News Round up Friday 21st May 2010
[Horse trading between the Lib Dems & the Conservatives has seen the Lib Dems ditch their immigration amnesty. All that is left is their policy on children. However we will have to wait for the State Opening of Parliament on Tuesday, to see proposed legislation for the coming parliamentary term. This should clearly indicate any proposed legislation on immigration reform/reaction.]
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How good is the good news on child detention?
By Frances Webber © Institute of Race Relations 29th May 2010
The heralded end to the detention of children in centres like Yarl's Wood has to be treated with caution.
The immediate ending of children's detention in Scotland, announced as part of the coalition deal on 15 May 2010, has not resulted in the release of children. Instead, families with children, including Pakistani victim of domestic violence Sehar Shebaz and her eight-month-old daughter Wanya, have been sent to the notorious Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) in Bedfordshire - condemned as 'No place for a child' by former Children's Commissioner for England Sir Al Aynsley-Green and former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Dame Anne Owers. Ms Shebaz was reportedly vomiting with distress the night before their expected removal on 19 May, and was distraught about the prospect of her daughter enduring a nine-hour journey in the back of a van. She has claimed that Dungavel staff threatened that if she did not cooperate her child would be taken from her and driven down separately.
This is not an auspicious start to the new government's supposedly child-friendly policy. But the pledge by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition to end the immigration detention of children, while being warmly welcomed in many quarters, has been greeted with caution and sometimes suspicion by organisations working with migrants and human rights and immigration lawyers. Familiar with governments' weasel words, they are concerned at the continuing detention of children pending the comprehensive review of alternatives to detention promised by the coalition, which is likely to take several months, and fearful that the end of children's detention may simply mean separation of families.
Read the full article here . . . . .
http://www.irr.org.uk/2010/may/ha000027.html
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Rise in refugee children falling into destitution
The number of asylum-seeking children who fall into destitution is increasing, according to a report from the Children's Society. The report, Destitution Amongst Asylum-Seeking and Refugee Children, is based on findings from the Children's Society's West Midlands Destitution Project, opened in October 2008.
Since opening, the project has helped 264 children whose families have no means of survival because the adults are not allowed to work, and have been unable to get the help they need from the state. Demand for the service increased rapidly throughout the first year. Families were provided with crisis grants and resources, as well as supported to access advice to help them resolve their situation.
By Ross Watson, Children & Young People Now, 19 May 2010
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Appeal from NCADC: Yunis Hassan Mosbah Alburkeh
Removal Directions for Wednesday, 26th May.
Yunis is terrified of being forcibly removed to Libya because of the government's treatment of political dissidents. Since his arrival in the UK Yunis has been active in the organisation the British Libyan Solidarity Campaign, his involvement in which further endangers his life if forcibly removed. http://bit.ly/8Xk6Ew>http://bit.ly/8Xk6Ew
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Outrage as gay pair are sentenced to 14 years' hard labour in Malawi
Two homosexual men have been sentenced to 14 years in prison with hard labour in Malawi for gross indecency and unnatural acts. In a ruling that provoked international condemnation, Judge Nyakwawa Usiwa-Usiwa told the men, who were arrested after a public engagement ceremony, that he wanted to protect the public from "people like you". Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, who have been in jail since December, were then driven away from the packed courthouse in the old colonial capital of Blantyre, jeered by a large crowd.
The British Government, Malawi's largest donor, expressed "dismay" at the sentences, but has not withdrawn aid estimated at about £80 million a year. The US State Department said the verdict was "a step backwards in the protection of human rights in Malawi".
Full article: Jonathan Clayton, The Times, May 21, 2010
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Source for this page:
Institute of Race Relations
Children & Young People Now
The Times, May 21, 2010
NCADC |