It seems that the coalition government is watering down its pledge to end the detention of children in UK immigration centres.

As the Guardian reports, the immigration minister Damian Green said, in response to a question about the long-term future of the Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire:

At the moment, we are looking at alternatives to detention for children . . . It is our intention to minimise the detention of children in the future as a whole.

One thousand children were detained in the UK last year while their families awaited removal. In a speech in June, Nick Clegg condemned the practice as "state-sponsored cruelty" and a "moral outrage", saying that we need to "restore a sense of decency and liberty to the way we conduct ourselves".

The inclusion of the policy in the coalition agreement was seen as a big concession to the Liberal Democrats, particularly given the generally anti-immigration stance of the Conservatives (as I noted during the election campaign, David Cameron persistently conflated illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers during the leadership debates). If the policy were to be watered down, that could pose significant problems within the coalition.

Green later said that the policy of ending child detention "remains". A Home Office statement confirmed this, saying:

Significant progress has been made in working towards the commitment to end child detention for immigration purposes and we are currently piloting some proposed changes to our approach developed with partners.

What form these methods might take is another contentious area. It was revealed last month that one way of ending child detention would be speeded-up deportation -- a strategy hardly in keeping with minimising the impact on the child.

Immigration detention is intensely traumatising, even for adults: many of these people are asylum-seekers fleeing conflict or torture, and are suffering from post-traumatic stress that is aggravated when they are locked up like criminals. For a child, the impact can be hugely damaging.

A report this month by Medical Justice lays bare the psychological effects this can have on children. It makes for difficult reading: the children surveyed display symptoms from bed-wetting and persistent crying to self-harm. It is imperative that the government stick to its word, and take steps to end this brutal practice as soon as possible, not just "minimise" it.