Credit: Inside the MagicAnytime someone is torn from their home, it can be a traumatic experience, especially if they are forced to leave out of fear of violence. That fear and trauma becomes even more heightened when the person fleeing their home is a child.
To limit the trauma for refugees and asylum seekers, children need to have something safe to latch onto. In some cases, that safety can be found in Disney characters, especially Mickey Mouse.
However, with a wave of anti-immigrant and asylum-seeker sentiment sweeping over the United States and the United Kingdom, the goal is no longer to make those seeking relief feel comfortable.
And that’s where the comforting images of Mickey Mouse come in. Member of Parliament Robert Jenrick, who is running for Tory leadership with the prime minister as the next step, is being accused of removing a mural of Mickey Mouse from a children’s asylum center because it was “too welcoming.”
Jenrick, who was the immigration minister when the Mickey Mouse mural was ordered removed, refused to apologize in a recent interview with Sky News.
When told by the interviewer that removing the mural was “a cruel thing to do,” Jenrick responded:
I’ve said I wouldn’t do it again, but we changed the character of the place migrants first came to when they arrived in the UK to ensure that we were weeding out those adults who were posing a real risk to children.
However, that response was not enough for the reporter, who responded with:
That’s nothing to do with the Mickey Mouse mural though, is it? I mean if you’re a 25-year-old pretending to be 18, it’s not going to make a difference to you if there’s Mickey Mouse greeting you or not, is it? But it might make a difference to a person who is eight years old.
Throughout the summer, a wave of anti-immigrant violence exploded across Great Britain as the country saw a wave of asylum seekers from wartorn African and Middle Eastern countries.
Earlier this year, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak came under fire for proposing that the country ship its “irregular immigrants” to Rwanda.
Like the United States, Great Britain has seen hundreds of thousands of immigrants come to the country seeking asylum. It also has a rapidly aging population and needs immigrants to increase its labor force.
Both countries face the issue of how to create a system that will legally allow immigrants into the country and curb illegal border crossings.
However, the best way to start is with compassion, and a Mickey Mouse mural is an excellent introduction to an unfamiliar place for children.