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Their right to liberty

Published 18 December 2008

The NS campaign against holding children in immigration detention centres has gathered powerful support, but reform is still needed

Françoise fled Cameroon for the UK in 2002 with her daughters Jasmine (on right) and Jessica. They were detained in Yarl’s Wood for two months. “I don’t think I can ever forget what happened to us there,” says Jasmine. They now live in Leeds

Last year's Christmas issue of the New Statesman contained my report from the Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedford, where I went to visit two families. Aderonke Falode was being detained with her three sons, Adeboye, nine, Adedire, 12, and Adebowale, 14. Comfort Adefowoju had four children with her, including her seven-month-old baby, Sarah. Sarah's face was covered in livid red eczema, and Comfort had not been provided with medicine or enough food for her. "It's four o'clock and Sarah has had only one bottle so far today," she said.

The older children told me of their distress at being woken in the early hours by teams of immigration officers who gave them a matter of minutes to pack their things and leave for detention, followed by possible "removal" to countries they had little or no memory of. They were receiving only the most basic education and medical care. More than anything else, they were living in fear. "They make you feel like a criminal, when you haven't done anything wrong," said Adebowale, who had been removed from school in the middle of his GCSEs.

That report would lead, in 2008, to the launch of the New Statesman's No Place for Children campaign, which calls for an end to the detention of children for immigration reasons. After I left Yarl's Wood that afternoon, I discovered that the UK locks up about 2,000 children every year in immigration detention centres, with woefully inadequate provision for their well-being and no judicial review of their cases. They can be held for an indefinite period of time.

The tragedy of children having to experience conditions appropriate for sentenced offenders has to be challenged

The stories I heard from campaigners and visitors to detention centres grew ever more shocking: Baby C, a 12-week-old suffering from gastroenteritis, was left with no food for 18 hours while being held at Yarl's Wood with her mother; Meltem Avcil, 14, who wrote a moving testimony for the campaign's launch issue, was hospitalised after cutting her wrists when her mother's bail application was refused for the third time (she and her mother have both since been granted asylum).

The Children's Commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, argued passionately in the New Statesman that the way the UK immigration system treats children is "positively cruel" and "inhuman". He called on the government to "live up to its rhetoric by making sure that every child really does matter". Many other high-profile supporters of the campaign supported his call, from Juliet Stevenson and Philip Pullman to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that: "The tragedy of children having to experience conditions appropriate for sentenced offenders is something that has to be challenged."

The response from the Home Office has been to defend the policy on the basis that, as the former minister for immigration Liam Byrne wrote: "We never want to split up families."

They have not provided any evidence that detaining families is necessary, and their promised testing of alternative ways of dealing with children in the immigration system has been badly planned and inconclusive. There seems to be no sense of urgency for a proper review of the system: Phil Woolas used his first interviews as the sector minister to play to attack immigration lawyers and NGOs. He made the suggestion, later hurriedly withdrawn, that the government would introduce a "cap" on immigration.

Only pressure from the public for reform will create any real and secure chance of humane treatment for children in the UK immigration system. The No Place for Children campaign has provided a platform for that: more than 3,000 people signed our petition addressed to the Home Secretary, and many more wrote letters and emails in support. There is a powerful lobby of campaigners, lawyers, politicians, writers and opinion-formers building around this issue. Let's hope 2009 is the year the government finally grants all children in Britain their most basic right to liberty.

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7 comments from readers

sweety
19 December 2008 at 03:04

You say you have widespread support and indeed a few notables did sign your petition on their way to the cocktail bar at the New Tate. I an surprised so few of the great and the good have spared a few minutes to justify their actions with words! The Swedes are jetting back in big numbers now did you know?

schwarmstedt
19 December 2008 at 17:15

Only very selfish and insensitive people could not be moved by Anne O'Keefes article. Our treatment of children held for immigration reasons is utterly disgraceful. The policy seems to be designed to put such pressure on the parents that they go elsewhere. We have bullying and terrorising children as a national policy. Detention centres for those who fall foul of our immigration policy are pretty inhumane. To put children in those conditions is appalling. If British children were treated like this by another country there would quite rightly be an outcry, yet we seem quite happy, or at least uncaring, for these cruel and inhumane practises to be applied to vulnerable children.

I hope Ministers will examine their consciences and eventually rue the day they allowed these policies to continue - they are well aware of what they are doing as there have been plenty of protests and descriptions of the way the 'system' operates to shame even hardened politicians, one would have thought.

Suffer little children might be a good starting point for Smith, and Woolas

gez pearce
20 December 2008 at 05:24

More than a hint of hypocrisy in this article. O'Keefe is closely associated with policy exchange, as many at the NS and their director wants to bring in more Draconian measures for immigrants.

I have a feeling when the neo conservative Tories are elected these articles will dry up and the campaign will stop

sweety
22 December 2008 at 05:16

Only very selfish and insensitive people could not be moved by Anne O'Keefes article.............

Although bits of it read like the last section of Jude the Obscure which did lead me to tears......

So there you have it folks! If you do not become selfless and sensitive like these fake plastic saints running these campaigns there is no hope for youor your soul!

Next election why not reduce this nonesense down to a tickable box so we can see the exact amount of public support. Meanwhile I could suggest you might read Mary Kingsley's travels in West Africa on how an unselfish and sensitive person, at gereat personal cost, helped the less fortunate. Wrapped up in Victorian Worsted and piscine science to boot!

LG 29 December 2008 at 02:42

What a disgrace this country has, they talk so much of every child matters yet they are the abusers of children . The way they treat all detainees like criminal they have no care in the world. Why would you stop someone from working and paying taxies. Most refugees are learned and professional who just need a safe place to live. The system is full of nausea when they allow you benifits i its about fourty two pounds a week...Whats that how inhuman of the government in this worse time of credit crunch. Iam personally disgusted and sickened by the way the immigration treats people in this country. They have all the sorces of what happening in this world yet they deny genuine asylum claims and tourture children. Its costing the tax payers money trying to fund those stupid detention centres. Innocent people are kept there mixed with dangerous criminals. A lot of people from african back ground are family orientated and hard working even the worse jobs the so called british citizens cant even do or take up twelve hour shifts that most african people do to support their families. No african want to claim benefits or live in their council homes we want to work and have dignity and pride. The government needs to wake up and work a sollution urgently all the money they spend paying all those workers in reporting centres they even have police present just to observe yet we havent got enough police on the street to stop knife crime. Its pure racisim, they are aware of situations hapening in congo and zimbabwe but yet they treat all the asylum claims like criminals and deny them live to remain. I SOMEONE WILL HEAR ME AND PASS THIS ON LG/LONDON

LG 29 December 2008 at 02:58

worse situations where people are dying of chorela in zimbabwe, starving to death being detained by the government. The Government here still denies to grant Zim refugees live to remain. Most of them are nurses who their work permits are refused renuwal after sometime and then told they need to live the country. All of a sudden you find yourself in mayhem where you cant work after years of contributing taxies to the government and on top they give you a stupid card ACR for refugees written in red you cant work. How stupid your finger prints are taken continuasly like a criminal. What is happening to this country and the system its worse slavery time.God is for all of and we shall win. You have nothing when your a refugee in this countries so many restrictions including the children.

sweety
08 January 2009 at 02:51

zimbabwe but yet they treat all the asylum claims like criminals and deny them live to remain. I SOMEONE WILL HEAR ME AND PASS THIS ON LG/LONDON

I distinctly remember Africans saying Africa for the Africans, even when food was abundant in Avondale, Harare. You did not care about the improvished tribes along the Zambesi, who ate grass when Shonaland was in plenty. You moan and blame Cecil Rhodes!