No Place for Children Campaign
Launching 8th September 2008
"Our first night in Yarl's Wood was just terrible. We couldn't eat and we couldn't sleep. There were special people there to look after my mum to stop her trying to kill herself again. I thought, if you are scared she will die, why won't you let us stay in this country, because if she goes back to Cameroon she will die."
Jasmine, 13
What is this campaign all about?
Every year, around 2,000 children pass through the UK's immigration detention centres. They are there because their parents have applied for asylum in the UK.
There is no reason for them to be there. They have committed no crime, and families with children are less likely to abscond if their asylum claim is turned down than any other group. For a government wanting to appear tough on illegal immigrants, however, families are an easy target.
Government policy states that children should be held only "when absolutely necessary and for the shortest possible time". In practice, however, children can be detained for months while their parents' cases go through the system. In many cases people who have been in detention are eventually found to be genuine refugees and given right to remain in the UK.
In detention children experience intimidating behaviour by guards. They have described being transported in caged vans, being denied access to the toilet, or made to go with the door open so they can be watched. Girls tell of being made to dress in the presence of male officers. There is no limit on the amount of time for which children can be detained for immigration purposes, and no judicial oversight of their cases.
Unsurprisingly, many children are deeply traumatised by the experience of detention. They live under the continual threat of deportation back to countries where they or their family members will be in danger. Many of these children have been born in the UK or have lived most of their lives here. They think of themselves as British, and may face being sent to countries they barely know.
Emotional and physical effects experienced by detained children range from weight loss and respiratory problems to depression and self-harm. There are no children's mental health services or specialist paediatric care in centres such as Yarl's Wood. In 2005, a report by the Children's Commissioner for England Sir Al Aynsley-Green found that: "It is not possible to ensure that children detained in Yarl's Wood stay healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and achieve economic well-being."
In recent years, there has been a growing consensus that the practice of detaining children for immigration control purposes must end. A paper produced by a cross bench group of MPS and Peers in 2006 concluded that, "there is a broad consensus that locking children up with their families is inherently harmful and to be avoided wherever possible."
Despite such stringent criticism, however, government policy has not changed.
Aims of the campaign
The New Statesman calls for an end to the detention of children and families for the purposes of immigration control
The practice of immigration detention for children violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is damaging to children both emotionally and physically. Alternatives need to be found to immigration detention for children and their families.
While the detention of children continues the following measures should be implemented:
o better independent oversight of the system.
o Accurate records should be kept of all children in the immigration detention system: who are they, where are they, how old are they and how long have they been held?
o welfare assessments of all children should be made on entry into detention
o reasons for detention and reviews should be given to parents in their own language
Campaign strategies
The New Statesman Children in Detention campaign launches on the 8th September 2008. The launch issue will include a polemical piece by the Children's Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley Green, in which he recounts some of his "shocking" experiences at Yarl's Wood. There will also be testimonies from Meltem and Jasmine, two children who have been detained, as well as a brief introduction to their cases by Women for Refugee Women campaigner Natasha Walter.
The following issue (15th September) will include a report from Yarl's Wood by the novelist and playwright Gillian Slovo.
In addition, three short films will be released on newstatesman.com featuring Esther Rantzen, Saffron Burrows and Juliet Stevenson reading testimonies from mothers who have been detained with their children.
In subsequent weeks we hope to publish an open letter signed by writers, artists, politicians and other public figures calling for an end to the detention of children for immigration purposes. Our readers will be encouraged to sign their names via the website.
We also hope to table an early day motion on the subject.
Further possible contributions include: a response piece from the Minister for Immigration Liam Byrne, a report on detention by the novelist Marina Lewycka, a cartoon strip based on a detained child's story by a well-known children's illustrator.
Campaign backers/ Allies
o The campaign is officially backed by the Children's Commissioner, the Children's Society and by Women For Refugee Women
o Motherland, a production by Women for Refugee Women based on testimonies of mothers and children in detention, was on at the Young Vic earlier this year. They have a performance in October in the Houses of Parliament which will run in conjunction with the New Statesman Campaign
Contacts
For all media enquiries please contact Kate Taylor, 07866 853 401
For other enquiries contact Alice O'Keeffe, alice@newstatesman.co.uk, 0207 881 5658
Additional information
Jasmine's story
Jasmine came to the UK with her mother from Cameroon in 2002, when she was seven years old. Her mother had been imprisoned in Cameroon because of the political activities of her husband. But their first asylum application was made with Jasmine's stepfather, and automatically refused when he was refused, even though they were no longer living with him. They were held in Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre in Bedford for two months and taken to the airport for deportation on one occasion. After being released from Yarl's Wood, their case was heard again and they were given leave to remain in the UK .
"My name is Jasmine and I'm 13 years old. I live with my mum and my little sister Jessica who is five years old. I was 12 when all this happened, and my sister was only four. Well, it all started one morning. My best friend was sleeping over at our flat in Middlesborough, and we were having fun just like other kids. I knew my mum was worried about our stepdad finding us, but I didn't know she also had something else in her mind. I didn't know about our asylum case.
I was asleep when I heard a noise. I thought it was mum coming from the shop or something, so I went back to sleep. But after a while I heard my mum crying so my friend and I went to check what was going on. I saw a policeman stood in front of my bedroom door. He said to me, "Do you know why I'm here?"ù I said no in a confused way. He said, I'm here because your mum's asylum case got refused. I still didn't get it. Then I saw my mum crying her eyes out and rolling on the floor.
Then he asked me to go and pack my things because we are going to a family centre. I asked, how long for? He said he didn't know. I asked him, can I have a shower first, and he told me that there was no time and I had to be quick and pack some of my things and my little sister's things as well. They took us into a van. It was like a dream, or as if they were making a sad movie. Me and my mum were crying, and I reached out to hug her and tried not to cry for my little sister's sake. The van was nasty and smelly, there was bars and glass separating them from us it was like we were some kind of disease. We were driving for hours and they were in front laughing and acting like there was nothing wrong.
Then my mum start talking and saying things to me - that if she died I must never forget that I had a mother that loved me, that she did everything to save me from the horrible life that she had, and that me and my sister must always love each other because that is the only thing we might have left in this world. Then she was all quiet, and then I saw she was trying to kill herself. She had the seatbelt around her neck and she was trying to choke herself. I had to bang on the glass then and they did stop the van for a bit.
Our first night in Yarl's Wood was just terrible. We couldn't eat and we couldn't sleep. There were special people there to look after my mum to stop her trying to kill herself again. I thought, if you are scared she will die, why won't you let us stay in this country, because if she goes back to Cameroon she will die.
As the weeks went by I was asking myself, are we going to stay in there for the rest of our lives? I was sitting in those rooms all day with no proper air to breathe. One day they took us to the airport to send us back to Cameroon . They put my mum on the aeroplane and put handcuffs on her. They told her they would inject her to make her sleep if she made a fuss. But I stood outside the plane and started screaming. I wasn't going to go to that place where I knew we would not be safe and in the end, they took us off the plane because I made so much noise. They took us back to Yarl's Wood and then after that my mum managed to get a judicial review put through. After we were released we got leave to remain. But I don't think I can ever forget what happened to us there.
You don't know how it feels to be a kid full of dreams and to feel that nobody cares, that the dreams are not important to anyone. My little sister Jessica is 4 years old. You think, well she won't understand, but in her world Jessica knew what was happening. She told my mum she hated the police because "One morning they came to arrest us and you started to cry." She said to my mum, "When I will be old I will fight for you, I will fight for you when they come to arrest you again."
Key quotes
"We have roll call every day four times. Some officers don't even knock on the door, they just come in... my brother wets the bed every day and he is almost 12, he can never sleep a lot of the time he wakes up crying. We ask him what is wrong he says he saw a bad dream. I have bad dreams too." Letter from Anna, teenager detained at Yarl's Wood
"You have to sit and wait a long time, my child went without food the whole night and day. A one and a half year old - what kind of punishment is that? I hated to see my baby being locked up. They put you in one tiny room and there is not even a bed for the baby. The mattress is very uncomfortable and as I couldn't sleep my baby couldn't sleep. She couldn't eat much at all, they said they didn't have the right milk for her age... My baby was very unwell and I didn't have any medicine for her. They took it off me. She got a bacterial infection in her bottom, which became raw and painful. She couldn't wear nappies or trousers. It was awful for me because I wanted to help my baby and I couldn't. No one cared. " Juliet, a mother detained at Yarl's Wood
Detained children suffer "weight loss, lack of sleep, skin complaints and persistent respiratory conditions. Children often suffer from depression and changes in behaviour in detention." Save the Children report
"The Government has rightly earned praise for the "every Child Matters" policy programme. It is now time for it to live up to its rhetoric by making sure that every child really does matter, including those caught up, through no fault of their own, in a system that can only be described as inhuman." The Children's Commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynsley-Green
"Prima facie . . . families with their children attending school are less likely to abscond [if their asylum claim is refused] than any other category." European Commissioner for Human Rights, reporting on detention of children in the UK immigration system in 2005
