The hidden plight of women asylum seekers detained in Britain is exposed today as a major new report warns that female rape and torture victims are being locked up indefinitely, suffering from depression and being intimidated by male guards.
Most were housed in Yarl's Wood, Britain's largest Immigration Removal Centre, in Bedfordshire, which can house up to 400 women. More than 90 per cent of women said they felt depression. One in five said they tried to kill themselves in detention, while a third had been placed on suicide watch.
Almost twenty per cent of the women WRW interviewed said they fled persecution based on sexual orientation. Alice (not her real name), is a 26-year-old lesbian who says she was arrested and sexually assaulted in prison in Cameroon. She was sent to
Yarl's Wood last year and put on suicide watch. “I burnt myself badly on my arm with hot water and saw other women do similar things - using forks to stab themselves and drinking whole bottles of shampoo in an attempt to kill themselves… I would honestly die rather than go back to Yarl's Wood,” she said.
Actress Juliet Stevenson, who has been actively involved in campaigning for the rights of asylum-seekers, said immigration and asylum is currently “being lumped together in one conversation,” so “that no distinction is made between people who have fled great adversity, and migrants who do have a choice about whether they come to this country or not.”
She added: “I hope that by telling some of the stories of women in detention we can begin to break through that frenzy, and remind people that these women are individuals whose voices need to be heard.”
Case study: Cameroonian playwright
Lydia Besong, a Cameroonian playwright, was detained in Yarl’s Wood twice after her and her husband’s request for asylum was refused.
(Aliya Mirza)
“When I was in prison I suffered a lot. I was tortured. If you look at my legs you will see the scars. It is very hard for a woman to say that she has been raped
”When I arrived in the UK with my husband, I thought that I would be safe [but] I was refused asylum. The Home Office just said that they didn’t believe me. Being locked up reminded me so much of being put in prison back home, it brought back all the memory of torture.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m in a trance, I hear the footsteps of the officers, I hear the banging of the doors and the sound of their keys. I wish the politicians could understand what they are doing to women by detaining us like this when we have already been through so much. ”Asylum-seekers are not criminals."
Independent.co.uk
Yarl's Wood last year and put on suicide watch. “I burnt myself badly on my arm with hot water and saw other women do similar things - using forks to stab themselves and drinking whole bottles of shampoo in an attempt to kill themselves… I would honestly die rather than go back to Yarl's Wood,” she said.
Actress Juliet Stevenson, who has been actively involved in campaigning for the rights of asylum-seekers, said immigration and asylum is currently “being lumped together in one conversation,” so “that no distinction is made between people who have fled great adversity, and migrants who do have a choice about whether they come to this country or not.”
She added: “I hope that by telling some of the stories of women in detention we can begin to break through that frenzy, and remind people that these women are individuals whose voices need to be heard.”
Case study: Cameroonian playwright
Lydia Besong, a Cameroonian playwright, was detained in Yarl’s Wood twice after her and her husband’s request for asylum was refused.
(Aliya Mirza)
“When I was in prison I suffered a lot. I was tortured. If you look at my legs you will see the scars. It is very hard for a woman to say that she has been raped
”When I arrived in the UK with my husband, I thought that I would be safe [but] I was refused asylum. The Home Office just said that they didn’t believe me. Being locked up reminded me so much of being put in prison back home, it brought back all the memory of torture.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m in a trance, I hear the footsteps of the officers, I hear the banging of the doors and the sound of their keys. I wish the politicians could understand what they are doing to women by detaining us like this when we have already been through so much. ”Asylum-seekers are not criminals."
Independent.co.uk
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