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Life on the edge of an abyss
The arrest of an 11-year-old Leeds schoolgirl and her mother in readiness for deportation to Africa brought a storm of protest from YEP readers. But the incident was one of hundreds. PETER LAZENBY reports.
EVERY year 2,000 children and young people are arrested and imprisoned in detention centres in Britain.
They have committed no crime, yet can be held without charge or trial for days, weeks and even months.
The reason? They are the sons and daughters of asylum seekers.
In Leeds the arrests often take place in dawn raids.
Asylum support agencies say Leeds has an estimated 1,000 asylum seekers under the age of 18. Of these around 850 are accompanied by a parent or relative. Some 150 are alone, in social service care.
Accompanies
The parentless ones are safest from arrest. Current Government policy is that it will not deport refused asylum seekers under 18 unless an adult parent or relative accompanies them. They are given leave to stay until they are 18.
The rest of the children have no such security.
That is why Manuel Bravo hanged himself five years ago. He and his 13-years-old son Antonio were seized in a dawn raid on their home at Armley, Leeds, in readiness for deportation. After their arrival at Yarls Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire Mr Bravo, 35, killed himself. He knew that by doing so Antonio would not be sent back to Angola in Africa, where Mr Bravo's parents had been murdered and his sister raped.
His dad's sacrifice meant Antonio was safe for the time being. Such is the desperation of some of the people seeking refuge in Britain.
There are hundreds of families with children in Leeds who have been refused asylum, and for them, the threat of the dawn raid, arrest and imprisonment is never far away.
Solace is a Leeds-based charity established two years ago to provide specialist therapy for asylum seekers with mental health problems.
Many have faced persecution and exile, torture, rape, the death or disappearance of loved ones and other atrocities.
Therapist Anne Burghgraef has come across nightmare stories of the experiences of children and families in Leeds.
There was the mother arrested semi-naked, then handcuffed, and transported to Yarls Wood in that state with her three children.
Another mother and her two young daughters who were taken to Yarls Wood were released and eventually won permission to stay.
"But basically the children are still living in fear of immigration officers coming in and dragging them out of their beds and taking them to detention even though they have refugee status," said Ms Burghgraef.
"They were so terrified they refused to sleep in their own room - the youngest child still refuses to sleep in her own room.
That case can be multiplied."
"Like dangerous criminals, asylum seekers, including women with young children, are all too often raided at dawn by immigration officials and sent to a detention centre without warning," said Solace.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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