Commissioner calls for end to harmful detention of asylum-seeking children
Monday, April 27, 2009
England's Children's Commissioner is calling on the government to stop detaining asylum-seeking children and to develop community-based alternatives after publishing evidence that detention of children is not being used as a last resort.
Al Aynsley-Green's report also shows that children are being detained for longer periods and that it is harming their health.
As well as calling for an end to the detention of children the report puts forward 42 recommendations to be "urgently implemented" as detention "is unlikely to end immediately as we would wish." The report follows the commissioner's visit to Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre last year made under the power of entry granted to him by Parliament.
Recommendations include the use of restraint only in exceptional circumstances, a review into medical conditions that make detention inappropriate and improvements to healthcare for families at Yarl's Wood, including better facilities for pregnant and nursing mothers.
Al Aynsley-Green said: "Having seen and heard the first-hand experiences of those who have been through the arrest and detention process because of failed asylum or immigration applications, we at 11 Million will continue to work with the Government to ensure that the process of detention and removal promotes in all possible ways the welfare and well-being of children and young people."
Martin Narey, chief executive of Barnardo's, said: "Seeking to improve Yarl's Wood and make it suitable for children is entirely missing the point. Children, who have committed no crime but are simply here with their parents should not and do not need to be locked up. It may be administratively convenient for the Home Office to do so, but it is as unnecessary as it is shameful."
Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council said: "It is particularly disturbing to hear children's first hand accounts of being arrested very suddenly, and transported in locked vans to places that are, as far as they are concerned, prisons."
Lisa Nandy, policy adviser at The Children's Society, said: "As the report concludes, poor healthcare provision is literally putting children's lives at risk. Extremely ill children have been detained and denied access to essential medication, health records haven't been checked and children whose health has deteriorated rapidly in detention have not been released. Children who had to be hospitalised were surrounded by armed guards in hospital, causing them 'profound distress'. It is outrageous that children in the UK are subject to such inhumane treatment at the hands of the state."
