Clare Sambrook wins Paul Foot Award for campaign to end child detention

I'm pleased to learn Clare Sambrook is the extremely deserving winner of this year's Paul Foot Award for campaigning journalism (see HERE). The freelance writer was announced as winner of the £5000 prize at an event in London tonight.

I've re-posted or linked to her work on child detention on a number of occasions. She's exposed scandals around the detention of asylum seekers' children in UK facilities for Open Democracy, Private Eye and The Guardian, and is prominent in End Child Detention Now.

Other names on the shortlist included excellent writers and campaigners like Eamonn McCann and Nick Davies. The award was set up by Private Eye and the Guardian in memory of Paul Foot, campaigning journalist and socialist activist (and personal hero for some of us), following his death in 2004.

Clare Sambrook says:

‘Reading Paul Foot’s books when I was fresh out of university gave me a strong sense of what journalism could and should be. This is a massive honour, hugely encouraging and a real boost to the End Child Detention Now campaign at a time when the government has reneged on its commitment to stop this inhumanity.’

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Gay asylum seekers - welcome in the UK

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Sent to Kabul: UK to deport child asylum seekers

The UK is set to start deporting unaccompanied teenage asylum seekers to Afghanistan. A 'reintegration centre', costing £4 million, is to be opened in the Afghan capital Kabul.

The UK Border Agency plans to forcibly return 12 boys a month to Afghanistan. It will also enforce "reintegration assistance" for 120 adults every month.

The revelations come in a Home Office tender document originally issued in March. It represents a major change in policy from recent years.

This country, however, is not alone. Norway, Sweden, Holland and Denmark have all either announced plans for a 'reception centre' in Kabul or are reported to be planning such centres.

A meeting of EU home affairs ministers last week agreed new measures on asylum seeker children. The plan included enabling countries of origin to have "reception centres that can provide care for minors when the family cannot be found".

Human rights groups criticised the plans, saying they allow Western governments to deport children without being able to guarantee their welfare. Simone Troller of Human Rights Watch said:

"Before deporting vulnerable kids to places like Afghanistan, EU governments need to make sure it is in the children's best interests."

Human Rights Watch points out that the plans appear to be driven by cost-cutting. An EU policy paper suggested that formal safegaurds like guardianship are "immensely expensive to put in place".

There are over 4,200 unaccompanied asylum seekers aged under 18 in the UK. Most are supported in local authority social services homes. Afghans form the largest group.

In the first 3 months of this year, around 400 minors claimed asylum. Nearly half of them were from Afghanistan.

The terms of the UK Border Agency contract (obtained by The Guardian) reveal that 12 young Afghan males, aged 16 and 17, are to be deported to war-torn Kabul every month. They will be accommodated until they are 18, with adults providing supervisory care.

The centre will also provide "reintegration assistance", including vocational training, business start-up grants and short-term accommodation, for 120 deported adults each month. This means over 1,400 adult asylum seekers a year deported to Kabul.

Donna Covey, chief executive of The Refugee Council, said: "There has been little said about how these children would be kept safe … if they have no family to whom they can be returned safely, should they be returned at all?

"There are serious questions to be raised about the quality of decision-making on the cases of unaccompanied children. The money would be better spent improving the way that children's claims are assessed, so that we can be sure we never put them in danger."


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The scandal of child detention

I've written previously about the End Child Detention Now campaign and why it is so necessary. The treatment of asylum seeking children by UK authorities is frequently scandalous, a far cry from the myths propagated by the Daily Express and those intent on demonising immigrants. Clare Sambrook, writer and campaigner, has written a new piece published by Open Democracy. It is the story of two brothers from Afghanistan, where their parents were killed. The treatment of the younger boy, since he arrived in this country, has been a disgrace.

Clare Sambrook writes:

There’s a picture on my screen: a small, slight boy who, for legal reasons, we’ll call M. He’s being cuddled by his 17 year old big brother Z. Both boys are smiling. They have been reunited after a long, hard separation.

Back home in war-torn Afghanistan their parents and a sister were killed. Big brother Z was first to come to Britain, traumatised, in November 2008. He has refugee status, studies for his GCSEs at school in Leicester.

This past October little brother M made his way here. Despite M’s size, his vulnerability, his boyish looks, officials said, you’re not 14, you’re an adult.

Instead of being taken into care, M was bounced around between three different adult hostels and a house-share with older men — and refused asylum.

Read the full story HERE.

Campaigns to stop criminalising the innocent

I've previously reported photographers' campaign against the daft 'anti-terror' legislation that effectively makes it illegal to photograph police officers. Photographers are increasingly treated with suspicion and distrust by the authorities.

They have an imaginative protest - a 'mass photo gathering' - lined up for Saturday. You can learn more at their impressive website (it's helped by - as might be expected - good use of pictures).

I've also blogged recently on the campaign to end detention of asylum seeking children. On the campaign's website there's an inspiring example of someone taking the initiative to raise the profile of this important issue: 'Bringing the gift of literature to the children of Yarl's Wood'.

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.

End the detention of asylum seeking children

The Sauce has a good campaigning article on how asylum seeking children in this country are treated. I've signed the online petition and recommend you do likewise - it takes a couple of minutes. There's very little like this in the mainstream media, dominated as it is by anti-immigrant rhetoric and scare stories.

'During the first six months of this year a total of 470 children were being held in detention centres in the UK, with over 70 percent seeking asylum from countries like Zimbabwe, Somalia, Sudan and Sri Lanka.

In February this year one family was awarded £150,000 after the government admitted they were detained unlawfully and one of the children had suffered post traumatic stress disorder as a result.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson now has a statutory duty of care for children held in detention by UKBA immigration officials.

The announcement of the new responsibilities for the Home Office in November this year follows the publication of a damning independent report exposing the appalling impact of detention.'

Read more HERE.

The Sauce has a new follow up story to this article HERE.