Citizens UK and Together with Refugees demonstrate against refugee child detention in Parliament Square

CITIZENS UK AND TOGETHER WITH REFUGEES DEMONSTRATE AGAINST REFUGEE CHILD DETENTION IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE

On 27 June, Citizens UK and Together With Refugees revealed that two classrooms of children could be detained each day under the new Illegal Migration Bill, as school children, teachers, community leaders, and campaigners demonstrated outside Parliament to call for an end to refugee child detention.

“Children belong in classrooms, not detention centres”. A classroom of school children on Parliament Square wrote messages of support on giant teddy bears for the two classrooms a day of refugee children who could be detained under the Illegal Migration Bill.

They were joined by a children’s choir from St Antony’s Catholic Primary School - who sang “I am a stranger” and “Refugee” - and refugee artwork co-created by the University of the Arts London (UAL). Dress For Our Time led a procession, followed by All Snakes No Ladders, a cloth designed as a prompt to engage with the perils of the UK immigration system, as well as textile banners co-created by UAL and refugee collaborators in the Decolonising Fashion and Textiles project who also performed the manifestos they wrote as their collective visions for a more compassionate future.

The Bill, which is being voted on 28 June in the House of Lords, would allow for babies and children who arrive in the UK via unofficial routes, such as small boats across the Channel, to be locked up with no time limit. They would have no opportunity to apply for asylum, regardless of the war zones or the persecution they have fled.

Those demonstrating demanded that the Government listens to parliamentarians from across the political spectrum who are calling for these measures to be dropped. During the earlier Committee Stage of the bill in the House of Lords a Conservative-led amendment called for the Government to stick to their 2014 commitment of ending refugee child detention, which followed years of campaigning by Citizens UK.

The Illegal Migration Bill would hugely expand the Home Secretary’s powers to detain people. Alongside the new duty to remove, the Home Secretary has the power to detain anyone who arrives in the UK without prior permission, including children, whether they are lone children or with their family. The government has not ruled out the use of force on pregnant women and children. There is no time limit for how long someone can be detained for. Current time limits were introduced following serious harm that vulnerable people faced in detention centres. Under the new law, these vital safeguards would no longer apply. This in effect allows for the indefinite detention of children, including unaccompanied children.

Leading medical bodies, including the BMA, Royal College of GPs, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Faculty of Public Health have all raised concerns about the impact of the Bill on children’s mental and physical health. Children who are detained also don’t have access to appropriate education that meets their needs and are cut off from interacting with peers, which can have long-term effects on their development.