Unfortunately these demands have failed to surface in British media, and are likely to disappear into the shadows as the Government's embarrassment over the situation triumphs.
The protest was a result of 50 woman being held for over two years in the removal centre after arriving from war-torn/unstable countries such as Nigeria. The detainees claim staff in the centres have physically, mentally and racially abused them, however, David Wood, director for criminality and detention, told the BBC: "All detainees are treated with dignity and respect, with access to legal advice and heath care facilities."
To take Wood's statement and place in alongside the notion of a removal centre, ridiculeshis use of the word's 'dignity' and 'respect.' Surely detaining them in the first place is a crime against humanity? The trauma they have potentially suffered prior to arriving in Britain is magnified if left sat staring at white walls and barbed wire fences for two years.
For years the British Medical Association has called for improved support for asylum seekers when they enter the UK. It determined in 2002 that the psychological impact of torture, rape or war is extreme for those who have fled their own countries - alongside the emotional difficulties of death, leaving their home country and culture differences. As a result of not having the resources or expertise to tackle the psychological issues asylum seekers and refugees experience, Britain could have a huge problem on it's hands in the next few years.
The hunger strike will be recommence if demands are not considered by those who detain them. One demand is:
*To end the detention of children and their mothers, rape survivors and other torture victims, to end the detention of physically, mentally sick people and pregnant women for long period of time.
Henry Porter wrote about the detention of children on his comment-is-free page entitled 'We are shockingly complacent about locking up 2,000 children a year' (The Guardian, October 18, 2009). A good, but very rare article, stating the chilling fact that the children detained by the UK Border Agency are usually held for a longer period than those suspected of terrorism (42 days).
In an interesting turn of the table, Porter dips into the mind of a child asylum seeker and states:
"These experiences of loss and capture and imprisonment are at the centre of every child's nightmares and here we have the British state, spurred by all the bureaucratic malice of the Labour era, acting in the manner of Roald Dahl's child-catcher."
Another British journalist to consider life from the other side is Chris Cleave who wrote The Other Hand: a novel based on a young Nigerian girl who flees her country, is placed in a detention centre and then escapes.
Chris Cleave was one of the first people 'from the outside' to enter Yarls Wood, he took the job of caterer there while he was at university. Cleave didn't know what the centre was for and when I interviewed him, he spoke about how he kept asking the detainees what terrible things had they done to end up in there. It was only when he came out he realised what the detention centre was for and since then has been protesting against it's removal.
Although the government have been critised for the use of removal centres, a report on the UK Border Agency website last year confirmed more removal centres will be put in place:
Expanding the number of removal centres is a critical part of the UK Border Agency's plans to increase the rate of removal of failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, and to allow the fast removal of those who come to the United Kingdom and break the rules.
So for now, this seems to be the only method Immigration see feasible, and if the public continue to overlook the atrocities that take place in the centres then the border agency can rest assured their actions won't be questioned.
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