Shining a light on refugee children’s experience By Anthony Robinson Say the word ‘refugee’ to yourself. Without thinking, what images and notions enter your mind? Now, think about it. The last Saturday of Refugee Week 2010 was an important day in the lives of four refugee children and their families – a celebration of childhood [...]
Colin Firth Re-posted from OpenDemocracy 15 July 2010 As the Coalition government reappraises how the UK treats those who seek sanctuary within its borders, OurKingdom publishes an article by actor Colin Firth based on his submission to the Home Office Review into Ending the Detention of Children for Immigration Purposes. Last month, at a Citizens [...]
New immigration plans will end child detention but we should be wary of substituting one form of state abuse with another. Simon Parker, Comment is Free, The Guardian, Friday 28 May 2010. The announcement in Tuesday’s Queen’s speech that along with a cap on non-EU immigration, the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat government no longer intends to [...]
The first Children’s Commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, writing in The Guardian, calls on the government to release the families from Britain’s asylum prisons now. Aynsley-Green who has done more than any single person to expose the arrest and detention of innocent children, the injustices and sheer horror of their lived experiences, urges: ‘a [...]
If they mean the immediate closure of Yarl’s Wood, that should be a cause for great rejoicing. This is why we must hold them to it By Clare Sambrook (from OpenDemocracy, 12 May 2010). ‘We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes,’ says today’s coalition agreement. A stunning victory for children, decency and the [...]
End Child Detention Now is urging all its supporters to get behind the inspiring Citizens for Sanctuary prospective parliamentary candidate pledge campaign which is especially emphasising the scandalous detention of children by the UK immigration authorities. Dozens of PPCs have signed up to the pledge – but many more have yet to declare their support. [...]
It’s not usual to have five-year-olds and 15-year-olds in the same storytelling workshop. But there was nothing usual about the event that illustrator Karin Littlewood and I ran last December for imprisoned children. They were behind bars, not for committing some horrible crime but because they were asylum-seekers, and because we live in a society [...]
Phil Woolas’s defence of the inhumane Yarl’s Wood removal centre reflects Labour’s shift to the right on asylum Simon Parker, The Guardian, Comment is Free, Thursday 25 March 2010, 15.00 GMT. Phil Woolas’s response to a further damning report on Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre by the chief inspector of prisons shows that the government has [...]
Refugee and Migrant Justice, a charity that provides legal advice and support to asylum-seekers and other vulnerable migrants in the UK, today issued a report Safe at Last. Children on the front line of UK Border Control which found consistent evidence of the government’s failure to abide by its safeguarding duties under Section 55 of [...]
Campaigners for the release of young Afghani orphan Mashal Jabari were delighted to hear that following a judicial review being lodged the judge agreed the following interim measures: until another full age assessment is completed, Mashal is to be considered 14 years of age and placed with a foster family in Wales where he has some support. After [...]
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