Asylum Detention Challenges
posted: 23/03/2010
The harsh treatment faced by detained women and children seeking asylum - including women and children with HIV - who are held at Yarl’s Wood will now be closely considered by both the High Court and the British Medical Association.
Three Human Rights Abused
"Lawyers have been granted permission to challenge the government's detention policy, which they claim amounts to "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment of women and children.
The High Court has given the go-ahead for a judicial review of the cases of four women held at the Yarl’s Wood detention centre after lawyers claimed their treatment breaches articles three, five and eight of the European convention on human rights. This comes very soon after many women have ended a 5 week hunger strike in protest at the conditions and their treatment.
Jim Duffy, a solicitor at Public Interest Lawyers, which is bringing the case, welcomed the decision. "The case confronts the policy and practice of the Home Office and the private company running Yarls Wood, Serco."
Three Yarl's Wood doctors investigated
Three doctors working at Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre are facing investigation by the General Medical Council, amid calls for healthcare at the centre to be transferred from the private sector to the NHS. Alistair Burt, Tory MP for North East Bedfordshire, (containing Yarl’s Wood) described healthcare as the weak link and that this weakness can only be ended by transferring healthcare to the NHS.
As he points out: "If there is an issue over fitness to travel and the decision is made by a contracted company inside Yarl's Wood, what chance is there of having confidence that it has not been influenced by the contract given to the contractors to get people out of the country?"
More details from Medical Justice 1 and Medical Justice 2 and Medical Justice 3
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