Breastfeeding mother forcibly separated from her baby.....again ;-(

[shonaspurtle]

This country is a disgrace

She was found sleeping rough with depression so they chucked her kids into care and stuck her in a detention centre. But it's ok because she's a failed asylum seeker.

Im speachless.

i'm actually weeping reading this. and that don't happen often. i don't know what i'd've done if someone had separated me from ds when he was 4wo. am so so so so for this woman. have emailed my local MP, but she is already pro-bf and has signed bf-ing Manifesto too. what else can we do?

Beanfrog, do you have a link to that group, so we can appeal on her behalf?

This is mentally, physically and psychologically abusing this mum.. and is totally disgraceful. It really gets my back up

The good news is shes been reunited with her children in family unit and given access to breast feeding support, bottles and formula.

The person to write to is:

Liam Byrne MP, Minister for State for Nationality, Fax 0207 035 4745
Address: Citizenship & Immigration Home Office, 3rd Floor, Peel Building,
2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P DO [email protected]

I don't know whether to sob or fume.

It should be illegal to separate a mother and a 4 week old whether she's breast-feeding or not. The fact that she was just makes the whole thing even more degrading and inhuman. I can't believe we live in a so-called civilised country sometimes.

I have just emailed Liam Byrne with the following:

Dear Mr Byrne,

I was horrified to read the recent Guardian report on the plight of the Ugandan asylum-seeker, separated from her 4-week old son while she was still breastfeeding. (?Deportee Separated from Breastfeeding Son?, Guardian, 22nd May 2007)

Aside from the inhumanity of separating a mother and her newborn baby, the fact that she was a breastfeeding mother only adds unnecessary physical pain and suffering to the intense psychological distress she must already have been under.

I welcome the fact, stated in the Guardian article, that you have accepted the need to end the inhumane practice of separating breastfeeding mothers from their children, but I urge you to do more to ensure that guidelines take the special needs of nursing mothers and their babies into account, and to ensure that these guidelines are followed in all cases.

Yours sincerely,
MissG

That's disgusting.
It's great that she's been reunited but it's probably too late for her to carry on BFing unless she gets decent relactation advice. WTF did they think she was going to do if they were all deported? Buy formula in Uganda and mix with dirty water?

|Why not? Some people think thats totally OK.

It's one thing to enforce a law such as regulations on illegal immigration.
Another thing altogether to go about it without observing constraints of basic humanity and decency towards the people involved. I think whether a mother is bf or not, she should not be deported and have her dc left behind. Neither should her dc be put into care while she's awaiting deportation.
Refusing (if it's confirmed?) to allow her to use a breast pump is just cruelty. Surely that can't be true?

Well exactly tinymum....

Well done, Mrs Golightly. I will do somthing similar.

What happens to the baby if a mother is deported?

Is the baby left behind, and then put up for adoption?

Presumably there is a shortage of adoptee children...

What a ghastly thought.

I (obviously I guess) don't know anything about this topic, can anyone enlighten me?

So happy though she is back with her baby....

I know someone who was refused a visa, becuase the authorities said her marriage was a sham one. She was b'feeding her small baby (a british citizen) when she was told to leave the country.

ACTION ALERT 25 May 2007

Stop the threatened removal on Friday 1 June of Janipher Maseko,

breastfeeding mother with two babies

Ms Janipher Maseko, aged 18, who had fled rape and violence in Uganda and sought asylum in the UK four years ago as an unaccompanied minor, contacted BWRAP on 18 May from Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre through a fax written with the assistance of other detained women whom BWRAP is helping. Ms Maseko was terrified that she would be deported without her newborn son and one-year-old daughter from whom she had been separated for about 10 days.

Through daily phone calls and co-ordinating with others at the detention centre who have helped, we have put together the basic facts of Ms Maseko?s ordeal. Ms Maseko?s asylum claim had been closed in March 2007 when she was heavily pregnant. Hillingdon Social Services, responsible for her at the time, immediately stopped all support and evicted her and her baby daughter.[1] Staff at Hillingdon Hospital had to press Social Services to rehouse her. But at the end of April, a week after her son was born, Social Services evicted her again and threw away all her belongings. Ms Maseko tried to reach a friend in Brighton and was sleeping rough in Crawley when passers-by found her and called the police. Sussex Social Services put her babies into foster care even though she was breastfeeding her infant son and there was no cause to doubt her fitness and eagerness to care for her children ? Ms Maseko needed shelter, money and healthcare. No arrangements were made to help her keep in touch with her children. Still bleeding after childbirth and with engorged breasts, Ms Maseko was held in a cell for four days without a shower or change of clothes.

Ms Maseko was taken to Yarl?s Wood. She was still given no change of clothes or toiletries. In great pain in her breasts and groin, and unable to sleep, she received no healthcare from SERCO, the multinational company running Yarl?s Wood. She wanted to breastfeed when her son was returned, but SERCO offered her no help to express her milk and maintain her milk production. This is not an isolated example of mistreatment ? many other women are suffering under SERCO?s regime.

International Women Count Network (IWCN)[2] alerted breastfeeding organisations and lact-activists, midwives, health professionals, MPs, Lords and concerned individuals. We were greatly encouraged by the immediate and practical response of the breastfeeding sisterhood beginning with Sheila Kitzinger, whose compassion and dedication we have always been able to count on, Lesley Page, former Joint Head of Midwifery at St Thomas Hospital, and Morgan Gallagher, who started Nursing Matters to support breastfeeding mothers caught up in the asylum system, as well as Lord Avebury. This response included contacting the press, MPs and relevant officials, organising local breastfeeding support, writing letters, providing expert and background information, and sending Ms Maseko money to keep open her life line to BWRAP ? her mobile phone. Condemnation of Ms Maseko?s treatment forced the authorities to reunite Ms Maseko and her traumatised children two weeks after they were taken. IWCN asked Alistair Burt MP, whose constituency includes Yarl?s Wood, to arrange for Ms Maseko to have the expert help she needed to resume breastfeeding. As a result Yarl?s Wood management agreed to allow one local designated person with relevant expertise to see her as needed. At the last minute the immigration authorities and SERCO reneged, asserting that SERCO would only provide ?appropriate? support. Their contract is worth £87 million but they did nothing ? one visitor was told ?breastfeeding can wait?. Despite this, due to Ms Maseko?s determination and some timely advice before her children were returned, Ms Maseko?s breast milk is returning. She is, however, worried about her children?s health and how they were cared for by Sussex Social Services ? the daughter lost weight; the son didn?t grow ? as well as the long-term effect of their traumatic forced parting from her.

On receiving the removal notice yesterday, Ms Maseko said: ?They are only doing this to hide what happened and because of the support I have.? We are in contact with Ms Maseko and those who can assist her, in particular her new solicitor from Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, several times a day to ensure new information is passed on and acted on quickly. Her solicitor is submitting a Judicial Review to stop her removal.

We will not rest until Ms Maseko and her children are safe.

What you can do to support this work and ensure Ms Maseko and her children can build their lives in the UK:

1. Urge that Ms Maseko and her children be immediately released, housed, supported and granted asylum, and that there be a prompt independent investigation into her treatment by SERCO and all those in authority who were responsible for her care. Fax or email your letter to:

· Liam Byrne MP, Minister of State for Immigration, Nationality and Citizenship, Fax: 020 7035 4745 [email protected]

· Meg Munn MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Women and Equality)

Fax: 020 7944 5891 [email protected]

· Beverley Hughes MP, Minister for Children, Young People & Families

Fax:020 7219 2961 [email protected]

· Patricia Hewitt MP, Secretary of State for Health, Fax: 020 7210 5410.

[email protected]

· Brian Pollett, Head of Detention Services, [email protected]

· Victoria Jones, Director of Yarl?s Wood, Fax: 01234 821152

2. Alert your networks, the press and other media.

3. Write to your MP as a concerned constituent asking her/him to raise it in Parliament.

4. Send donations and/or offer other help ? contact BWRAP for details.

Remember to copy your letter to [email protected] or fax it to 020 7209 4761.

[1] Prior to the ending of this support, Ms Maseko had completed a college course in computing, English and health and social care, and been accepted for nurse?s training.

[2] Also based at the Crossroads Women?s Centre, IWCN published The Milk of Human Kindness ? Defending breastfeeding from the global market & AIDS industry (Crossroads Books, London 2002).

shocking, and not isolated.

Everything you've read is true. Janipher spent 4 days in a police cell, in blood stained clothing, refused permission to shower and given no clean clothes to wear. Her breasts were engorged, painful and leaking.

When I took a breast pump into Yarl's Wood - on Sunday 20th, she'd been without her babies for two weeks. In that time, she'd not been given access to a breastpump, or given any help on keeping her supply going for her baby.

In fact, they didn't give her the breastpump then - I saw her for a social visit on the Monday, and Yarl's Wood still hadn't given her the pump, or the soap and basic toiletries she'd asked for - she had been told she had to buy soap and shampoo, but had no money, so could not do so.

I showed her how to use the pump in a small room to one side - since then, Yarl's Wood have forbidden us acess to that room, and we must visit her in the same room with dozens of other people and have been forbidden from giving her help whilst we are they - we can only chat to her in the huge room with everyone else.

It is illegal to seperate a breastfeeding mother from her baby - because of the health risks to the child. Breast feeding and bottle feeding require different mouth and tongue skills in the baby, and some babies will refuse bottles when their mother's breast is taken away from them - hence the babies being hospitalised in the recent USA case, as they were suffering from dehydration. I agree that no mother should be taken away from her two-week old but an exclusively breastfed newborn also has a significant risk when the mother's breast is removed - on top of the emotional trauma all babies would feel on having their mother removed.

The children are happier to be with their mother again - especially the little boy - who was only 2 weeks old when she was taken from him. But they are locked up in her room for many hours a day, as it's not safe for the little girl to run around and try and exit through every door she sees as she doesn't like being there.

Removal orders have been lodged for all three for June 1st. The children were named seperately - which means Immigration can take them out seperately - presumably to put them all on the same plane.

From what I've seen in that place - 5 year old children coming in to visit their detained mothers - children detained with their parents - I'm ashamed to be British. Janipher can't even get enough food for her little girl, as if you don't eat in the dining hall what and when they say, there is no access to other food at normal child eating hours. So if the little girl doesn't eat much of the prepared food, there is nothing to give her throughout the long evening and night - apart from some fruit and water: way too low in calories and fats for a child that age. Not many 14 month olds eat to a prison timetable schedule.

Not that she's in a prison - if she was in a prison, she'd have much more help and support and rights. Prisons aren't allowed to treat Mums and Kids like this... but hey, it's asylum seekers, and they have no rights and no one cares.

If you want to help stop the three of them being thrown out of the country - which is not exactly healthy for a 4 week old baby - to be thrown into the streets in Africa with a mother with no support whatsoever.. please write to Liam Byrne and protest - AND spread this news everywhere. There are still very few internet searches hits for Janipher - please publicise and pass on in your own journals and all other bulletin boards.

Thank you - Janipher thanks you on behalf of her babies, who have suffered quite enough at the hands of the UK Government.

morgangallagher.livejournal.com/91422.html

this makes me want to weep

morgangee and bionicly
I dont want to sound utterly lazy and pathetic but if one of you could write the letter i will happily fax and email it to the people mentioned in your posts, also to everyone in my address book. The easier it is to help the more people will do it. Meantime i will keep this bumped. The dreadful thing is that she is only one among many who are receiving this shameful treatment. I feel utterly ashamed that this has happened in my country.

Oh, and how can we send her money? I would be happy to send what i can spare if i can be sure it will reach her.

bump

bump

does no-one else care about this?

This is shocking.

The breastfeeding and the depression (and depression in her situation was probably not surprising) add extra dimensions to the injustice of this woman's situation. Unfortunately, she's far from being the only detainee in Yarl's Wood and other detention centres used for asylum seekers and immigrants without legal rights to stay in this country (I don't like the phrase "illegal immigrants" as it is used to criminalise and dehumanise) whose family is also being punished. Many kids also end up in these detention centres or separated from their detained parents.