Research shows most detained asylum children damaged by experience

More than half of the children detained for immigration reasons are psychologically damaged by their experience, according to research by Medical Justice.

The charity’s report, entitled ‘State sponsored cruelty’: children in immigration detention, considered 141 cases in which children were detained.

Researchers found 61 children had been exposed to dawn raids, 74 had suffered lasting psychological harm from detainment and 34 showed signs of developmental regression. Six of the children interviewed said they had thought about suicide either during or after being detained and three girls had attempted suicide.

Of the 141 cases, just under half of the children involved were born in the UK. They spent on average 25 days in detention, with one child spending 166 days in detention before she was three years old.

The government has pledged to close the family unit at the Yarl’s Wood detention centre and end the detention of children for immigration purposes.

But the report’s author Jan Burnett said there was no reason why children detained at the centre should not be released immediately.

He said: “The fact that UK Border Agency is still detaining children at Yarl’s Wood despite announcements to the contrary raises serious questions about the consistency between the will of government and the actions of UKBA.”

In a joint statement, Penny Nicholls, director for children and young people at The Children’s Society, and Sarah Campbell, research and policy manager for Bail for Immigration Detainees, said:  “This report is further evidence that the inhumane practice of detaining children for immigration purposes is detrimental to their mental and physical wellbeing. These new statistics provide a shocking and timely reminder of the damage faced by innocent children who are being locked up.”
 
Meanwhile, immigration minister Damian Green was forced to issue an embarrassing retraction today after wrongly telling the House of Commons on Monday that the government only planned to “minimise the detention of children in the future as a whole”.

In a Home Office statement issued today Green said: “The Coalition: Our programme for Government, published on 20 May, said: ‘We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes’. That remains.”

Judith Dennis, Refugee Council policy manager, said: “We welcome the announcement that the Home Office has now confirmed they will in fact end the detention of children, rather than merely minimise it. However, our position still stands — there is no practical reason why the detention of children should not be stopped today, once and for all.”