3 July 2019
Has child immigration detention ended in the UK?
This is a question we get asked sporadically. Ending child detention was such a huge campaign around 2009 and 2010. Now few people seem to pay much attention to what has happened since.
As the Independent Monitoring Board recently issued their report on Gatwick Pre-Departure Accommodation, the same question popped up. So we put together a Twitter thread. It is far from a comprehensive explanation of the history of “ending child detention” – but we hope it gives those who are interested something to read and investigate further.
This "Pre-Departure Accommodation" (well, after the govt promised to end child detention, it probably could not be called a #detention centre…) is located within Tinsley Immigration Removal Centre near Gatwick Airport.
A child described it as ‘a palace within a prison’.
— TheDetentionForum (@DetentionForum) July 3, 2019
IMB concludes that conditions within the centre are *generally* OK but they, rightfully, question the fairness of the whole process and its impact upon affected children. This reminds us detention is always a part of much bigger migration system and how it treats people.
— TheDetentionForum (@DetentionForum) July 3, 2019
So what is this whole process? Family Returns Process was, we believe, initially introduced to minimise the use of detention, though this policy document doesn't say so. It is not alternative to detention because of its exclusive focus on return. https://t.co/ZM24bFBRA8
— TheDetentionForum (@DetentionForum) July 3, 2019
Is the story on child immigration #detention over now in the UK? Not quite. In Dec 2017, 6 yrs after the coalition govt "ended" child detention, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, with the Migrant Workers Committee, published a joint General Comments, which say…
— TheDetentionForum (@DetentionForum) July 3, 2019
"In this light, both Committees have repeatedly affirmed that children should never be detained for reasons related to their or their parents' migration status and states should expeditiously and completely case or eradicate immigration detention of children. (…)"
— TheDetentionForum (@DetentionForum) July 3, 2019
"Any kind of child immigration detention should be forbidden by law and such prohibition should be fully implemented by practice."
So let's now forget that the UK has got some way to go to fully comply with this international norm.
— TheDetentionForum (@DetentionForum) July 3, 2019
Recently, the issue of child detention was raised again in Scotland, when Freedom of Information request showed 19 children had been held there since 2014, including at least five below the age of 16. We assume these children were those who were originally and wrongly assessed as over the age of 18 and were detained, and not part of Family Returns Process our Twitter thread deals with.
For the latest development on child immigration detention within the EU, have a look at PICUM’s briefing paper, ‘Child Immigration Detention in the EU’, published in March 2019.
