Sign the Petition!
The No10 site is currently suspended pending a decision from the new coalition government on whether it intends to continue this service to voters and UK residents. In the meantime if you would like to sign our paper petition – please print the form here and return to ECDN c/o The Shpresa Programme,Mansfield House, 30 Avenons Road, Plaistow, E13 8HT.
Over 4,700 have signed!
We have now attracted more than 4,700 names to the end child detention petition on the N010 web site, which is among the top 30 most signed petitions in the country. This is a fantastic achievement in just a few short months. But we know that there are many, many more people out there who share our opposition to the imprisonment of children, so please pass this link on to all your friends, families and colleagues.
Among the many signatures on the petition we are thrilled to see Emma Thompson, Juliet Stevenson, Bishop Michael Campbell of Lancaster, Colin* and Livia Firth, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen, Benjamin Zephania, Philip Pullman, Michael Bond, Lenny Henry, Michael Morpurgo, Lynne Reid Banks and hundreds of health professionals, clergy and social workers. Please take a minute to join them by following the link below.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoChildDetention/
You must be a UK voter or resident in the UK 0r a Crown Dependent Territory to sign the e-petition. Only your name is published on the petition website.
* well done Colin on your Oscar nomination!
Are you a Medical Practitioner?
This petition promoted by Dr Frank Arnold is particularly directed at medical practitioners.
If you are one please go the petition site by clicking here.
The administrative detention of children is damaging to them, cannot be made otherwise, and is unacceptable in a civilised society. We call for the immediate cessation of this practice which is demonstrably and permanently harmful to children’s health, both in the short and long term.
We call upon the government to end the immigration detention of children and families.
Until that happens urgent steps are needed to minimise avoidable harms to children. These are as follows:
Children and young people in immigration detention should be recognised as Children in Need and given the same safeguards, such as an Initial Assessment completed within 7 days.
Primary and secondary medical care to CYP and their families should be adequately resourced and provided on the same in-reach basis as for the prison service.
GPs in the community and doctors in secondary care should consider the damaging effects of detention on children and young people and wherever necessary make representations to the immigration services to prevent children with health problems from being detained
GPs providing care for children in IRCs should be especially mindful of the damaging effects of detention on them, and intervene in a timely way to protect their health and well being, including recommending release of any child at risk of further harm. We call upon the GMC and the medical profession as a whole to support doctors who may have to defend themselves for carrying out their duties toward these children.
This should be end illegal immigration?
then the problem would not excist?
I have first hand knowledge that illegal immigrants are expert at manipulation ..you must be aware of this?
You can not be so blinded by your cause as to not see the symptoms!
Children are used unmercilessly..as a useful tool to soliicit sympathy..and unjustified allegations?
Your shock tactic headlines to the right…are highly selective!! to say the least
So you wish these children to be split from families and taken in to care ..because that is all that is open to the poweres that be?
conditions should always be improved at these centres.,.
but at the end of the day
these folk are illegal and should not be here in the first palce
Dear Steven
Thank you for your comment. I am not sure what you mean by our ‘shock tactics’ or what your first hand experience of the manipulation of illegal immigrants is – but can I just point out the following?
If you are referring to families whose asylum claims have been denied and who are subsequently detained, they are not illegal. It is not a crime to make a claim for asylum under the refugee convention even if it is later denied by the government of the country to which you applied. There may be a very small number of families who have been arrested as ‘clandestine immigrants’ but you and the government would have to produce the figures to prove that there are more than a handful of such cases in Dungavel and Yarl’s Wood.
Children are not used “unmercilessly” as a tool by the families we have worked with who have been the subject of detention, they are far too traumatised and fearful. The children who have been imprisoned in Yarl’s Wood who the government said had no right to remain later turned out to have well founded grounds of persecution and have now been given leave to remain or refugee status. They children remain, however, very fearful of authority and numerous independent reports from doctors, psychologists and most recently the chief inspector of prisons have shown that they suffer long term harm as a result of detention. These are not scare tactics but facts and you can find the reports on our website.
As to ‘splitting up families’ – I am tempted to say are you Phil Woolas in disguise? The UK Borders Minister says this is the only alternative to detention so it is not surprising that members of the public repeat this false claim.
Several countries with large number of ‘unfounded’ asylum claims such as Sweden, Australia, and Canada have come up with alternatives to detention involving close monitoring in the community prior to eventual removal. As a result they have far higher numbers of assisted voluntary returns than the UK because they do not treat people as criminals and they put the welfare of the child above the needs of the immigration system as our government is required to do by UK, European and international law.
Finally, the government routinely separates families and imprisons parents in different parts of its ‘detention estate’ rather than keeping the family unit together as the law requires. The government knows that making this an official policy would breach Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Directive to which its own ministers put their signature. It is a nasty scare tactic meant to persuade people like you that detention is the only alternative.
It is not not and every major Christian and Jewish faith group, all the major childrens’s charities, the Children’s Commissioner for England, several Royal Colleges of Medicine and 121 MPs and numerous peers and bishops agree with us. As so I’m pleased to say do the over 4,700 people who have signed our petition. I hope you will reconsider and join them.
best wishes
Simon Parker, for End Child Detention Now
Every child matters but not the children of asylum seekers or single mothers it would appear.
Come on Nick Clegg some people voted for you because of your promise to end child detention, fight for it.