The Royal Colleges of Paediatrics and Child Health, General Practitioners and Psychiatrists and the UK Faculty of Public Health have published a new policy statement and recommendations on the harms to the physical and mental health of children and young people in the UK who are subjected to administrative immigration detention. The three Royal Colleges [...]
By Clare Sambrook THERE is no evidence that asylum-seekers with children are likely to abscond, yet the Government forcibly detains at least 2,000 children and babies every year and holds them, sometimes for months on end, in conditions known to damage their physical and mental health. Why on earth would our Government do that? One [...]
Christian Today Posted: Friday, November 20, 2009, 13:51 (GMT) Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Church leaders have called on people to send an extra card this Christmas, to Immigration Minister Phil Woolas MP, asking him to end the detention of children in the asylum system. The Rev David Gamble, President of the Methodist Conference, criticised [...]
Welcoming news that Gordon Brown is to apologise for the UK’s role in sending thousands of its children to former colonies in the 20th century, SNP MSP for Central Scotland Christina McKelvie has repeated calls on the UK Government to end the 21st century detention of children in UK Border Agency immigration removal centres. The [...]
This has been a momentous week for the end child detention campaign with the No10 petition recording its 2,000th name – one for every child arrested and locked up by the UK Borders Agency just because they or their parents have dared to claim asylum and refused to be returned to countries the Home Office [...]
SNP MP Pete Wishart questions Home Office figures on child detention and states that holding children in adult detention centres is “simply wrong”. The immigration minister Phil Woolas, in a letter to Mr Wishart (who has signed Chris Mullin’s EDM), also revealed that 889 children from 488 families had been detained for more than 28 [...]
End child detention now has become one of the fastest growing petitions on the No10 website registering over 1,350 signatures in less than a month. It is now one of the 100 most signed petitions out of 4555 on the Downing Street website. Among the many recent signatories ECDN was delighted to spot several award [...]
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 [...]
Shortly before 1pm on Friday the end child detention now no10 petition recorded its 1,000th name. A huge thank you to everyone who has signed the petition so far. Let’s redouble our efforts to take the number of signatures to 2,000 in memory of all the children who are arrested and detained by the immigration [...]
Simon Parker: The Guardian, Comment is Free Would Phil Woolas let his children be locked up? This shameful practice of detaining families seeking asylum must stop Wed Oct 21 2009 Henry Porter opened his Observer column this week on the plight of the 2,000 children the UK government arrests and imprisons each year with the [...]
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