LAST week my fellow deputy leader Shahrar Ali and I were warmly welcomed to the “Jungle.”

As politicians attempting to shift the debate about the Calais migrant disaster away from aggressive anti-immigrant rhetoric, we felt it was important to see the conditions and meet the people affected face-to-face. If only the government ministers pledging to make life ever harder for these refugees had the foresight and the courage to do the same.

We were there for just a day — enough time only for the briefest glimpse into the refugees’ lives — but immediately we felt we had made friends.

We were ushered into people’s homes, offered food and greeted with countless handshakes. At first glance, the beaming smiles that lit up the camp gave an air of optimism. But spend more than a couple of minutes with any one person, and that thin veneer soon cracks.

Maya Konforti, a volunteer with migrants’ charity L’Auberge des Migrants known as the “Mother of the Jungle,” was kind enough to introduce us to several of her “3,000 sons.” Osman from Afghanistan grinned when our guide teased him about his love life, but speaking of his long journey to Calais — including nine months spent walking across continents — his reality was revealed. “I just wish I knew when it was going to end,” he said.

Later we met Mohammad from Sudan, who invited us into his home — an impressive structure with a stove made from an old oil drum, benches covered with blankets and decorations hanging from the ceiling. We talked about Britain and his two brothers who already live and work there, one a Hackney resident of six years who works at a local hospital. But when we came on to Sudan, and what had made him walk across Africa, take his chances in a boat from Libya to Italy and walk from there to Calais, he froze.

Looking at the ground, his head in his hands, he fell silent before rubbing his eyes and apologising. His friend made a joke to lighten the mood, about how in Sudan, at least it was sunny all day.The tension relieved, Mohammad told us more — about the government forces who attack whole villages and kill entire families. I felt struck that attacks like this are fading into normality and in Britain they rarely make the news.

Sudan has one of the worst human rights records in the world. Its armed forces are accused of mass rape, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of property. Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people have been forced to flee their homes. Yet our own government, rather than offering asylum to people like Mohammad, has recently been accused of complicity in these abuses through the support and training it has provided to Sudanese troops.

This case speaks volumes about the British government’s attitude towards difficult situations in foreign countries. Instead of providing aid, support and refuge to the victims of war and oppression, too often our solution is our military.

With Calais, our Prime Minister views the refugees seeking safety from the trauma they have witnessed in their home countries as a homogeneous group — a threat to the British way of life. Yet the “Jungle” is a testament to the incredible resilience and creativity of people who have faced tragedy with a determination to build a better life for themselves. The refugees are not attracted to Britain for its fast-disappearing benefits — they want to come here to work. The “Jungle” is filled with shops, bars and restaurants constructed from whatever bits of wood and tarpaulin these enterprising people can find.

And far from wanting to cut themselves off from British culture and communities, the refugees are some of the friendliest people I have met.

They build their homes so that they face each other, with shared spaces for cooking and socialising in the centre and passers-by are welcome to join in.

In stark contrast, David Cameron is spending £7 million on Calais “security,” not only around the Channel Tunnel and the harbour, but also imprisoning the entire city of Calais and all its people in barbed wire and electric fencing.

What he fails to recognise is that this approach does nothing to resolve what has become a humanitarian disaster.

In the short-term, the refugees in Calais need proper access to food and water, comfortable places to stay and adequate facilities for their applications for asylum in both France and Britain to be processed. Many of the people we met were not interested in coming to Britain but we must offer safe passage to our fair share of those who do wish to make a home here — especially those with existing family connections.

But most importantly, as the world’s sixth-richest nation, Britain must actively help to end forced migration by increasing the amount we spend on aid and peacekeeping in countries like Eritrea, Afghanistan and Syria. No fence in the world is high enough to persuade refugees to return to countries where their homes still lie in rubble, their family and friends have lost their lives, and where they will be persecuted and oppressed once more.

There are no easy answers, but as long as there are wars and violent regimes, countries deemed safer will be faced with a choice about whether to help or imprison those seeking asylum. Now is the time to be active on the world stage. We cannot hide behind our fences much longer.

• Amelia Womack is deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales.