In my defence I should mention that I think of them often. But then impotence sets in, because I always feel there isn’t much, if anything, we can do about the children who come to Britain seeking asylum. So thank God for people like Beverley Naidoo, who has just been to Yarl’s Wood – where the children are detained like prisoners – on a visit. Then she wrote an article for the Guardian about it.
There is nothing in Beverley’s tale that suggests this isn’t a prison. They can call it whatever they like, but ‘nicer’ words won’t change what it is. But I suppose it’s reassuring they still required Beverley and the accompanying illustrator Karin Littlewood to bring their enhanced CRB forms and proper ID. To search a visiting author for so long that a great chunk of the time intended for the children just disappears is beyond belief.
And were the teachers in uniform with the keys really guards? Would real teachers stand for this kind of thing? (I asked Beverley if she found out in the end, and she reckons they are teachers, but special Serco teachers.)
It can never be easy to come to a new country as an asylum seeker. To be a child and to be treated like a criminal in one of the supposedly good countries of the world, must be totally bewildering. There is a petition you can all sign at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoChildDetention/
Please do so now. It’s very quick.
The campaign End Child Detention Now can be found here.
The Other Side of Truth by Beverley Naidoo and Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah are two of the strongest ‘asylum’ books for young readers that I know. Not new, but well worth reading if you haven’t already.