Making money from children's misery

Last weekend I blogged about the campaign to end the inhumane and unjust detention of asylum seeker children in the UK, including an online petition you can support HERE. Henry Porter has helped expose the brutal truth of child detention, and pointedly asks 'who benefits?':

'Clearly the private companies that run so much of this operation have a lot to gain. G4S, the company that operates Tinlsey House, one of three detention centres where last month 10-year-old Adeoti Ogunsola tried to strangle herself after being forcibly redetained, recently reported rising profits and growth in government business which had offset weakness in commercial sectors.'

Clare Sambrook, novelist and campaigner with End Child Detention Now, reveals more about the corporate beneficiaries of child detention, recording HERE that: 'Last year G4S handed chief executive, Nick Buckles, a £1.4 million pay package. That’s £3,835 every day. He owns £4 million in G4S shares, tipped by the Daily Telegraph as, ‘a solid buy for these uncertain times’.

The on-going scandal of the treatment of asylum seeker children drew a good response from a long list of children's authors, who signed a letter to The Observer in December. Signatories included Beverley Naidoo, Michael Rosen, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, Quentin Blake, Carol Ann Duffy, Benjamin Zephanaia and Phillip Pullman. The letter states:

'These children have already had their worlds torn apart and witnessed their parents in turmoil and in stress. No wonder that paediatricians and psychologists report that child detainees are confused, fearful, unable to sleep, suffer headaches, tummy pains and weight loss and exhibit severe emotional and behavioural problems.'

See HERE for the background to the picture above.