Asylum can be a last, desperate resort, for people being persecuted in their home countries.
Pieter is a teenage refugee living in the north of England. Three years ago he fled the Czech Republic with his father and mother.
He fled after an attack in a toilet, where he was made to pick out the contents of the bowl and throw "what was inside" somewhere else. His attackers were police. "They were nasty", he says.
Romany
Pieter is of Romany descent - from a race of people who settled in Europe some 600 years ago. In the Czech Republic, their darker skin makes them a target for attacks at the hands of racists and neo-Nazi groups, and they get little protection from the police.
The police turn a blind eye, we are told. "They laugh and joke about it. They don't protect us."
In the three years since his departure, his family have heard of an incident where a young girl was killed because she was Romany and another where two five-year-old brothers were tied, thrown into a swimming pool and drowned. Neo-Nazi groups did that apparently.
News from home doesn't come through the internet. It comes from other Czech Roma exiles who flee to this country for their safety. "They come here and we meet", but some are at risk of being sent back to face persecution, it is claimed.
Pieter agreed to be interviewed by us on one condition - that we would not identify him, his whereabouts or his associates. He fears information getting back to his homeland and being used against his fellow people by racists and neo-Nazi groups there.
He misses the Czech Republic, his country. "It's my homeland. I was born there. I miss the nature, the countryside", he tells us.
Family
He also misses his family. His aunty "a lot", his grandma "very much", his male cousin, his female cousin, the other children Š "I miss those children there", he repeats, not forgetting to mention the "the rest" of his family "back there".
In fact if he had the chance to live anywhere in the world it would be in the Czech Republic because, he tells us, "I've got my grandmother there and I've got my family there".
He likes where he is too though, "a lot". He was made to feel welcome here. He has experienced racism but nothing like he got in the Czech Republic. The other young people at school are "very nice" to him and the teachers are friends. He has a best friend who is really funny. He likes the town he's now a part of and especially likes the sea.
His fluency in Romany and Czech didn't help him much when he got here, and he found adjusting to English difficult at first.
School
He seems particularly fond of school. "School is different here", he says.
"I study with other children and am starting to learn keyboards with them. I'm learning to look after myself, how to cook. I like computers, maths and writing as well. We do swimming there, and exercise, and psychology studies. We also work in the garden in the allotment, so we do a bit of gardening".
In our interview with Pieter, he answered most of our questions directly but didn't always have the command of English to say exactly what he wanted, despite the occasional help of an interpreter.
We asked which things in particular are different at school for him here, at which point his mother helped out.
Parents
Normally adults aren't present when Children's Express news teams interview other young people. Because of fears for the safety of other Roma people, we welcomed Pieter's parents sitting in on this interview.
"There is a big difference with school here. He loves going to the school and he doesn't like to miss a minute. He doesn't want to be at home here. He wants to be at school.
"He has got very nice, understanding people around him and very good teachers. He is very popular and well-liked at the school, and he likes other people. We are very happy he is so happy at school and that the school is helping my son.
"He had a very bad experience in a Czech school. He doesn't like to remember that thing. He didn't have good teachers and they didn't have time for him. He didn't like that school." The Roma people were treated differently to others in Czech schools and they were not encouraged or helped, she says.
Hatred
His father says a recent survey in the Republic found that a high percentage of young people do not want to share classrooms with the Roma. "They don't want to live in the same residential areas, and they don't want to work in the same offices or jobs."
We ask why.
"Because we are of Romany origin, because there is a hatred, and it is very difficult to change people not to be like that".
"If you walk alongside me in Prague, you would feel it yourself; how people behave because you walk with me, or with one of us. I'd give us 20 minutes, and we'd finish in intensive care."
He claims that Roma people are being sent back to the Czech Republic to face this hatred by the Home Office which wrongly thinks they will be safe. "The Czech government makes a declaration. They send it here to Britain, to the Home Office, saying that all Romany people are safe back in the Czech republic. The authorities accept it because it was a government declaration. They think it's true".
"I am angry about that. It's like sending targets to be killed", says Pieter's father.
Pieter himself doesn't talk about governments. His only hope is that people actually meet each other, see how the other lives and learns that they really like each other.
About the teamThis interview was conducted by editor Jade Henderson and reporter Hayley Todd. It was published on Sky television's Reach for the Sky website.
