We are here because . . .

We are here because . . . . . .  is an inspiring and moving collection of online video and other testimonies, filmed, recorded, edited and produced by Black/women of colour, – many are are active members of All African Women’s Group a self-help group of women asylum seekers. Together with volunteers all the testimonies were …

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Why women in Yarl’s Wood went on hunger strike (transcript)

Why women in Yarl’s Wood went on hunger strike (transcript)   M: Some of the hunger strikers said there were meetings of about 20 women who discussed organising it and that they organised across the wings because Avocet started, and women from Bunting and Dove who were working for SERCO selling food noticed no one …

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Report: Louder Than Words

Report: Women’s Hunger Strike – Louder than Words When 70 women went on hunger strike in Yarl’s Wood IRC on 5 February, an unprecedented level of media coverage followed. Rape survivors, mothers separated from their children, and other vulnerable women, some of whom had been detained without trial for months (one for over a year), …

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Urgent action: End the Detention of Families

Action alert: End the detention of families Dear friends, Over 80 people attended the House of Commons meeting Women’s Hunger Strike – Louder than Words (29 June 2010) which succeeded in making public how women seeking asylum are spearheading the movement against the injustice of the asylum system (and other injustices), and in gathering support for these …

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Women speak out in Parliament against detention, deportation, privatisation and profiteering 14 January 2010

Women speak out in Parliament against detention, deportation, privatisation and profiteering 14 January 2010 With recent press coverage shedding light on the devastating impact of detention on children, and the public outrage that followed, it was no surprise that a meeting on the detention of mothers and other vulnerable people in the House of Commons …

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Press release: Hunger strike and sit in at Yarl’s Wood detention centre.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION IN SUPPORT OF THE HUNGER STRIKE AND SIT-IN AT YARL’S WOOD IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTRE Picket SERCO Headquarters 22 Hand Court, Holborn, WC1V 6JF Friday 19 June 12.30-2pm Nearest Tubes: Holborn or Chancery Lane Women, children and men in the Family Unit at Yarl’s Wood IRC [1] are in the third day of …

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I’m a rape survivor from Rwanda

Rape survivor from Rwanda in brave fight to help others  21 May 2009 Stella Mpaka, of Women Against Rape, is now helping others to overcome their personal nightmares. Your article (Camden group’s battle to prioritise a heinous crime, H&H April 2) showed some of Women Against Rape’s (WAR) ground breaking work winning justice for rape …

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Women inside Yarl’s Wood IRC demand an end to brutal treatment by Serco, 8 May 2008

Women inside Yarl’s Wood IRC demand an end to brutal treatment by Serco DEMANDS FOLLOWING SERCO’S INVITATION TO VISIT YARL’S WOOD REMOVAL CENTRE ISSUED AT THEIR AGM, 13 May 2008 1. Many women in detention have suffered rape and other torture. According to the Immigration Services Operational Manual (Third EDN) if someone reports being a …

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Asylum from Rape Bulletin: Summer 2008

Women reunited with their children 5 March was one of the happiest occasions of this past year for many of us.  Betty A, a longstanding and much loved volunteer was reunited with the four children whom she was forced to leave behind when she fled Uganda.  The full and heart-rending story is still to be told …

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