July's free article
No place for children
Every year around 2000 children are imprisoned by private
security companies acting on behalf of the UK Borders Agency. A
recent report by the Children’s Commissioner for England, Professor
Sir Al Aynsley-Green, describes what happens to them.1
Its findings are shocking. The children involved range from
newborns to teenagers. Many have been born in Britain. The
authorities can take years to process asylum claims, so children
may have lived and attended schools here for up to a decade before
being arrested for deportation. Some families are imprisoned before
their appeals have been fully reviewed. As Professor Aynsley-Green
makes clear, detention is ‘not reserved as a genuine last resort as
required by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child.’1
The Commissioner and his team visited Yarl’s Wood in
Bedfordshire, the largest detention centre. They talked to children
and parents about their arrest and removal.
Families described how security officers arrived at the crack of
dawn. After hammering at the door, up to 10 or even 20 officers
burst in. Parents and children were given only minutes to pack.
They were forced to leave behind pets, toys, documents, jewellery,
mementos, medicines, and in some cases mobile phones with all their
contact numbers. Families talked of officers being aggressive,
rude, and sometimes violent. Some parents were mocked or
humiliated. Some of the children were not allowed to eat, or drink,
or go to the toilet. ‘Why did they have to search my sister?’ asked
one child. ‘She is only five’.
In the prison vans, both adults and children are put in cages.
Some children are conveyed in separate vans from their parents.
Many children described how the cages stank of urine and vomit.
Officers swore and laughed at them. Sometimes the vans stopped at
service stations, but only the officers got out. Meanwhile,
children had ‘accidents’ in their pants.
At Yarl’s Wood, the children find they are in a prison. The
Commissioner describes it as ‘bleak and grey’. There are regular
roll-calls. The food is awful, with rice that is ‘undercooked, dry,
tasteless and responsible for causing children to get tummy ache.’
Schooling exists, but it is ‘uncomfortable and unnatural’. Play
facilities are sparse. The children may stay at Yarl’s Wood for a
few days, months, or over a year. They live in constant fear of
return to countries they may never have known, and where their
parents may have been persecuted, tortured, or raped.
Some of the Commissioner’s most critical words are reserved for
the medical care at Yarl’s Wood. When his team visited, they found
no evidence of audit, clinical guidelines for children, incident
recording, or any proper mental health assessment. There was no
record of children having BCG or any immunisation against measles
or meningococcal disease — even though many have HIV positive
mothers or face deportation to places where TB and other infections
are rife. Malaria prophylaxis was incorrect in some cases and
absent in others. No vitamin supplements had been given to pregnant
women. Milk formula was rationed and bottle feeding equipment
unhygienic. Case reports include a brother and sister with sickle
cell disease who became seriously ill after their antibiotics were
stopped. Another child had a central venous line that was only
discovered when he was admitted to hospital. The report refers to
the case of a breast-fed infant who was detained for 4 months and
released suffering from both anaemia and rickets. The
Commissioner’s judgement is that clinical governance is
‘unacceptably poor’.
The report calls for the detention of children for immigration
purposes to end. We must all support that call. The Royal Colleges
and BMA need to state that the detention of children is
unacceptable. There is a ‘prima facie’ case for Bedfordshire PCT,
the GMC, and the Commission for Health and Social Care to
investigate care at Yarl’s Wood. Doctors should lobby their MPs,
support Medical Justice, and make representations on behalf of
detainees named by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation
Campaigns.2 Whatever your views on immigration, please
read the report or Professor Aynsley-Green’s personal
testimony3 and respond to his call for the public to
express outrage.
John Launer
References
1. Sir Aynsley-Green A.
The arrest and detention of children subject to immigration
control: a report following the Children’s Commissioner for
England’s visit to the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre.
London: 11 Million, 2009.
http://www.11million.org.uk/resource/di550e08psxhlc9f3mmrlqwd.pdf
(accessed 15 Jun 2009).
2. National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.
http://www.ncadc.org.uk/.
Birmingham: NCADC.
3. Sir Aynsley-Green A. No place for children.
http://www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/2008/09/children-detention-immigration
(accessed 15 Jun 2009).
DOI: 10.3399/bjgp09X453620
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