Diane stands up for the rights of migrants in Yarl's Wood debate

11 Feb 2010

Diane Abbott MP once again condemned the appalling treatment of migrants held in detention centres such as Yarlswood and Oakington in a Westminster debate on Wednesday.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Diane commented on the state of healthcare within detention centres, mentioning the lack of confidence in the current healthcare offered to detainees.

Diane said

“One of the constant complaints one hears when one visits those detention centres and meets the voluntary groups that work with them concerns health issues and health care. It seems a simple step forward to allow the health care to be provided independently of the private contractor that runs the detention centre so that there is no question of a conflict of interest or of costs being shaved. That would mean that detainees and their children could have absolute psychological confidence in the health care they were being offered.

Some detainees and advisers feel that they are not getting the best possible treatment because of attempts to cut costs or effort. I do not know whether that is true, but if the health care was independently provided the detainees and the people who help and support them would have more confidence in the system”.

Diane also criticised the length of time for which migrants and their children are detained, calling upon the Government to recognise the severity of this issue and respond promptly.

“On the question of children in detention, as I have said, I have visited both Yarl's Wood and Oakington. There is a school there, and toys and facilities, but they are all behind walls and gates. To all intents and purposes, a young child in Yarl's Wood is in prison. How can they understand it when they are being kept there for months? These children and their parents have committed no crime. They might be a threat to efficient immigration control, but they have committed no crime. Should they be kept in conditions that we would not want our children kept in for 24 hours?

We should not keep in detention children who have committed no crime and whose parents have committed no crime. Time and again, people have said that that practice puts us in breach of the convention on the rights of the child. I cannot believe that the Government cannot, in the 21st century, find alternatives.

I must say to the Government that although focus groups and opinion polls will say that no one cares if we keep children in conditions that are in breach of their human rights and that there are no votes in this issue, we should be better than that. We should work towards a situation in which no child of an immigrant, even if that immigrant is here illegally and subject to immigration control, is kept by the state in conditions that we would not tolerate for our own children.”


Ends
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