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Eight months ago, the events that shattered the life of Richard Amoah, a 58-year-old upholsterer from south London, were condensed into a series of succinct, emotionless paragraphs, typed into boxes on an 18-page form, scanned and emailed to a government office in Sheffield.
理查德·阿莫亚是一位来自伦敦南部的58岁室内装潢设计师。八个月前，阿莫亚将自己的人生遭遇浓缩成一系列简洁、不带感情的段落，将其输入18页表格的方框里，最后经过扫描，再使用电子邮件发送到谢菲尔德政府办公室。
Everyone knows you can’t put a price on happiness, but it is now the Home Office’s job to assess the cost of Amoah’s unhappiness, after a series of disastrous government mistakes left him destitute on the streets of Ghana’s capital, Accra, for two and a half years.
每个人都知道无法为幸福定价，但如今内政部的工作却是评估阿莫亚痛苦的价格，因为此前一系列的政府失误导致阿莫阿在加纳首都阿克拉街头贫困潦倒了两年半之久。
As they process Amoah’s claim for compensation, staff in Vulcan House, the Home Office’s riverside headquarters in Sheffield, will need to address a number of difficult questions.
在处理阿莫亚的赔偿请求时，Vulcan House(英国内政部位于谢菲尔德河畔的总部)的办事员将需要解决一些棘手的问题。
How should the government compensate someone for carelessly wrecking their life?
政府应该如何补偿那些不慎被破坏生活的人?
What is the correct payment for rupturing family bonds?
家庭纽带破裂支付多少赔偿金合理？
Can the loss of a stable, happy existence be remedied with a methodically quantified pay out?
系统性地量化损失能否弥补幸福稳定生活的缺失？
Amoah is one of at least 13,000 victims of the Windrush scandal, in which retirement-age UK residents who had been born in the Commonwealth and travelled, legally, to Britain as small children, were misclassified as immigration offenders.
阿莫亚是至少1.3万名“疾风”丑闻事件的受害者之一。在“疾风”丑闻事件中，达到退休年龄的英国居民被误归为违法移民，这些人出生于英联邦国家、孩童时通过合法途径来到英国。
Hundreds of victims of the scandal were wrongly deported or held in detention centres, and thousands more lost homes, were sacked from their jobs or were denied benefits, pensions and NHS treatment because of the error.
因为政府的失误，数百名丑闻事件的受害者被驱逐出境、被关押在拘留中心，数千名受害者失去住所，被解雇、被剥夺福利、养老金以及无法接受国民医疗服务体系治疗。
As it became clear how much damage had been caused to this cohort, a major compensation scheme was promised.
随着对该群体造成多少伤害变得越来越清晰，政府承诺了一项重大的赔偿计划。
The scheme, which was launched in March 2019, was meant to offer swift payments to anyone affected.
该计划于2019年3月启动，旨在向任何受此事影响的人提供快速付款。
Initial estimates by civil servants suggested that anywhere between 200m pounds and 570m pounds would be paid out.
公务员的初步估计显示，赔偿金额将在2亿至5.7亿英镑之间。
But in the nearly three years since it launched, the compensation programme has been ridden with controversy and delays.
但在计划启动的近3年的时间里，这个补偿方案一直饱受争议且一拖再拖。
Many claimants object to the fact that the programme is run by the same department that caused their problems in the first place.
许多索赔人反对这样一个事实，即这个补偿方案由最初制造问题的同一部门负责。
The Home Office has, effectively, been allowed to mark its own homework.
实际上，英国内政部已获准自行管理内部问题。
Claimants have expressed dismay at meagre compensation offers, which they feel do not reflect the harm they suffered.
索赔人对微薄的赔偿提议表示失望，他们认为这并不能反映他们所遭受的伤害。
At least 23 people have died waiting for a decision.
至少有23人在等待决定时离世。
Last year, the most senior black employee in the Home Office’s Windrush team resigned, telling the Guardian that the scheme was “racist and unfit for purpose”.
去年，内政部“疾风”团队中最资深的黑人办事员离职，他告诉《卫报》，该计划“带有种族主义，与初衷不符”。
