I have not had a chance to visit the detention centres but I have looked up the statistics of children being detained in immigration detention centres all over the country. Every year apparently 2000 children in the UK are detained for the purposes of immigration control. Children subject to immigration control are detained on exactly the same basis as adults. The basis of their detention is that they are the children of asylum seekers or that the state believes them to be over 18years of age. They are detained indefinitely because the state believes they are likely to abscond or their removal from the country is imminent. (http://www.biduk.org/library /BID%20briefing%20on%20children%20and%20immigration%20detention%20Feb%2009%20FINAL.pdf )
Two things need to be borne in mind the children are detained in prison- like conditions without the permission of the court or without committing a crime. Their crime is being the child of a failed asylum seeker.
The coalition government has declared at several instances that it seeks to put an end to child detentions. Recently a brief was leaked to the press in which it was stated that the state would initiate a pilot project in which a few selected families would be told to leave the country voluntarily in two weeks failing which they would be forced to leave the country.
This brief cites the above as an alternative to detention of children but is it? Detention of the children has been criticised because it violates the childs fundamental right not to be detained without just cause. In my view the alternative that has been advanced infringes other rights. Its merely the case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The first thing that catches my eye is the fact that the families would be selected. On what criteria would the selection take place? The picture that comes to mind is of a farmer selecting which animal to buy at a farm market. The failed asylum seekers and their children are merely treated as objects with no rights that are worthy of recognition. Someone else merely decides on their fate.
Some of the failed asylum seekers have been in the country for years, more than 10 years for some, and have developed strong ties to this country and now the state simply asks them to leave the country in two weeks. It takes you longer than two weeks to develop strong ties how can they be expected to cut them in such a short space of time. What makes the situation worse is that the state allowed the very people and children they want to deport to develop ties to the country by taking years for some to make decisions on their asylum applications, and by creating a system that allowed the asylum seekers to make further applications and appeals. If the applications had been dealt with faster most of the children born to failed asylum seekers in the UK would have been born in their parents native countries.
Some of the children who are subject to these voluntary removals have been in this country since birth they know no other place as home. The UK is all they associate with home they go to school and have friendships that have developed over years. In my view it is cruel to simply request that they be yanked out of the home and asked to break such ties in just two weeks.
Detention of children is being questioned because of the grappling psychological effects it has on the children. Haphazard unplanned removals have the same psychological effect. Detained children find it hard to come to grips as to why they being detained in a prison when they have done nothing wrong and the state expects them to understand why they are being voluntarily removed from the only home they have known and being asked to go to country they have never been to for some.
It is irrational to ask failed asylum seekers to leave in two weeks. It takes more than two weeks to plan let alone make a move to a different country especially with children. You need to find a place to leave, make schooling arrangements; its a feat that even the most organised cannot perform. All the UK government is doing solving their problem by creating a problem for another government and the children are being caught in the cross fire. The ultimate result is that parents and children will find themselves destitute in the countries of origin .
It is most certain that the failed asylum seekers will make legal challenges to the voluntarily removals. The HO is still struggling to clear the backlog with regards to asylum cases hence it clear that they will not be able to deal or deliver any judicial review decisions anytime soon the result being that instead of clearing up the clogged up system they are merely creating another legal means for asylum seekers to stay in the country. Until their matters are dealt with any pending removals are stayed.
Where as I totally agree that the detention of children for immigration purposes should stop I think the alternative presented in the leaked brief will clearly cause more problems and is a greater intrusion on the rights of the child. – Gloria Nyamayi is a registered legal practioner in Zimbabwe as well as a qualified solicitor in the UK with Whitestone solicitors. She can be contacted at gnyamayi@whitestonesolicitors.co.uk
Post published in: Politics