UKBA ‘treats children well’ by ignoring doctor’s warning that young Nigerian girl was a suicide risk
In the week that 10 year old Adeoti Ogunsola tried to strangle herself
to death after being forcibly taken to a removal centre for a second
time by UKBA security guards, the UKBA’s David
Wood fumes that Henry Porter’s article ‘held little basis in fact’ and
that ‘Treating children with care and compassion is a priority for the
UK Border Agency’. This Orwellian newspeak is accurately exposed for what it really is in a following letter from Dr Graham Ullathorne – child abuse carried out by the state.
In fact, when Adeoti was detained for the first time at Yarl’s Wood in June, a psychotherapist warned that she was suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of being detained and that if she was detained again her condition was so severe that she might attempt to kill herself. Adeoti was detained again on 15 October by no less than 15 UKBA security guards who refused to let her aunt accompany her to Tinsley House where they had previously taken her mother. Last Sunday, Adeoti tried to kill herself with an electric cord.
The Ogunsola case and many like it prove that the law which, to quote Mr Wood, ‘has enshrined…a commitment to keep youngsters safe from harm’ has clearly failed and it is about time parliament and the courts intervened to make the protection of children a priority rather than the UKBA’s removal targets and the multi-million pound profits of the global security industry. In the meantime, every time David Wood reaches for the standard ‘care and compassion’ press statement and berates critics of his detention regime – those who have followed the tragic story of Adeoti Ogunsola rush to sign our petition and to write to their MP calling for these absymal family detention centres to be shut down. So thanks for helping our campaign Mr Wood…
[...] also manages the contract for Tinsley House near Gatwick Airport where two years ago a 10-year-old Nigerian girl was found strangling herself with the cord of an electric kettle. The expensively refurbished [...]