|
PRESS CONFERENCE: Women and Children Last? Mothers
counter election lies about asylum seekers 11am
Tuesday 3 May Labour’s crusade against asylum seekers emboldened by Tory racist claims that they will be even tougher, has ensured that the situation of mothers and children seeking asylum has remained invisible. While Labour boasts they “support mothers” and “free women from fear”, immigration officials target women with kids for deportation and detention, describing them as “easy pickings”. Women and children live in constant fear of raids. The government seems to take sadistic pleasure in separating women from their children. Midwives have described how new legislation, which removes support from mothers who have been refused asylum, has resulted in children, including newborns being torn from their mothers in maternity wards and put into care. Mothers will speak about the horror of seeing their children beaten, abducted or killed in front of them. Some have risked bringing their children; others have had to leave them behind. Some are raising children conceived as a result of rape, children they love but who are a constant reminder of the torture they suffered. Others are imprisoned for months and denied proper food, nappies and other essentials, medication, education and contact with the outside world. Schools opposed legislation denying children the right to education with their peers. Teachers, parents and friends were ignored, and children continue to disappear from classrooms. Speakers include: a.. Members of the All African Women’s Group. Ms X, whose children were abducted from her home in Democratic Republic of Congo says: “The pain of our loss at being forced to leave our children is too intense to bear speaking about. I know that my two are alone, without anyone to care for them. I know that soldiers are on the look out for girls to rape -- they don’t care about their age.” b.. Black Women’s Rape
Action Project on women seeking asylum who are rape survivors.
“Most women’s cases are compelling, turned down because the
Home Office brushes aside evidence of
rape and other torture.” d.. Nushra Mapstone, British Association of Social Workers, on social workers’ refusal to take children from their mothers. Every mother understands the unbearable pain and guilt of not being able to save those we gave birth to and invested our lives in caring for. Such devastation frames every waking moment of many mothers’ lives. For this to be hidden and then dismissed or belittled by the authorities is a terrible injustice. As the parties compete for the “women’s vote,” which candidates will defend all mothers and children? Who will speak for those thousands fleeing war and persecution? |