Yarl's Wood women protest

Around 100 women in Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre are protesting at their continuing incarceration. Their demands are listed below. The protest coincided with a visit to the notorious centre by Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abboot MP. You can read a report of that visit at the Guardian here. For up to date info and news, follow @detainedvoices on Twitter and check the website.

1. Shorter bail request periods

Legally it should 3-5 days, however it can take anywhere up to 21 days, or even a month before you get a bail hearing date

2. Amnesty for those who have lived in the UK 10 years and above

3. End indefinite detention

Detention periods shouldn’t be longer than 28 days

4. End Charter flights

Charter flights are inhumane because there are no prior notifications, or only an oral notification with no warning. They give no time to make arrangements with family.

5. No more re-detention

Redention should not be allowed – if you have been detained once, you should not be re-detained if you are complying with the laws they have applied. This is a contradiction, you are being punished for complying with the law; it ruins the whole purpose of expecting compliance

6. End systematic torture

Systematic torture takes place in detention – at any point an officer could turn up and take your room mate; you’re constantly on edge, not knowing what will happen next. Those who are suicidal now have their privacy taken away because they are being watched – you don’t know if an officer is coming to check on you or coming to take you away. Our rooms are searched at random and without warning; they just search first and explain later

7. Stop separating families

Separating families is inhumane – people in here are married or have British partners and have children outside, and they are denied their right to private life and right to privacy; their Article 8 rights

8. No detention of people who came to the UK as children

Young adults who came to the country as minors should not be detained, deported or punished for their parents’ immigration histories

9. The beds need to be changed

Some of us have been here for a year on the same bed; they’re the most uncomfortable beds

10. LGBT+ persons’ sexuality be believed

It should be understood that explaining your sexuality is difficult

11. Fit emergency alarms in every room in the detention centre

Only some rooms have them, and there have been a lot of cases of people being very ill in places where they can’t call for help

Yarl’s Wood women protest