EMAIL US
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre
Twinwoods Road
Clapham
Bedfordshire
MK41 6HL
Phone: 01234 821000
Fax: 01234 821096
Borders Agency Website Link
AVID Website Link
Yarl's Wood Immigration Detention Centre at Clapham near Bedford was built to hold up to 900 detainees making it the largest immigration detention centre in Europe when it opened on 19th November 2001.
The 'Stop Arbitrary Detention at Yarl's Wood' group campaigns for its closure.
The Yarl's Wood Befrienders provide support to and arrange visits to detainees at Yarl's Wood.
Phil Woolas's defence of the inhumane Yarl's Wood removal centre reflects Labour's shift to the right on asylum. Guardian.
General Medical Council hears complaints over poor care at immigration detention centre. Guardian.
Public Interest Lawyers said: 'Today's report by Baroness O'Loan adds to the growing evidence of the prevailing culture of abuse inside Britain's immigration detention centres, particularly at Yarl's Wood. WorkersRevolutionaryParty.
This is to inform the authorities and the public that the on-going hunger strike is to be suspended on the 19 March 2010 at 9.00 am. We are giving the authorities and immigration the chance to look at all the issues raised before and during the strike. We are hoping that management at Serco will review problems at Yarl's Wood. Also, we expect immigration to carefully look at the cases of women held at the detention centre.
The suspension will last for three weeks until something is done to all the issues that had been raised. Our position will be reviewed on suspension of the hunger strike if there are no changes to the problems and issues. Nobody wants to go on hunger strike, but if the authorities and immigration do not listen to us then we can resume the hunger strike on the 9 April 2010. This letter will be sent with a copy of the problems that we face at Yarl's Wood.
We are demanding the following actions.
This letter is sent to the following organisations and individuals Immigration, UKBA, Crossroadswomen, National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns (NCADC), All African Women's Group, BID, Liberty, Black Women's Rape Action Project, Member of Parliment, Medical Justice, Legal Action for Women, Amnesty International, No Borders, Action for Women.
Many Jamaicans will have read about the hunger strike (now in its fourth week) at the British detention centre at Yarl's Wood as a number of Jamaican women are at the forefront of it. Jamaica Observer.
A small group of campaigners from the Campaign To Close Campsfield leafleted workers as they came to work today. Serco, the multinational which runs Yarl's Wood IRC have an office in the park. They demanded 'Serco Out Of Yarl's Wood!' or 'Serco Out Of Culham!'. Leaflet.
A group of detainees who claim they suffered 'inhumane and degrading treatment' while at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre are suing the Home Office. BedfordToday.
Close all Detention Centres! Solidarity with the Hunger Strikers! Demonstrators called for the end of all migrant detention at a Yarl's Wood solidarity demonstration today. Details.
It has been five weeks since a group of about 40 women at Yarl's Wood immigration centre began a hunger strike. BBC Article.
With 38 women still on hunger strike, 60 protestors (+ Salsa band) braving the cold and the wind, gathered for a noisy demonstration outside Holloway prison, where several of the original striking women are now being held. People were asked to send messages of support and get their MP to sign Early Day Motion 919 on YW hunger strike. Details.
To those familiar with our detention centres, a hunger strike comes as no surprise. Independent On Sunday Article.
Centre breaching human rights, say lawyers. Guardian Article.
THIRTY-EIGHT Jamaican women are on hunger strike in holding facilities in the United Kingdom, in protest of their imminent deportation to Jamaica. Jamaican Observer Article.
MPs investigate claims that women in Yarl's Wood detention centre were abused during hunger strike. Guardian Article. Guardian Images.
Interviews with some of the hunger strikers. NoOneIsIllegal Video.
I am one of the ladies on hunger strike at Yarl's wood center. On Monday 8th February 2010 around 11 45am GMT time, some group of women stood at the center of a hall in the center. We were protesting about the condition at the center and the length of time we spend in here. An officer approached the group and informed us that an immigration official would like to see us all to discuss the issues that we have raised.
The officer told us to follow him down the corridor to the immigration office. We proceed down to the end of the corridor. When we got to the very end, the officer asked that we should go inside the office 4 ladies at a time. They allowed 4 women to enter and told us that they will let 4 more in when those 4 inside gets out. One of the manager of the center ( a lady manager called Viv Moore) came from the long corridor and asked us if we wanted to go back to our rooms. We told her that we were waiting to see the immigration. She said we are just wasting our time and that nothing is going to be achieved from our protest. She then asked the officers in the room to come with her and as soon as they got to the door, the last officer looked the door on us. They all stayed outside watching us through the door window.
We were singing and chanting for about one and a half hour since we have been looked up, some ladies went to the door and asked to go to the toilet. The officers including the manager Viv Moore told us that we are not allowed to leave where we are. Some of the ladies started getting sick and collapsing on the floor. There was one asthma lady, one sickle cell lady and two others who were choking on the floor. We were all hyper-ventilating and sweating. There was no door or windows open and we were all complaining of lack of air. Around 2.00pm, Some Chinese girls asked the officers to go to the toilet and they were told no one is allowed to get out. The Chinese bend down at the corner and pee on the floor. Few minutes later others copied them and wee on the ground. the officers were all watching and still refused to open the door. Some people decided to call the emergency service for the ladies having breathing difficulty. The police and ambulance were asked for and they called us back to tell us they are outside of the center but are not allowed entry.
About an hour after the police called us back, some ladies realised that the window was only closed not locked. They opened the window and got out into the compound. Other ladies went through the window and joined them. More were trying to get out through the window but the officers had seen what was happening and had gone round the compound to meet them. They were carrying police guard shield and wearing heavy jacket. They crushed the ladies who were trying to get out with the guard shied and pushed them to the ground. Some women were crushed to the ground and beaten up. Two ladies were physically injured and were bleeding. The windows were protected with the guard shield and the officers holding on to the guard shield. We were all hysterical and upset and were begging the officers not to hurt the women outside. The officers laughed at us as more officers joined them and formed a line to force the women outside in one small corner.
Some women needed to change their sanitary towel cause they were on their period but they had to throw bloodied towel next to where we were standing. We were all exhausted and demoralized by 5.00pm and we had no choice but to sit on the soiled floor. There was no chair or anything to lean on. There was an helicopter hovering above outside by this time but the women outside were not allowed to move from where they are being crushed. Some officers came outside to offer the officers chips and hot drinks. They were replaced by new officers every hour. No officer stayed guard for more than one hour. Every next hour, new sets of officers comes to replace them from their position. The women locked up and the 19 women outside were not offered any food or drink.There was no heat in the small place where we were locked and we all suffered from hypothermia. The ladies outside had to stand in the cold snow without sock and jacket and the officers will not allow them to have jacket. We tried to get them jackets and jumpers through the windows and the officers smashed the window on one of the ladies fingers. Her middle finger was damaged and her fingernail came off. There was blood everywhere and the officers still refused her medical treatment. We were not moved from where we have been detained until 7.30pm.
We were told to come out in pairs and were searched with around a dozen officers watching us. We were offered food and medication after the search and then led to our wings. We were about 70 which consist many Nigerians, Chinese, Jamaicans, Zimbabweans and some nationals that I do not remember. I have been traumatised and victimised because of this experience. I can never believe this can happen in the UK and I am still in shock.
Mojirola Daniels
"Detention results from political decisions that represent a "hardening attitude towards irregular migrants and asylum seekers" (*PACE) End the Detention of Foreign Nationals Now!.
Since the 5th of February 2010, we the residents at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre are on hunger strike which involves over 84 + women, who are protesting against the period of time spent in detention and the treatment that they receive while being detained.
The strike was sparked to protest and demand that the frustration and humiliation of all foreign nationals ends now.
We are demanding the following actions
Finally instead of detention of foreign nationals, there are alternatives to detention stated by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). 'The detention of asylum seekers and irregular migrants in Europe ', Adopted on the 28th January 2010, extracts below.
Full Text: Council of Europe - Parliamentary Assembly Resolution 1707 (2010)1. Assembly debate on 28 January 2010 (7th Sitting) (see Doc. 12105, report of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population, rapporteur: Mrs Mendon¨a). Text adopted by the Assembly on 28 January 2010 (7th Sitting).
The detention of asylum seekers and irregular migrants in Europe Link
Please support our concerns, lobby your MPs, Councilors, MEPs, demanding our immediate release and an end to arbitrary detention.
Medical Justice on child prisons at Yarlswood. Article.
The police were called on the patron saint of children and the imprisoned today, as he tried to deliver Christmas gifts to children at Yarl's Wood detention centre. Article.
Channel 4 investigate an attempt to deport a Sudanese family who were "threatened with injury" by immigration officials.
Anti-deportation campaigners are currently demonstrating outside Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire in an attempt to stop a specially charted flight deporting families and children to Nigeria.
Activists from the Stop Deportation Network have staged a sit-in outside the centre's gates, preventing coaches carrying families and children due to be forcibly deported on a specially charted flight today from leaving.
Earlier this morning, another group of protesters staged a short blockade outside WH Tours offices in Crowley, near Gatwick, before being removed by police. WH Tours is a private coach company contracted to carry deportees from detention centres to the airport.
Up to 20 people, including 3 families, are meant to be taken from Yarl's Wood to an undisclosed airport to be deported to Lagos via Dublin this afternoon. Like previous joint mass deportations to Nigeria, a flight has been privately chartered by the Home Office and is thought to be taking approximately 50 people from the UK. It is meant to stop in Dublin to pick up more deportees and leave for Lagos airport later this evening. If it went ahead, the flight will be the third within two months.
One of the families to be deported have been on hunger strike inside Yarl's Wood for the past two weeks in protest at their 'inhumane' conditions and treatment. Another family, Juliet and Steve Umoro and their two children, were granted a last-minute injunction as the children are suffering from malaria. Steve is in the process of lodging a civil claim against Serco, which manages Yarl's Wood, for having his tooth smashed and rips damaged by security guards who assaulted him on 17th June as they tried to break up the hunger strike.
Many of today's deportees are victims of torture, rape and female genital mutilation. However, as one of the 'white list' countries set out in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, Nigerian asylum applications are almost automatically dismissed by the Home Office regardless of the merits and evidence supporting individual claims. Cases certified as 'manifestly unfounded' under the Fast Track system are often not examined properly and claimants do not have the right to in-country appeal against the Home Office decision. With charter flights, claimants do not even have time or adequate legal representation to seek a judicial review.
One of the deportees, known as Sandra, said: "We are so scared about going back. My children are not sleeping and eating because they are so worried. I don't see why we can't live here. My daughter was born here; all our friends are here. We have been treated so baldly -locked up with no proper health care and without our cases being considered properly- and now we are being forcibly deported and don't know what's awaiting us."
One of protesters, who preferred to keep anonymous, said: "We will stay here for as long as we can if it stops people being deported. Mass deportation flights such as this one are fast becoming the government's favoured way to deport those who have fallen foul of its macabre immigration controls. Every deportation is a violation of people's right to freedom of movement but these charter flights are a particularly sordid way to do that."
A public demonstration at the Home Office headquarters in central London is planned this afternoon. A similar protest is also planned in Dublin by Resident Against Racism.
For further information and questions, please contact:
Email: stopdeportation@riseup.net
Tel: 075 0690 4269
Two weeks after nine cleaners at SOAS were taken into detention, take action for justice for the SOAS 9 and in solidarity with detainees in Yarls' Wood on hunger strike for demand including: freeing children who are detained, adequate access to health care, quality food and real privacy. Hundreds of people in Yarls Wood are being denied the medical care they need including a woman with epilepsy and a 5 months' pregnant woman in the families' section. Families have been on hunger strike for over a week now and we need to show them our support!
A mass hunger strike by families detained at Yarl's Wood refugee detention centre in Bedfordshire has been met with violent assaults on men, women and children by security guards working for Serco - who manage the prison on behalf of the UK Border Agency. The detainees started the hunger strike on Monday and since Tuesday prison managers have stopped detainees from speaking to visitors and reporters, and denied them internet access. Full Story