News

The Home Office and Yarl's Wood

posted: 17/02/2010

The Home Office has slammed as "totally inaccurate" what it says are the Children's Commissioner's claims that there is no independent scrutiny of complaints by young people detained at the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre.
The Home Office is referring to claims in a report by the Children's Commissioner into conditions at Yarl's Wood, where the children of asylum seekers are held pending removal.
But the claims don't exist. All the report says is that there is a "perception" among young people in Yarl's Wood about lack of independent scrutiny. Indeed, the report lists the independent mechanisms that are in place.

Children should not be held in immigration detention centres but while they are, conditions should be better, according to a report from the Children's Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green.
Each year around 2,000 children are detained for immigration purposes, most of them in Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire.
With a statutory duty to protect children from harm and neglect, Anysley-Green has visited Yarl's Wood three times in the last four years because of his "profound concern" about the wellbeing of young detainees.
Last year, he said the detention of children for immigration control "must end", a call echoed by leading medical bodies, which said the "prison-like environment" of detention centres are "significantly damaging the mental health" of many of the children detained.
In his report published last week, Aynsley-Green welcomed improvements in the environment at Yarl's Wood that make it less institutional, better facilities for feeding babies, a new complaints system and an end to the use of caged vans to bring children to the centre.
But he said: "I will continue to urge that the detention of all children should cease. Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre is no place for a child."
Children continue to find the process of arrest and transportation distressing, according to the report. Increasingly, children are separated from parents when transported to the centre. Most are not told what will happen to their belongings and pets left behind, and many have difficulty contacting friends.
The report said that although healthcare standards at Yarl's Wood have generally improved, "there are still significant areas which require attention". Children were returned to their countries of origin without adequate malarial drugs, and there were delays in providing medical treatment, particularly in the case of one five year old who broke her arm and waited 15 hours to see a doctor.
It also claimed there was inadequate recording of children's psychological state during initial nursing assessment of them.
UK Border Agency officials denied any mistreatment of children by its staff and that its care is sub-standard, pointing to praise for recent improvements from Ofsted and HM Chief Inspector of Prisons.
Meg Hillier, Home Office minister, said: "Treating children with care and compassion is an absolute priority for the UK Border Agency, and we take the detention of families very seriously. We believe that children should not be separated from their parents.
"We only detain families as a last resort. We always release families where advised it is in their best interests by independent social workers and specialist medical professionals."

Kevin Gopal