Set Her Free protesters: close Yarl’s Wood

Article 9: no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Protesters joined campaigners demanding the closure of Yarl’s Wood detention centre on 6 June.

Over one thousand people made their way to a rally outside Yarl’s Wood detention centre, near Bedford –  in the middle of the English countryside on the edge of a business park – to protest against the unlawful imprisonment and abuse of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK.

They called for the immediate closure of the detention centre, and the freedom of those detained.

This #SetHerFree protest, organised by Women For Refugee Women and Movement for Justice, came three months after an undercover Channel 4 documentary revealed the routinely racist, sexist and aggressive behaviour of members of staff working at Yarl’s Wood towards the female detainees there.

Staff supplied by the controversial outsourcing group Serco.

Protestors tore down outer fences as women inside waved, flew homemade flags, and joined in with chants from the slight gap in their windows. One woman held notes up reading ‘freedom’, ‘human rights’ and ‘we want to live life’.

Many women are imprisoned in detention centres like Yarl’s Wood for months at a time with their freedoms and rights suspended indefinitely until immigration clearance is received.

Most of those detained have fled hostile political climates of persecution and torture. Interviews conducted recently by Women for Refugee Women found that the majority of women had experienced rape or some form of sexual abuse before arriving in the UK.

Addressing the crowd of protestors, Maimuna Jawo, former detainee at Yarl’s Wood, said asylum seekers are criminalised.

But while criminals are afforded basic rights and protection, asylum seekers and refugees are dehumanised by deeply racist immigration policy and rhetoric which succeeds in silencing and hiding the thousands of people who are detained, people who are in desperate need of safety.

The inhumane treatment of detainees violates not only the strong human rights ethos the UK claims to uphold, but several articles in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which explicitly prohibit the practices in detention centres legitimised by UK government.

Juliet Stevenson echoed these rights to protestors on Saturday.

Rights which include Article 9: no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile; Article 14: everyone has the right to seek and enjoy, in other countries, asylum from persecution; and Article 30:no government, or groups, should destroy any of these rights or freedoms.

The scapegoating of refugees and asylum seekers in right wing media and politics frames the discourse of immigration in the UK as one of fear and necessarily harsh control.

But, as Green Party leader Natalie Bennett told protestors, of the 50 million people displaced last year by war, violence and hunger, “the number of asylum seeking applications we get is half the European average per head of population…we are not taking our fair share of refugees, we should be taking more refugees”.

That was 6 June.

And now this week a report compiled by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for Yarl’s Wood, a group of Home Office-appointed local people charged with ensuring standards are maintained, has expressed grave worries about deteriorating physical and mental health services at Yarl’s Wood.

The Guardian said how the report described a “serious deterioration” in the centre’s healthcare service.

Specific incidents included one woman waiting almost three weeks for blood tests for a medical condition, and a family left without asthma and diabetes medication for a week.

Since September the detention centre’s health service has been provided by the equally controversial outsourcer G4S, a private firm, on behalf of NHS England.

The medical service was understaffed and lacking proper management for much of 2014. New commissioning arrangements and a change of contractor ‘made matters worse’.

The IMB also points out that the detention of pregnant detainees, who often number more than 10 in Yarl’s Wood, contravening the Home Office’s own guidelines.

It also noted claims of inappropriate conduct by male officers, such as entering detainees’ rooms without knocking, and called on Serco to redouble its efforts to recruit more female officers to look after ‘these vulnerable women’.

All this horror and misery, even though, as the report said, two-thirds of detainees are eventually released rather than deported.

The report formally recommends that no one be held at Yarl’s Wood for more than six months – although last year 68 women remained there for longer, up from 51 in 2013.

Detention, the report concludes, should only happen when removal from the UK is “inevitable and imminent”.

The Yarl’s Wood IMB Annual Report for 2014 is published in full on the Ministry of Justice website, and can be read by clicking here.

Britain cannot present itself as a bastion for human rights while innocent people are secretly incarcerated like criminals.

Saturday was a testament to the groundswell in support and awareness for the #SetHerFree campaign and the propensity for integrated, collective action, led by refugees and asylum seekers. The IMB report should mean the issue is not clear: Yarl’s Wood should be closed.

Should the need still be, the next demonstration at Yarl’s Wood on 8 August.

And in the meantime you can show your solidarity by tweeting the #SetHerFree and #ShutDownYarlsWood hashtags and signing the online petition. Thanks.