Day: 4 February 2010

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Border staff humiliate and trick asylum seekers ? whistleblower

Louise Perrett says she was advised at the Border Agency office in Cardiff to refuse difficult asylum claims

Diane Taylor and Hugh Muir
Wednesday February 3 2010
The Guardian

http://www.guardian .co.uk/uk/ 2010/feb/ 02/border- staff-asylum- seekers-whistleb lower

Claims that asylum seekers are mistreated, tricked and humiliated by staff working for the UK Border Agency are to be investigated in parliament.

The home affairs select committee chairman, Keith Vaz, has called for an investigation following allegations that officials at one of the government’s major centres for processing asylum seekers’ claims express fiercely anti-immigration views and take  pride in refusing applications. Continue reading “Border staff humiliate and trick asylum seekers ? whistleblower”

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THE DETENTION OF CHILDREN A statement from the Rt Revd John Packer, Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, Chair of the Urban Bishops Panel.

On 2nd February the Church celebrates the value and potential of a child’s life as we remember the Presentation of Christ in the Temple.

In the UK the value and potential of many children is denied through the continued practice of detaining children in immigration detention centres. Each year over 2000 children are detained in prison-like conditions. No limit is set to the time in which children may be detained.

As Bishop of Ripon and Leeds I am aware of the impact of removal and detention on those who experience it as well as those left behind, in our schools, communities and congregations. I welcome the initiative of the End Child Detention Now Campaign.

Children are detained through no fault of their own. They are often removed from familiar settings in sudden and alarming circumstances leaving behind friends, toys and personal possessions. Detention is a distressing experience. Child detainees experience insomnia, bed wetting, weight loss, speech regression, depression, and are known to self-harm. The children of asylum seekers are a vulnerable group, made more so by this policy which has no regard for their mental health. The experience of detention often evokes the trauma they have experience when flees their country of origin. Continue reading “THE DETENTION OF CHILDREN A statement from the Rt Revd John Packer, Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, Chair of the Urban Bishops Panel.”

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Asylum: Mothers’ & Children’s Right to Family Reunion, online petition

To: UK Government

• Many people seeking asylum in the UK are mothers fleeing war, persecution, rape and other torture.

• To protect themselves and their children, mothers are often forced to leave their children behind –usually they don’t know where they are going or how they will survive.

• Mothers may lose contact with children back home or hear of them unprotected and suffering, and can do little to prevent it.

• It can take many years for an asylum claim to be settled; meanwhile: children suffer the torture of being deprived of their mother’s love and care, left destitute, at risk of sexual and other violence; mothers are treated as single people and the pain of separation and of trying to be a carer long distance is invisible and unrecognised.

• When mothers win the right to stay, most are not automatically granted the right of family reunion. If children turn 18 while their mother’s application is being considered they lose the right to join their mother.

* We are a mothers’ campaign, so we speak particularly of mothers, the primary carers in every society, but we know that the problems and heartbreak we describe are often true of fathers, grandparents & other carers. Continue reading “Asylum: Mothers’ & Children’s Right to Family Reunion, online petition”