Tuesday, December 07, 2010
End to child detention postponed as “alternatives” are piloted
Plans to finally end the detention of children continue to be delayed with so-called ‘alternatives’ failing to realise the real changes needed to the asylum system.
It still goes on
Ten-year-old Mehrshad from Iran feels “angry… angry and sad.” He had been detained in Yarl’s Wood, a place he describes as a prison with 100 doors locked behind him.
“I just don’t think that it’s right for us to go there”, he says, “cause we haven’t done anything wrong.”
His anxiety and anger are just some of the effects detention can have on children; others are lack of appetite, sleep-deprivation and even self-harm.
Watch 2 min video to hear Mehrshad’s thoughts
STAR believes that such traumatising practices cannot continue. We are deeply concerned at recent announcements by the Home Office delaying the end of child detention.
The agency postponed the deadline until March 2011 in order to pilot alternative processes.
‘Plans to end detention of children in immigration removal centres delayed’
The Guardian, 8 November 2010
In a video-cast on Saturday Nick Clegg said that a new time-line will be published by Christmas and promised “a big culture change that put the needs of children before sounding tough on immigration.”
However, current pilots suggest that the so called “culture change” does not go far enough. Children may still be detained to ensure removal and there are concerns that the proposed “alternatives” will replicate many negative features of the current model.
STAR therefore urges the government to halt the detention of children immediately.
Detention is still part of the government’s proposals
A closer look at the proposed “alternatives” suggests that the welfare of children will not be a primary concern. Most importantly, although the new system foresees better and direct communication with the families, the proposals still include the option of detaining families in so called “open accommodation” centres.
See Limited Notice – A New Method of Notifying Families of Their Removal from the UK
See Family Returns Panel – Piloting Ensured Return
See Open Accommodation – Accommodating Families Outside of Detention
Border control is given priority over the welfare of children
Furthermore, the measures foreseen to ensure removal in cases where the family refuses to return voluntarily are no improvement compared to current practices. Tougher measures could include electronic tagging and arresting one parent in order to force the rest of the family to board the flight. These methods are unacceptable. They create further harm and violate the best interests of the child.
Another option to ensure removal is to give ‘limited advanced notice of removal’. This means that the UK Border agency will not specify the exact date or time of removal. The measure is a blueprint of existing practices of dawn raids and surprise visits which have proven to be extremely stressful and traumatic for children.
A new centre for “open accommodation” will cause unacceptable “stress and disruption”
Pilot schemes further confirm that so called “alternatives” to detention are unlikely to depart from current practices. A new centre for “open accommodation” which is being constructed in Croydon, for example, provides insufficient safeguards to monitor the welfare of children.
Sarah Campbell of the charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) told The Observer that the new centre would cause “unacceptable distress and disruption” to young people because of the lack of adequate safeguards.
Children could be forced to stay at the centre for up to 28 days. Although in theory residents are free to leave the centre during the day, an evaluation of similar pilot schemes found that families nonetheless feel “coerced and frightened”.
‘Croydon asylum centre will be as bad as Yarl’s Wood’
The Observer, 28 November 2010
The only alternative is a fair process – from the beginning
In its search for alternatives, the Home Office may simply be addressing the wrong problem. Due to their strong links in schools and host communities families are unlikely to abscond.
A pilot involving 113 families showed that most sought to fight their removal legally rather than moving into illegality.
Penny Nichols of the Children’s Society sees such figures as indicative of a wider problem with the asylum system: “If we don’t have a system that is fair, we will have no opportunity to end detention of children for immigration purposes”, she told BBC News.
‘Can asylum children be removed without being detained?’
BBC News, 2 November 2010
End child detention now!
In light of the current failures and short-comings of the proposed alternatives, it is clear that the only real alternative to detention is freedom.
STAR therefore urges the government to immediately halt the detention of children rather than finding ways of ensuring the persistence of the practice under a different name.
Posted by STAR team on 07/12/2010 at 04:39 PM
