘hello Kwasi’ and I didn’t even know who she was. He had to tell me it was the mother of a friend.”

But Mrs Ama’s warmest praise is reserved for Hackney Community Law Centre, which took her case on, at no cost to her, three years ago.

“The law centre was very helpful,” she says. “I had spent a lot of money on solicitors which didn’t help, but the Law Centre was very good and helped us win the appeal.”

Note: Names have been changed.