Refugee Action Responds to Child Detention Reports

From Refugee Action. Have a browse around their website:

In response to today’s reports that almost 700 children have been detained at ports and airports between May and August this year, Dave Garratt, Chief Executive at Refugee Action, said:

“We are shocked by the high numbers of children that have been detained, with more than a quarter of those children travelling alone.

“We welcomed the government’s announcement that it was committed to ending child detention for immigration purposes by May this year, which makes this figure all the more shocking. Their publication also follows the Independent Monitoring Board’s recent description of some of the detention facilities at Heathrow Airport as ‘degrading’.

“We agree with the Children’s Society, which obtained the figures through the Freedom of Information Act, that the Home Office should launch an enquiry into the reasons why so many children have been detained on entry to the UK and the length of that detention.”