Children At Yarl's Wood

A report from the Prisons Inspector, Anne Owers, has raised "serious concerns" about the treatment of children at the Yarl's Wood detention centre for immigrants. Completed in November 2001, Yarl’s Wood is located on MOD land, and it's a "prohibited place" under the Official Secrets Act. The centre is monitored by hundreds of CCTV cameras, and it's surrounded by a perimeter fence topped with razor wire. In a recent four-month period, 83 children had been detained for over 28 days.

- They've wrongly detained disabled children.
- They've had no specialist health services for children, no registered sick children's nurse, no "easily accessible" mental health services for children, and no children's counsellor.
- There was inadequate education and after-school facilities.
- They've kept inaccurate records.
- Some families had been transported to and from the centre in caged vans.

A spokesperson for the UK Border Agency described the entire situation as "necessary [as part of maintaining] a robust but fair asylum system."

It's interesting that the Rudd government in Australia has changed its policy in the last month. No more asylum-seeking children would be detained by Australia, and all asylum seekers will now have access to lawyers at the Australian government's expense.

The alternative for Britain was outlined back in July by the Independent Asylum Commission.

They called for an end to the detention of all child asylum seekers by the government. They found that detention was not necessary for the majority of asylum seekers, and that it should never be used for children or pregnant women. "Guardianship schemes for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children" could take the place of detention -- with the appointment of named individuals to safeguard their best interests.