[Anarchafeminists] Public Meeting: Detention & deportation, women's uncensored experiences

[BWRAP]

Dear sisters,

If you haven’t already done so, could you please circulate the information 

below to your network?

Many thanks.

Cristel and Maria


For immediate Release: 020 7482 2496 or 07980 659 831


Public Event: Can You Hear Us? 
Women’s uncensored experiences of detention and deportation
All speakers will be available for interview.  

Date: 14 January
Time: 6-8pm
Venue: Committee Room 5, House of Commons

While the brutal detention of children has been finally condemned, little
has been said about the detention of mothers and its impact on families,
including children, and other vulnerable people.  

Over 70% of women seeking asylum are rape survivors [1]. Many are detained
in prison-like conditions throughout Britain, including in Yarl’s Wood
Removal Centre which holds over 400 women and their families.  This is in
breach of national guidelines and international agreements. 

Women will testify about their struggles against an increasingly punitive
immigration system, and their demands for change.  They include rape
survivors, mothers separated from their children, lesbian women, and several
women who were recently released from Yarl’s Wood.  Some have been involved
in hunger strikes and protests against the brutal, profit-orientated regime
run by SERCO [2] and against violent deportations by privatised security
companies.  

Ms Idri Jawara is one of the speakers.

Ms Idri Jawara was married in Gambia in October 1991 and her husband
insisted she adopt his family’s tradition of carrying out female genital
mutilation.  As a victim of this practice herself, Ms Jawara refused to
inflict it on her daughters and other girls.  As her marriage began to
deteriorate, Ms Jawara began a lesbian relationship with a close friend.
When her husband found out he raped and beat her daily and eventually took
her to a Sharia court where he accused her of having a forbidden
relationship.  The court found her guilty and sentenced her to death by
stoning on 11 May 2009.

On 13 May, Ms Jawara fled to Britain.  She was entitled to claim asylum
under the Refugee Convention because of the persecution she suffered and
because she couldn’t rely on the Gambian government to protect her.  In
June, when she submitted her claim, she was detained in Yarl’s Wood IRC.
Despite having explained she was a victim of rape, her case was put into the
fast-track process which allows only two days for an asylum application to
be made and a further six days to appeal a refusal.  This leaves no time for
people to gather the medical and other expert reports essential to
corroborate a claim of persecution.  Like 98% of other applicants considered
under the fast track, Ms Jawara was refused.  Like hundreds of other women,
Ms Jawara was then left without legal representation as her lawyer
concluded, without having gathered any of the key evidence, that her case
had no merit.  She tried to represent herself at her appeal hearing but was
too embarrassed to speak about her sexuality and her appeal was rejected.
Faced with imminent removal, she found a new lawyer who put in a Judicial
Review and commissioned an expert report from Black Women’s Rape Action
Project.  Her removal was suspended after the Gambian authorities refused to
issue a travel document.  She was finally released shortly before Christmas.
  

What makes people angry is the lack of money to help the vulnerable. 

There are 42 million displaced people worldwide [3].  Women and children are
80% of the casualties of wars [4]. The role of the British government in
fomenting and supporting many of these wars remains hidden.  Instead we are
bombarded with political and religious ‘leaders’ claiming, without any
concrete evidence, that people blame immigration for a scarcity of
resources.  Yet recent research confirms the positive contribution immigrant
people make to society. [5]  
 

Over six years ago women seeking asylum in the UK founded the All African
Women’s Group.  They describe that when people hear directly about the
suffering and injustice they have experienced, both in their countries of
origin and since their arrival in the UK, there is often an outpouring of
sympathy, compassion and outrage.  

“What we see that makes people angry is the lack of money to help the
vulnerable.  Women and children are left destitute by government policies
while billions are squandered on war.  We never hear from government that
there’s no money for these wars which kill and maim, force us to flee our
countries and drain the vital services everyone needs to survive.  Of
course, we also experience hostility and discrimination from some people,
especially those in authority.  But racist attacks increase every time the
government launches another witch-hunt against us as ‘bogus’ or ‘scroungers’
– we are held up as scapegoats for people’s frustration at political and
economic priorities which undermine most of us, whether we were born here or
not.”  


But despite being isolated, denied access to dependable lawyers, subjected
to slave labour and negligent healthcare, abused and assaulted during
deportations, and terrorised by the threat of being sent back . . . women
continue to organise creatively in their own defence. 

For interviews with Ms Jawara and others or more information:
Maria Kasaga, All African Women’s Group, aawg02 at googlemail.com 
Cristel Amiss, Black Women’s Rape Action Project, bwrap at dircon.co.uk
Crossroads Women’s Centre. 

Sponsoring organisations: Legal Action for Women, Women Against Rape, SOAS
Visitors group & Yarl’s Wood Befrienders.     

  _____  

[1] A Bleak House in Our Times: An investigation into women’s rights
violations at Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre, Legal Action for Women

[2] SERCO Group plc won an £85 million contract to run Yarl's Wood initially
for three years, with optional extensions up to eight years. 

[3] UNHCR annual report, June 2009

[4] UNHCR Refugees Magazine Issue 126, April 2002

[5] Can Migrants Save the Global Economy?
http://www.counterpunch.org/kar12232009.html 

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