gogapyear.com - Essential advice for gap year travellers

Although the majority of trips abroad are trouble-free, it’s important to remember that things can go wrong. If they do, it can be much more difficult to deal with than at home. A bit of planning can help avoid disaster.

If you have anything stolen

• If your money, passport or anything else is stolen abroad, report it to the local police immediately and get a statement about the loss (you will need one to claim against your insurance).

• You will need to cancel any credit cards or traveller’s cheques. You may also want to have money transferred to you either by your bank or by a relative using a reliable money transfer company. Our staff can give you information about this if you need it.

Lost or stolen passports

• your passport is lost or stolen abroad and you urgently need to travel, we can issue a replacement travel document once we are satisfied of your identity and that you are a British national. You will need to produce a police report, fill in an application form and pay a fee.

• Depending on the country you are in and the circumstances, the emergency travel document may be:

- an emergency passport, which is valid for a single journey with no journeys through third countries;

- a temporary one-year passport (not available in all of our offices); or

- a standard passport.

To issue a passport, we need to make checks, which may take time and could mean you have to delay your travel arrangements.

• If our staff have to issue an emergency travel document outside normal office hours, you will have to pay an extra fee. Before making any arrangements with our staff, consider whether you also need an exit visa from the local immigration authorities as some countries do not issue these visas outside normal office hours or at weekends.

Financial help

• If you run out of money abroad, we can give you information on how to transfer money and we can help you to contact relatives and friends who may be willing to transfer money to you or to buy you a ticket back to the UK. If we transfer money on your behalf, we will charge you for this.

• In an emergency we can cash a sterling cheque worth up to £100, secured against a valid banker’s card, into local currency. There will be a charge for this service.

• You have no automatic right to receive emergency financial help from us. In certain very exceptional circumstances, and when everything else has been tried, we may provide a loan from public funds to help you return to the UK. You will have to sign an agreement to repay the loan in full. In most cases, you will have to secure this loan by giving up your passport to our staff who can issue you with an emergency travel document valid for a single journey to the UK. We will not return your passport to you and the UK Passport Agency will not issue you with a replacement passport until you have paid off the loan in full, including the cost of issuing the emergency travel document.

• If we have contacted family or friends for you, for example if you have been arrested, we cannot give them money to help with travel or accommodation if they visit you.

Victims of crimes overseas

• We can give general information about local police and legal procedures. We cannot give you legal advice, but we can point you in the right direction to get advice.

• If you need medical treatment, we can help you to contact a local doctor.

• If you want us to, we can contact your relatives and friends and let them know what has happened. We can offer you financial help only in line with our policy outlined in the section of this guide called ‘Financial Assistance’.

• We cannot collect evidence or investigate crimes ourselves, and in many countries investigating authorities and the courts will refuse to answer enquiries from other people and organisations, including consuls. So, you should consider appointing a local lawyer who can look after your interests in court, and follow any trial for you. We can give you a list of local English-speaking lawyers and interpreters. We would not ordinarily go to a court case involving a British national and cannot influence the outcome of any trial.

• Back in the UK, you may feel you would benefit from extra support to help you cope with the effects of the crime. Organisations such as Victim Support can help ( HYPERLINK http://www.victimcupport.org) www.victimsupport.org).

• We have a leaflet called ‘Victims of crime abroad’ which offers more detailed information. You can find details on our travel website, under ‘Our publications’.

Assault

You should:

- contact us especially if you have been arrested or admitted to hospital.

- tell the local police as soon as possible and insist on a police report

We can provide lists of lawyers, interpreters and doctors if you want.

• If you have been detained, we aim to contact you, depending on local procedures, within 24 hours of being told about your arrest or detention, and to visit you as soon as possible. We have a leaflet called In prison abroad with more information. You can find details on our travel website under ‘Our Publications’.

• If you are in hospital, we aim to contact you within 24 hours of being told that you are there and to visit you as soon as possible. If you want, we can help you to liaise with your insurance company or medical evacuation company. Remember to keep any receipts or doctors’ notes in case you need them to make a claim. Using the resources that are available to us, we may also be able to help you communicate with hospital staff if they do not speak English.

Rape or Sexual Assault

• You should talk to someone straight away. Do not keep the attack to yourself. If possible, talk to a friend or relative or contact us.

• We aim to be polite, patient, sensitive and non-judgemental. In many cases of rape and sexual assault, the victims, no matter what their sex, prefer to talk about their ordeal with women. If that is what you want, we will do our best to ensure that a female officer is present at any meeting.

• If you want to contact the police we can come to the police station with you and we can provide you with a list of local lawyers and interpreters. However, only you can decide whether or not to take legal action: we cannot make this decision for you. Remember that if you chose not to report the crime immediately but change your mind later, forensic and other evidence may be lost. Also in some countries, you must report the crime before returning to the UK if you want it to be investigated.

• We can help you to deal with the local authorities in arranging a medical examination. Depending on local conditions and laws, we can also arrange for you to see a doctor who can give advice on sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, and on pregnancy or abortion.

• We can provide you with information on what professional help is available locally and in the UK both for you and for your family. We can also consult our London-based Police Adviser, who can consider using the services of a Sexual Offences Trained Officer from your local police station to advise and help you.

• We have a leaflet called Rape and sexual assault overseas with more information. You will find details on our travel website, under ‘Our Publications’.

Death Abroad in suspicious circumstances

The tragic death of a relative or friend is always distressing. When the death is under suspicious circumstances, it is even more so. In all cases where you, as next of kin, have concerns about the circumstances surrounding the death, we suggest you get professional legal advice.

You should :

- register the death in the country where the person died. We can tell you how to do this. You will need documents about you and the person who has died, including for example, their full name, date of birth, and passport number. The local authorities will need to be told if the person suffered from an infectious condition (such as hepatitis or HIV) so precautions against infection can be taken. You do not have to register a death at the British Embassy, High Commission or Consulate, but by doing so, you can get a UK death certificate and a permanent copy of it will always be available in English in the UK. In certain countries, we cannot issue death certificates and the local ones are suitable for British purposes. These countries are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

- consider the options of local burial and local cremation (where local authorities allow these for foreigners) or of transporting the body and personal belongings back to the UK. We can give you information about these options and details of costs. Such arrangements may be delayed by any post mortem and overseas investigations. Post mortems may be carried out without the permission of the next of kin. In some countries, organs may be removed and kept during these procedures without the next of kin being informed or consulted. You should be aware that in some countries a lack of suitable storage may make it impossible to obtain the necessary international certificates to transport the body. While we cannot pay any burial, cremation or repatriation expenses ourselves or settle any debts, we can help transfer money from friends and relatives in the UK to pay any necessary costs. We can also provide lists of local and international funeral directors.

• Where there is evidence of suspicious circumstances, we can give you support and suggest the best way to raise concerns with the local authorities.

• We cannot investigate deaths ourselves and in many countries investigating authorities and the courts will refuse to answer enquiries, including from British consular staff. In these circumstances, it is very important to consider appointing a local lawyer who can look after your interests in court, and follow any trial for you.

• We will consider making appropriate representations to the local authorities if there are concerns that the investigation is not being carried out in line with local procedures or if there are justified complaints about discrimination against the person who has died or their family. You should be aware that the standard of investigative procedures and expertise varies greatly across the world.

• Consular staff in London are available to meet family representatives, and they will inform the next of kin of any information provided by the local authorities. Where possible, if the next of kin visit the country where the person died, either during the early stages of the investigation or the initial court hearings, our staff there may be able to meet them.