Dignity And Respect Are Universal Rights.

       Grabbed in a dawn raid, sent to a detention centre to be returned to a land where your life might be in danger, and before you are dispatched, you are raped. Not in some far-away dictatorship, but here in the so called civilised UK.

This appeal from The SumOfUs:

       Serco, one of the largest and most powerful companies in the UK, privately runs Yarl’s Wood in Bedfordshire -- an immigration removal centre where vulnerable women are detained and in some cases, raped and sexually abused by the staff who are there to protect them.

        The Chief Inspector of Prisons released a report this week on Yarl’s Wood, urgently calling for a ban on male staff entering the rooms of female detainees uninvited and for the urgent recruitment of female staff. We want more than that. We want Serco to get out of the detention business altogether.

Tell Serco the sexual abuse of women by guards proves it has no business being in the detention business.

      “They choose younger girls, the most vulnerable. They do whatever they want." That’s what “Tanja”, one brave witness and detainee at Yarl’s Wood said. The staff have worked out a convenient way to abuse the women in their care - in the upstairs room set aside for asylum-seekers to take family photos. There's a nice sofa, curtains, and no CCTV up there.

      We have to act quickly. The alleged victims and witnesses who are coming forward and testifying are being deported by the Home Office. Several of them were put on a flight to Pakistan on 1 October. We can’t let this go on another minute.

      Serco will hear us. Their reputation is already in tatters. They’re hoping that if they make a few concessions, and sack a few staff, the controversy will die down. We won’t let it. We won’t accept the sexual abuse and rape of vulnerable women by Serco staff.

       This is part of a pattern of abuse. In 2010 a 30-year-old woman became pregnant by an officer in Yarl's Wood. And many other women may be too fearful to testify or are deported before their case is sufficiently examined. These women are not criminals - many have been victimised by traffickers or were in abusive relationships before they were detained.

Corporations have been left unaccountable for too long. Help hold Serco to account for their behaviour.

Thanks for all that you do,

Hanna, Kaytee, and the rest of us at SumOfUs.org

      p.s. To make things worse, Serco also services our schools. They manage the Local Education Authorities in Bradford, Walsall, and Stoke-on-Trent... that’s right.

 

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More information:

The truth about sexual abuse at Yarl's Wood detention centre, 29 October, Open Democracy
Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre 'needs more female staff' after detainee abused by officers, 29 October, Independent
Yarl's Wood abuse allegations: Tanja's story, 14 September, Guardian

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk