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The information, revealed in a Parliamentary answer, shows:
889 children from 488 families were referred to a Minister for authorisation to be detained beyond 28 days between 2004/05 and 2009/10
A record number - 212 children from 122 families - were detained last year (2008/09)
Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne has also written to Alan Johnson to raise the plight of children in detention centres.
Commenting, Chris Huhne said: “These are the most extreme and most worrying cases out of nearly 500 children who appear to be detained at any one time.
“It is a moral stain on this country’s proud reputation in accepting refugees that we are routinely locking up children for months at a time even though they have committed no crime.
We are physically and psychologically harming children completely unnecessarily, as Sweden, Canada and Australia have shown there are a host of alternatives to detention.
“It is astonishing that Ministers can say this only happens in exceptional circumstances when they have personally signed off hundreds of cases.
“It is profoundly un-British to lock up innocent children at any time, but particularly poignant at Christmas.
“The Government must find its long lost moral compass and end the detention of children in immigration centres.”
Update 2009/12/22 The "Free Movement" web-site which comments on asylum and immigration law reports that the United Kingdom Borders Agency is already operating a more draconian procedure which does not officially come into force until 11th January 2010. "The new policy is, of course, couched in the weasely words and siren sounds one comes to expect of UKBA press releases and policy documents. The section that most sticks in the throat (there is competition) is about a so-called ‘best interests’ policy for not giving children any notice of their impending removal. Apparently it is in their best interests only to find out when they rock up at the airport. The modern UKBA tendency to dress up way they want to do as what they should do in the best interests of children is a disgraceful development."
3 comments:
People remanded in custody on criminal charges are treated better - come to think of it, British children would not be imprisoned like this.
This is the problem with not having a Bill of Right, or to be more precise, not having a Bill of Rights that are not just for MPs (1689 and all that).
We the people…..
This is the start of the first line of the Constitution of the United States.
On the 15th December 1791 a number of “amendments” were ratified; the first ten of these amendments form what is know in the United States today as the “Bill of Rights”
Amendment Four
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmations, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment Six
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trail, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witness in his favour, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.
Amendment Seven
I suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Unfortunately, we are not living in the USA, but the UK, so we don’t have the luxury of “…the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trail, by and impartial jury…” You can be detained for 28 days in the UK if you’re nicked under the terrorism act, for say taking photographs!
Signed
John Hancock
A Bill of Rights would be useless if the executive ignores it.
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