MP Welcomes Move to Protect Migrant Children
MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington Diane Abbott today put her support firmly behind the Home Office decision to abandon threatening failed asylum seeking families with moving their children into care if they refused to leave the country.
The move by the immigration minister Liam Byrne comes after it emerged that the threats were having absolutely no influence on encouraging families to co-operate with voluntary removals from the country. The Home Office have also made further moves to protect the rights of child migrants by suggesting that very young children should never be separated from their mothers, and that families with children taking exams should not be put in immigration detention centres.
Meanwhile the Home Office Border and Immigration Agency has called for a new legal duty to be placed on immigration staff to properly look after children in detention.
Speaking on the changes Diane said:
“The moves announced this week represent a positive step towards protecting the rights of child migrants in this country. Up until now this has been a vulnerable group of people who have continuously had their rights violated as a result of immigration controls. The very idea of taking children away from their parents or carers in order to force them out of the country is frankly barbaric and should have been scrapped a long time ago. I would now like to see a full and comprehensive re-structuring of the immigration system to allow all migrant children their full rights, no matter what the immigration status of their parents.”
Diane is currently heading a campaign for child migrants’ rights and has tabled two Early Day Motions calling on the government to adhere to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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