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.

Wonderful news and wonderful work, morgangee.

I'll send follow-up emails asap.

PRESS RELEASE THIS EVENING FROM THE BLACK WOMEN'S RAPE ACTION PROJECT:

On 29 May, following a wave of public outrage against the Home Office, social services and SERCO (the company running Yarl?s Wood Removal Centre), Ms Janipher Maseko, an 18 year old mother who was detained and separated from her two young children, was told that she and her children are to be released. Hundreds of letters, calls and other pressure forced the Home Office to concede that they could not justify her continued incarceration. Directions to remove her to Uganda have also been cancelled.

In the course of pressing for Ms Maseko to be reunited with her children and released, it came out that other mothers and babies had also been cruelly separated. In a letter to Lord Avebury about a Vietnamese mother and her six-month-old baby, Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne said:

"It is clear that the case was not satisfactorily handled. Prechecks had failed to reveal that Mrs N was part of a family unit. The staff involved in Mrs N's case have been reminded on the guidance in place about making decisions involving the separation of a family." [1]

As soon as Ms Maseko contacted Black Women?s Rape Action Project, we, with the help of the International Women Count Network[2], alerted breastfeeding organisations and lact-activists, midwives, health professionals, MPs, Lords and concerned individuals. Support letters show the depth of concern:

?As a mother myself I struggle to understand the pain and heartbreak she has been forced to endure whilst in a vulnerable state so close to the birth of her son?.

?The physiological and emotional effects of separation are immense and a civilised government should not be inflicting such brutality on families?.

?I am spreading the word about the disgusting treatment [Ms Maseko] received at SERCO, and I trust that the people who denied [her] a SHOWER and a BREASTPUMP will be made accountable for their actions?.

?We put these people in power, we give them the mandate to act as they have done, we are their watchdogs, and we are the people they must account too! Write! Write! Write!?

For background details of Ms Maseko?s situation go to www.womenagainstrape.net

UPDATES:
Ms W, detained and threatened with removal whilst pursuing a complaint against Stoke Newington Police for raping her oldest son has been released, again after we rallied many people to protest her treatment.

Ms M, 23 weeks pregnant, vomiting and bleeding and clearly unfit to travel was also facing removal when she contacted us. We suggested she fax the Chief immigration officer to explain that she feared she might miscarry and that she would hold them responsible if she lost her baby. Within a few hours, she called back to say she and her husband were being released on temporary admission.

Ms Jacklyn Edwards, Sadly and despite many people writing in protest, the Home Office deported Ms Edwards, on Bank Holiday Monday, a day the Home Office chooses to remove many people since few solicitors are available and public support is harder to mobilise. Ms Edwards called to thank everyone for the support she had received, and to encourage her sisters in Yarl?s Wood to keep fighting for their rights.

Many women still detained in inhumane conditions
For other women left inside Yarl?s Wood Removal Centre, protests against its inhumane regime continue. An APPEAL FOR AMNESTY, received today, addressed to Gordon Brown and signed by 121 women, spells out women?s situation from the reason they are forced to leave their home countries in the hope of finding protection to the abuse they receive from the moment they arrive in the UK:

?We write to you as grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters . . . we are victims of torture and ill treatment having been forced to flee our countries of origin . . . suicidal attempts are many . . . pregnant women have lost their babies . . . the suffering is endless . . . when it comes to removing us we are being beaten mercilessly and bundled in the plane and injured and in the most inhumane way you can imagine?. Full text attached.

Women?s outstanding demands include:
Release from detention ? some of us have been held for over two years.
No punishment or retribution against those protesting or on hunger strike.
Stop sabotaging our asylum claims. Vital faxes are withheld, staff refuse to allow us to fax information even to our lawyer or MP and confiscate legal rights information. 23 women signed a letter of protest at LAW?s Self-Help Guide being snatched from them during room searches or at other times. We are told ?you are not supposed to have this in the centre?.
Our privacy should be respected. Male guards come into our rooms without warning, even when we don?t have clothes on. They search the room scattering our underwear.
An end to violence from staff especially when they take us to the airport. Women have been assaulted, handcuffed, drugged and beaten up. One woman was stripped naked and thrown in the van. The pilot refused to take her as she had no clothes.
Sexist and racist guards to be sacked ? we are called ?black monkey? ?nigger? and ?bitch? and told ?go back to your country?.
Stop stealing our money. We want an investigation into how money sent by relatives and supporters, which the authorities put into accounts, later disappeared.
We want our 71p daily allowance ? it?s a pittance but we are entitled to it.
No profiteering ? a pack of peanuts has gone up from 20p to 42p.
No fingerprinting of visitors ? we?ve had less visits since this started.
A choice of sanitary pads ? we are only given one type but for those of us with heavy periods they are not enough.
Better health care ? whatever our complaint we just get an aspirin
Food we can eat. It is the same every day ? days old re-heated jacket potatoes, uncooked rice, partially cooked fried eggs, food with hair, dirt and sometimes maggots in it. It?s rationed so we don?t get enough to eat -- one tin of sardines between three people ? and the serving people are rude.

How you can support women:

• Email or fax:

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

2. Meg Munn MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Women and Equality) Fax: 020 7944 5891 [email protected]

3. Beverley Hughes MP, Minister for Children, Young People & Families Fax:020 7219 2961 [email protected]

4. Patricia Hewitt MP, Secretary of State for Health, Fax: 020 7210 5410. [email protected]

5. Brian Pollett, Head of Detention Services, [email protected]

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

• Alert your networks, the press and other media.
• Send donations and/or offer other help. Make a donation to BWRAP or Women in Dialogue (WinD), the charity which runs the Centre where we are based and an emergency fund for women asylum seekers (donations to WinD are tax deductible ? more information from [email protected] ).
  Lobby your MP to sign EDM 406 RAPE AND FEMALE ASYLUM SEEKERS, Circulate our Asylum from Rape Petition

Remember to copy letters to:
Black Women?s Rape Action Project (BWRAP)
PO Box 287
London NW6 5QU
Tel: 020 7482 2496
Fax: 020 7209 4761.
Email: [email protected]

Good point. And tbh, I have also been thinking of the other unfortunate people left behind in Yarl's Wood in horrible conditions. Why is there nothing in the news about this? Why no outcry?

This is not an isolated incident. I am pleased that something has been achieved for Ms Maseko, but something has to be done about the general conditions for assylum seekers in UK. Have written twice now to PM etc, something I have never done before. But unless this is more widely reported, I cannot see that anything will change.

just emailed re Janipher. Will have to do the Yarls Wood one tomorrow - this is too bad to just stand by and do nothing.

Just to make it clear - JANIPHER HAS NO PROTECTION FROM BEING THROWN OUT AT ANY TIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

Please read my letters to tony Blair etc - and keep the pressure up!!!!

morgangallagher.livejournal.com/92591.html

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I`m linking this page to other subject categories on mumsnet. I was browsing the breastfeeding category by chance, but I never come on here usually.

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I just did a web seacrh to see if anyone else needed info on Janipher... and found the Nescafe Facist site.

I feel sick.

How can any mother, talk about another mother, in such clearly racist terms? "They" shouldn't be here? "They" should go back? The tax payer isn't footing the bill for "them" anymore?

I suppose it's good that people do post out these views - so we can see them, and know who they are.

And know that we need to fight for fellow humans, in spite of other fellow humans.

Morgan

And another thing... (can you tell this is boiling in my brain?)

Janipher did not arrive in this country illegally. Orphaned, beaten and raped by her employer at 14, and when she told his wife she'd been raped by her husband - they'd both beaten her half to death.... Janipher earned enough money to buy her flight to London.

She arrived legally, on her own passport, and was given leave to stay by the Home Office, as an unaccompanied minor. She arrived on a flight and declared herself to Immigration who stamped her passport and let her in!

So she was perfectly legal from day one. The issue on her leaving, is that when she became 18, the Home Office decided then she must go - and take her two children with her. How humane is that?

Come here - ask to be let in and be let in - build a life for yourself, work hard, get qualifications and try and train to be a nurse - this country needs nurses - and be told you and your babies are being sent to a country you fled from in terror - and dumped at an airport with no support or money?

This is what the UK Government do, every day, to mothers and babies.

The children, although born here, are not "automatic British citizens" that law was changed some years ago. So both the children are stateless, and will be returned to a country that they've never seen, and will likely not give them papers either.

So the UK people - that's you and me and all the others who vote in our politicians and fail to watch closely on what they do in our name - are creating stateless children and sending them into the unknown, to accept their fate in a hostile world. That's you and me - not some faceless official with a large stamp saying 'rejecetd'.

More people need to know the 'facts' about what we're doing in this country. If for no other reason, than to counter mindless comments about "if you put your children in danger, you deserve to have them removed".

We, the UK people, made the decision to put those children in danger, when we allowed our officials to act like this when we were not looking.

Morgan

Morgan - I'm with you on this. I'm really astonished by and ashamed of the popular view of immigration and asylum in this country over the last five years or so. I really think it's simply sublimated racism - people are gradually realising that 'traditional'-style racism (directed at people with roots in the Caribbean or other post-imperial areas) is no longer considered to be socially acceptable, so instead of concentrating their bile on second- or third-generation immigrant families, they are spewing their venom at asylum seekers - some of the most vulnerable people in any society. It makes me absolutely sick, and the worst thing is I really don't know what to do about it.

You write your MP - now - and you write the Prime Minister, and you write to the Home Office, and you inform your friends.

And when you find such racist statements, where it is safe for you to do so, you reply politely and with facts. Let them speak - for then others can hear.

In short, you speak up when and where you can.

For evil to succeed...all that is required, is that good people, do nothing.

it looks like Janipher wil be out of Yarl's Wood this afternoon - but it's still touch and go.

I'm trying to find out where she's going, so she can have a friendly face when she arrives from the official transport....

It also looks like the lawyers have managed to put in place some restraining measures, so she can't be whisked off in the night whilst no one is looking.

The lawyer was just saying, that she hopes this has opened people's eyes to the problem. She said when those involved in this complain, they are ignored, as it's "their job" to complain.

But when ordinary citizens rise up in outrage - the Powers That Be, listen.

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Janipher was released from Yarl's Wood, with the children, on Friday afternoon.

The home office sent a taxi, without any child car seats! To take the babies on the M1 during Friday rush hour traffic!

We found car seats of course....

Unfortunately, she was put in a tacky homeless hostel by Hilligdon Social Services, who we've been told have to take care of her, because of laws about who pays for food bills etc (that's all I know about why).

She and the kids are up a huge steep set of stairs, in a tiny room, with shared toilets and kitchenette. No hot water!

But it was 'emergency' accomodation, and she's being moved on Monday. Let's hope to somewhere without steep stairs and with hot water. Her little girl has eczma, and not being able to wash her down, after a hot and sticky car journey...

As she thinks anywhere is better than Yarl's Wood, she's just grateful to be out of there.

The rest of us think she needs to be in safer acoomodation... but she's happy she can take the babies out in the open air, and let her little girl actually run about a bit in the park.

Alhotugh she's terribly worried she'll be snatched back up when no one is looking. Her lawyer says they can't do that, for a while at least, but they are still working on the Home Office.

Liam Byrne was interviewed by the local newspaper, anout how childrne aren't supposed to be kept at Yarl's Wood - and he blamed the parents!!!!

"The Government's chief inspector of prisons has said children should only be detained there 'in exceptional circumstances'. The Government admits the situation is not ideal.

A BBC request to the Home Office discovered that between October 2005 and September last year, 1,160 children under 18 were held at Yarl's Wood.

Of those, 675 were removed from the UK, while 445 were granted temporary admission or released. A further 40 were bailed.

The figures show 115 children were held for more than 29 days and 70 of them were later either granted admission, released or given bail.

Minister for Immigration Liam Byrne said teams of professionals make regular reviews of children and their families and he personally authorises cases in which a child is being detained for longer than 28 days.

"It's not an ideal environment in which to keep children and that's why it's often so frustrating that parents drag out the deportation process," said Mr Byrne." Beds on Sunday, Sunday June 03

I cannot believe that comment from Liam Byrne!

Yes, it must be frustrating that the parents try legal appeals, because you have to treat the children in a humane way while the legal process is going on. WTF???

Local paper ... This is a national issue, it should be a national scandal.

In what sense is this lady dragging out the process exactly?

It's just so amazing, isn't it? Blame the parents for seeking their legal rights?

I found another piece today, on a web search - thank you whoever posted my comments into it - and it was sickening. (guardian article - lovely article, sick comments)

No wonder the UK Government feel it's okay to act that like - as so many UK citizens are saying hateful and offensive things, and saying it's acceptable to treat people this way.

I think we've all become a bit complacent, on things like racism and hate. Moved our eye off the ball. I was pretty sure we were a decent-ish society - and moving forward.

I still do think we're a decent-ish society, and we are moving forward. But I can clearly see we're not moving forward in some areas - just letting the hate and racism slide over into a different place.

People clearly think it's acceptable to be racist against refugees and asylum seekers. They feel they can make blanket statements about 'them' and what we should do, to get rid of 'them'. Without actually acknowledging that whatever the legal rights of the issues - no matter how you feel about boundaries and benefits - these are fellow human beings we are discussing.

Fellow human beings who should be treated with respect, no matter what we decide about their rights to stay here.

At least we can see these comments, and hear them, and that gives us space to work with them.

But I feel so sick when I read them. I'm trying to concentarte on it being better said out loud, so we can recgonise it - than it being hidden.

I feel so sorry for the children growing up in the homes of these people - what a painful and destructive world to be living in. What terrible way to learn of the world - no compassion, no empathy, no respect, only anger, hate and fear.

However, we must concentrate on the good! So many wonderful and positive people have made their voice heard, and ae standing up for simple human decency!

Go Us!!!!!

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I saw that comment in the Beds on Sunday this morning, and I am already composing my letter to the editor...

good for you Cazee!!

i think my favourite part of that article might well be "It's so frustrating the parents drag out the deportation process". gosh, yes. i can imagine how it must be frustrating that families don't want to go back to hideous regimes where they may be tortured or killed. so frustrating.