Detention

Women for Refugee Women has campaigned for many years against the detention of women and children for immigration purposes. Although the government has announced an end to the policy of detaining families, we are very concerned that many women who are survivors of serious human rights abuses are being detained for indefinite periods. Although the family wing at Yarl’s Wood has shut, the centre can still hold up to 405 women. Many of these are subsequently found to have experienced persecution and are given leave to remain. For women who have fled experiences of imprisonment and torture, detention can re-awaken trauma and hinder recovery.

Many of these women are going through the detained fast track, which is designed to accelerate the whole asylum procedure into two weeks and the individual is kept in detention throughout this period. Although government guidelines state that only straightforward cases should be referred into the fast track, a recent report by Human Rights Watch, Fast Tracked Unfairness: Detention and Denial of Women Asylum Seekers in the UK showed that the system was unjust and denied a fair hearing to many women with complicated claims based on gender-related persecution such as rape as persecution, trafficking for sexual exploitation and extreme domestic violence.

Saron’s story: One day I went to the reporting centre in London. They took my papers in through the window and checked them on the computer. Then they told me to sit in a corner. Almost two hours later an officer came and called my name. They took me into a small room and took my picture, searched my pockets, shoes, everything. I had to take off almost all my clothes. It was December. I was standing almost naked in a cold room. They took my keys, the bus pass, everything I had, and sealed them in a small plastic bag. And they took my phone. I asked if I could make a call. They said, ‘This is not prison, this is immigration detention. If you were in prison you could call.’ So I couldn’t even call my lawyer. Because it wasn’t a prison, they said. A van came for me. It was a long journey – from Old Street to Bedford. When we arrived I could just see buildings. There was a long corridor, with beige walls and a shiny blue floor with a tiny dotted pattern. It all looked very clean and very solid. In the reception, some women were waiting for me. They said, ’Welcome to Yarls Wood Detention Centre’. One of the officials said ‘You are going to stay with us for some time.’ She asked if I wanted some sandwiches. It was nearly eight in the evening and I hadn’t eaten all day. But when I’m upset, I can’t eat. Even if I eat, it has no taste, no life in my mouth. Then she continued, ‘Now we need to search you.’

Photo by Isabelle Merminod

That was the third time I’d been searched that day. I did what they told me to do. I took off everything except my pants. They checked every single thing. After a couple of minutes a man came. He said, ‘I am going to take you to your room. Follow me!’ We went along a very long corridor with a lot of doors. He didn’t say anything; the only sound was his keys in the endless doors. My room was a little way along. It was small and square, with two beds and a toilet and shower, white walls. I saw a girl lying down on one of the beds. I asked her if she came from Ethiopia. She said, ‘No, I’m from Eritrea, my name is Azebe.’ She said she’d been here in the country for five years. ‘I came when I was under age, and when I became eighteen they wanted to deport me. I’ve been taken to the airport three times, but each time I shouted and screamed, so they brought me back’. Her story scared me. I felt shocked, all over again. She added, ‘Next week I have another flight. I don’t want to go back.’ A week later, six guards came to the room. It was nearly midnight. Azebe said, ‘I’m not going, I’m going to die here!” She said to them, ‘I want to use the toilet’. They waited, sitting on the bed, watching the locked door. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes passed. They called somebody to open the door. She’d drunk the shampoo. She tried to stop them touching her. They pulled all her stuff from the cupboard, put it in a black bin bag, then they started dragging her out of the room. I was sitting there, watching her flailing arms as she tried to stop them. I didn’t know what to do. I just watched. It was like watching my own future. After a few minutes I started to vomit, and then my bowels went. The next day, Azebe came back. Her face was bruised. I was happy to see her, but I couldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t eat. I was afraid of the security guards. The white shirts and the black trousers reminded me of violence. I felt nobody was safe in that place. 

 We would like to see an end to the detention of anyone who seeks refuge from persecution in the UK. Seeking asylum is not a crime.