Feminist Fightback Join Friends of Hackney Nurseries in Fighting Cuts

At the end of April at least 8 community nurseries in Hackney were informed of immediate cuts in their budget of up to 60%, or about £50,000. This will mean the serious threat of nursery closures, and hardship and distress for parents, workers and children. The Learning Trust and Hackney Council are denying that there is a programme of cuts to nursery provision – so we want to know:

Where has the money gone?

How can nurseries keep running with such drastic cuts?

Why are all the politicians and officers passing the buck and not answering our questions?

After previous successful fights against cuts to nurseries, Friends of Hackney Nurseries has re-activated to fight against cuts, and to fight for even more and better childcare provision locally. We are a group of parents, nursery workers, local residents and community activists who believe that quality childcare should be affordable and accessible to all. Childcare is a basic need for families – especially women. We need to provide childcare as a community – not isolated in our own homes. We need accessible, quality nurseries for all.

Friends of Hackney Nurseries are holding a FUNDAY on Sunday 30th May, 11am-2pm in London Fields. Come and enjoy a day out meeting other people who care about community childcare and show support for the campaign to resist cuts.

There will be all sorts of activities for children including face painting, a raffle, lucky dip, banner making, story telling, and a teddy bears picnic.

Interview with a hunger striker

Why did you go on hunger strike?

To make changes and make the public see the way we have been treated and the conditions we are kept in. And to have support from one another and the public.

What kind of support did you receive from the public?

I got lots of calls from people I didn’t know. It was very good.

You were injured and are still suffering pain from when guards assaulted you when you were taken away from the hunger strike and to prison. Do you regret it?

I don’t regret it, but I’m going to be suffering with back problems forever. I didn’t just do it for me. No one just did it for themselves. We did it for all, for everyone in detention.

How does detention affect women in particular?

We are the mothers of our children and we play an important role. Detention affects women a lot: many self harm and things like that. People get really depressed and go mental at times.

Do you think the system is racist?

Well apart from locking us up because of where we come from, you can see it in the way they treat us: calling us names like “monkies” and “yardies” and stuff like that. We face lots of discrimination in there. The food was so bad I didn’t even eat it. The medical assistance isn’t good either. You see it in prison too. They treat British citizens differently from the way they treat us. We get much worse punishments for doing less than when British people do more!

We face racism in a lot of ways: the way they talk to us, they open our mail, even solicitor’s letters, which they’re not supposed to. They tell you you’re not allowed to have things you should be. They just do what they want to do. When we have visits they bring us down half an hour late. The three people over there have been waiting for the person they’re visiting for an hour. You can bet they’re not British nationals.

What would you change?

In prison, we need to be treated equally. In detention centres, they shouldn’t be detaining mothers and children. People suffer so much emotionally. I would close detention down. In prison, everyone should be treated the same, not differently because of nationality or colour.

Protest at Yarl’s Wood in solidarity with detainee hunger strikers

21 February 2010

Anti-detention campaigners today held a protest at Yarl’s Wood immigration prison in Bedfordshire in solidarity with women detainees who have been on hunger strike since 5th February.

Activists from No Borders London, Campaign Against Immigration Controls and Feminist Fightback managed to get past the prison’s security barriers and walk around the barbed-wire fence with banners, shouting solidarity slogans via loudspeakers and making noise with pots and whistles for well over an hour.

The protesters were repeatedly cheered by detainees inside, who waved their hands through half-open windows. Some also displayed hand-written placards summarising their suffering and shouted ‘freedom’ and ’shame on Serco’, the private security company that runs Yarl’s Wood on behalf of the UK Border Agency.

During the demonstration, protesters spoke to some of the detainees on the phone. One woman, who has been on hunger strike for nine days, said detainees were being “punished” by being offered “disgusting food” that many are refusing to eat. She said they were being treated “very aggressively” by the security guards and not provided with any medical care. The woman, who is originally from Jamaica and has been in detention
for eight months, added that detainees were being subjected to racist abuse. This morning, she said, she was called “a monkey” by one of the guards.

Another woman, who had just stopped her hunger strike as she “couldn’t take it any more”, described the “physical and psychological torture” that detainees suffered. Having spent several months in detention, the woman felt “devastated” being away from her 7-year-old son and British husband.

A third woman, who has been in the UK for 11 years, of which the last 6 months have been in Yarl’s Wood, described the events of February 8th, when Serco security guards tried to break up the hunger strike by force. “We were locked out between 6pm and 2am,” she said. “Some women who tried to climb out of the windows were beaten up really bad. I eventually fainted, as did many others. They’re still treating us aggressively and offering us repugnant food, which many are refusing to eat.”

The protesters also learned that one of the hunger strikers, who had been in isolation for the past 14 days, had just been ‘removed’ from Yarl’s Wood, in what appears to be a strike-busting tactic by the prison
management. She had apparently been dragged by five security guards, handcuffed and taken to Colnbrook immigration prison near Heathrow airport.

One of the demonstrators, who preferred to keep anonymous, said: “As if it weren’t enough to lock up innocent people for such lengthy periods in such horrible conditions, thereby destroying their lives and families, those who dare to protest against their inhumane treatment are punished with even more brutality. Companies like Serco are not only allowed to profit from people’s suffering, they also often get away with this kind of medieval and clearly unlawful acts. What will happen next? The Home Office will claim they take all allegations of mistreatment very seriously and promise another investigation that will never materialise.”

-ends-

For any further information, please contact
noborderslondon@riseup.net
Photos available on request.

Notes:

1. The mass hunger strike, which involved some 84 women at the start, was started on 5th February, sparked by detainees demanding that “the frustration and humiliation of all foreign nationals [in detention] ends
now.” More than two weeks on, at least 36 women are still on hunger strike, while others have stopped but are refusing to eat the food provided by the prison management. A list of the hunger strikers’ demands
can be found at http://www.ncadc.org.uk/Newszine115/HungerStrike.html.

2. On 8th February, Serco security guards tried to break up the protest by force. Some 70 women were locked in a corridor for up to 8 hours without access to food, water, toilet or medical care. Many collapsed and about 20, who tried to climbed out of the windows, were beaten up and taken into isolation cells. Four of the women, singled out as ‘ringleaders’, were taken to Bedford police station and subsequently transferred to HMP Holloway in London, without being charged with any offence or brought before a judge.

3. A number of protests in solidarity with the hunger strikers have taken place, including pickets of Serco’s offices in Holborn, London, and one-day solidarity hunger strikes by students and campaigners. For more
details, see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/02/446439.html.

4. A similar mass hunger strike in Yarl’s Wood in June last year was met with violent assaults on detainees by Serco security guards. For more details, see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/06/432625.html.

Solidarity with detainee hunger strikers

On Tuesday afternoon officers working at Yarl’s Wood – an Immigration Removal Centre run by SERCO - violently broke up the Hunger strike that started on Thursday evening.

* The women were trapped and effectively kettled in a corridor for 8 hours with no food, water or toilet facilities
* Others ended up being trapped outside in the snow for hours without jumpers,  shoes or socks
* Many were subjected to verbal assault and racial abuse
* Many suffered serious physical assault –in one known case a woman was left unable to stand and another woman’s finger was almost severed and many collapsed out of exhaustion
* Furthermore all the women involved were (and in most cases still are) denied access to medical treatment
* Ambulance and police were denied access to the centre

In response to this horrific violation of human rights and blatant abuse of power an immediate demonstration was staged from 8am to 8pm on Wednesday 10th and Thursday outside Serco in Holborn. This will culminate with this Fridays previously planned, large scale protest:

***Friday 12th at 2.30pm.*** The demo will take place at Serco’s offices at 18-22 Hand Court (off High Holborn), London, WC1V 6JF. Serco manage Yarls Wood on behalf of UKBA. Please bring banners and instruments.

Please come to show support and solidarity with the women, children and families in Yarl’s Wood and publicly condemn SERCO who are subcontracted by UKBA to run the centre.  The office is less than 15 minutes walk from SOAS, off High Holborn. See map for exact location

ALSO - London Detainee Solidarity Network is calling for people to ring Serco Offender Management and the centre manager of Yarls Wood to express support for the hunger strikers and disgust at their treatment by Serco’s guards.

Serco Home Affairs Office - 01344 386300
Yarl’s Wood Duty Manager - 01234 821517

The women’s demands are:

84 + Women on Hunger Strike, behind the Wire @ Yarl’s Wood IRC

“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

*End the frustrations, physical and mental torture at the centre

*Allow enough time and make resources available to residents who need to fully present their cases.

*To end all false allegations and misrepresentations by the UKBA regarding detainees in order to refuse bail or temporary admissions.

*Access to appropriate medical treatment and care as in the community, access to edible and well cooked food, phones with good mobile connections, with camera and recording facilities to back up cases.

*To stop the forceful removal and degrading system of deportation of detainees
*To put law into practise, European rules governing standard of conditions of detention for migrants and asylum seekers and the length of time in detention.

*The abolition of detention for asylum seeker and torture victims

*Detention should be by a standard procedure prescribed by law, authorised by judicial authority and be subjected to periodic judicial reviews.

*To end the detention of children and their mothers, rape survivors and other torture victims, to end the detention of physically, mentally sick people and pregnant women for long period of time.

*To end the separation of children from their mothers being detained whether in detention or destitution.

*To end the detention of women detention after serving time in prison.
* To abolish the fast track system, in order to give asylum seekers a fair chance with their application, while understanding the particular needs of victims of torture, and access to reliable legal representation which the fast track system denies.

*To end the repeat detention of women granted temporary admission while reporting or signing after a short period out of detention.

*To a set period of time allowed to detain women, which should be no longer than 1 month, while waiting decision either from UKBA or court proceedings.
*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.

9.1.1.       detention of asylum seekers and irregular migrants shall be exceptional and only used after first reviewing all other alternatives and finding that there is no effective alternative;

9.3.4.1. placement in special establishments (open or semi-open);
9.3.4.2. registration and reporting;

9.3.4.3. release on bail/surety;

9.3.4.4. controlled release to individuals, family members, NGOs, religious organisations, or others;

9.3.4.5. handover of travel and other documents, release combined with appointment of a special worker;

Full Text:
Council of Europe - Parliamentary Assembly Resolution 1707 (2010)1
The detention of asylum seekers and irregular migrants in Europe
http://tinyurl.com/Resolution-1707

Please support our concerns, lobby your MPs, Councilors, MEPs, demanding our immediate release and an end to arbitrary detention.

With Thanks,

Women behind the Wire @ Yarl’s Wood IRC

Messages of support/solidarity to:
WomenBehindTheWire@ncadc.org.uk