Call to Action: ‘SHUT MANSTON DOWN’: Groups demand closure of camp

‘SHUT MANSTON DOWN’: GROUPS DEMAND END TO DETENTION CAMP Dear friends, Please see the important press release below from Action Against Detention & Deportations. We are part of this coalition which helped expose the conditions that children, women and men are enduring in Manston detention camp. We would be glad for your help in circulating the …

Read more

Bullied into “Voluntary” Returns

Bullied into “Voluntary” Returns At a recent All African Women’s Group meeting, the chair asked whether any women in the group had experience of being forced to sign to return to their country of origin or knew of others that had been. We found out that many women had been taken into back rooms, in …

Read more

STOP PRESS: Twenty One Women Released – Hunger Strike Suspended

STOP PRESS: Twenty One Women Released – Hunger Strike Suspended The hunger strike of over 40 women in Yarl’s Wood IRC which started on Monday night in protest at eight women being taken from detention and forced onto a charter flight back to Nigeria, has been suspended. Four women (and one woman’s partner) DID NOT …

Read more

Women on hunger strike in Yarl’s Wood – “Release us and close this place down.”

Women on hunger strike in Yarl’s Wood – “Release us and close this place down.” For IMMEDIATE RELEASE Over 40 women in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre have gone on hunger strike protesting against a charter flight (Tues 27 Nov) that will take traumatised women back to Nigeria.  Women from many different countries including, Bolivia, …

Read more

International week of actions to close detention centres

Protest and Speak Out “THIS IS A PRISON NOT A HOLIDAY CAMP” International week of actions to close detention centres 15 – 21 June 2015, 12 noon to 2pm: Parliament Square, nearest tube Westminster. CLOSE YARL’S WOOD AND ALL DETENTION CENTRES! Detention without limit – Rape by guards – No healthcare – Mothers separated from their kids – Fast Track decisions …

Read more

No retribution. Women in detention protest brutality by guards

“We were held for many hours, without food, some women fainting and ill.” On Wednesday 17 October, 200 women were “kettled” in a corridor in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire for eight hours.  The detention centre remains in “lock down”.  Some have been stopped from getting their medication.  Five women are being held …

Read more

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 …

Read more

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 …

Read more

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 …

Read more

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 …

Read more