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ACTION
ALERT: Two
hospitalised in fifth week of Ugandan women’s hunger strike at
Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre
What
you can do:
Write
immediately to:
Immigration
Minister Tony McNulty
Fax: 020-7219 2417
Telephone: 020-7219 4108
The
Women and Equality Unit, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET
, Telephone:
0207 215 5000 Email:
info-womenandequalityunit@dti.gsi.gov.uk
Yarl's Wood Centre Manager, Ray Reveley
, Telephone: 01234 821000 Fax: 01234 217438
Alistair
Burt MP Fax 01234
314 691 or 020 7219 1740 Email: burta@parliament.uk
Send a copy of your
correspondence to us
Two women have been taken to Bedford
Hospital as fears grow for the health of the Ugandan hunger
strikers in the fifth week of their protest.
Four women hunger strikers remain in Yarl’s Wood
protesting against their deportation and the conditions in
detention. One very ill and weak woman was taken on a 12-hour journey to Dungavel
Detention Centre in Scotland, where she remains on hunger
strike. Other
women, including spokeswoman Harriet Anyangokolo, have been
released having at last secured legal representation and the
opportunity to get their case reconsidered as a result of their
protest. But at
least two women have been deported, one of whom was stopped by
corrupt immigration officials in Uganda demanding she give them
all her money or they would hand her over to the police.
She is now in hiding.
There has been no contact with the other woman.
The Home Office refuses to take any responsibility for
monitoring the safety of those it returns.
Ms Anyangokolo comments:
“There are 250
of us, cooped up in terrible conditions. Some of us have children with us, some have left them behind,
and others are mothers as a result of rape.
We are innocent women and children whose rights are being
violated. Many of
us are ill as a result of torture, and some are so
depressed they have tried to commit suicide.
After all we have suffered the British government still
wants to deport us back to war zones and the dictators we
opposed, denying us protection and safety.
They dump us in detention centres where we suffer again
from poor medical attention, bad food, harassment and sexual
intimidation by male staff, false accusations and racism causing
us more trauma. We have been denied
the opportunity to make our claims properly through cuts in
legal aid, negligent or even corrupt lawyers, and racism and
sexism in decisions refusing our claims.
Some of us have been forced
onto planes with the most appalling brutality and regardless of
the justice of our claim. Women
are continuing to fight for our rights and against deportation
– we deserve safe accommodation not imprisonment, because we
are not criminals, we are simply asylum seekers who deserve
protection under international law.
It would be better to
die in a British rather than a
Ugandan detention centre.”
The government
is determined to deport those it labels “failed asylum
seekers” no matter how unjustly. There is widespread recognition that the legal representation
available to asylum seekers is deficient and in some cases
corrupt. The cases
below illustrate how these deficiencies are life threatening for
women asylum seekers who are routinely imprisoned - against
UNHCR and the government’s own guidelines - and threatened
with deportation. As a result of their public
protest, most of the women have now secured legal
representation. The
threat of removal should be lifted and all the women should be
released immediately whilst their cases are reconsidered.
1
September 2005
For
more information contact: Legal
Action for Women
Crossroads
Women’s Centre PO
Box 287 London NW6
5QU
Tel:
020 7482 2496 minicom/voice
Fax: 020 7209 4761;
Mob: 079291 38554
E-mail:
law@crossroadswomen.net
Ms
Gloria Chalimpa (HO
Ref: C1117339/3 Port Ref: SEV/02/5277)
has been in detention since 24 June
2005 and is due to be deported on 22 September. She
suffered years of repeated rape from the age of six, when the
Lords Resistance Army (LRA) killed her parents and abducted her.
She was trained as a child soldier how to fight and use
guns. She was sold to a “sponsor”, who also raped her and later
arranged for her to study in the UK.
On a visit back to Uganda she was arrested and imprisoned
for kissing another woman in a nightclub.
She managed to escape and returned to the UK.
But when she claimed asylum she was put on the
“fast-track” procedure and detained in Yarl’s Wood.
The fast-track system, which is claimed to be only used
for “straight forward” cases, drastically reduces the time
to prepare an asylum claim, denying women like Ms Chalimpa’s
access to independent legal representation and other expert
support upon which their lives depend.
Ms Chalimpa’s case was refused and she had to appeal
without legal representation.
Her lawyer said that there was insufficient likelihood of
her winning her case to justify applying for legal aid.
Her appeal was refused and she is now too ill to ask for
reconsideration of her case, which is her right, and as a result
her case was closed. Ms
Chalimpa has a one year old daughter born in the UK whom she has
not seen since being detained, compounding her depression.
She has attempted suicide several times, including on
Monday of this week when she was found trying to hang herself in
the laundry room in Yarl’s Wood.
She has no memory of what happened and is now on constant
suicide watch. We
are urgently trying to find her legal representation.
Ms
Madina Irimeri (HO Ref: G 1121198/2
Port ref: AFC/561670)
has been detained for three months
in the UK and is due to be deported on 20 September.
She was detained in military barracks in Uganda where she
suffered rape and other torture.
The Home Office refused to believe her account when she
claimed asylum. Ms
Irimeri’s lawyer failed to keep her informed of what was being
done on her case, and she never saw what was submitted to the
authorities. No
expert report was commissioned by her lawyer for her appeal
hearing to document Ms Irimeri’s account of her experiences
and investigate their impact on her.
An affidavit she had got from Uganda confirming her
account was dismissed by the adjudicator because it was a fax.
She has obtained an original of this document but it is
not clear whether her lawyers have even submitted this.
She now has a new lawyer who is pursuing her claim.
Ms
Charity
Mutebwa (HO
Ref: M1210512 Port Ref: CEU570884) has been detained for
three months and is on the 32nd
day of her hunger strike.
She was taken to Uganda after her Rwandan parents were
slaughtered in the genocide of 1994.
As supporters of an opposition party her husband and
brother were killed and she was detained, where she was
repeatedly gang raped by government soldiers.
She escaped and fled to the UK but her her account of her
experiences was dismissed by the Home Office and the courts. Her
case was badly handled by her legal representatives – she
later discovered the person representing her was a translator
not a solicitor. The
firm then claimed to have no knowledge of her case and that they
did not have her documents, so she could not get another
solicitor to pursue her claim. Her
deportation should have been stopped when a new solicitor issued
legal proceedings the day before she was due to go.
But she was still taken to Heathrow airport.
It was only when she insisted on calling her lawyer that
the Home Office who confirmed she should not be deported.
Ms Mutebwa was extremely weak and sick from her hunger
strike but instead of returning to Yarl’s Wood, she was taken
on a gruelling 12-hour journey to
Dungavel Detention Centre
in Scotland, locked in a small cell within the prison van.
Ms Mutebwa’s new lawyer is pursuing her asylum claim.
Ms
Grace Namanda (HO
ref: N1075891 Port ref: MEU/03/3636) has been held in Yarl’s Wood for the past three months.
She was diagnosed as being
HIV+ and fell ill while in the UK. She claimed asylum as the treatment upon which her life
depends is not available in Uganda.
Although she won her case on human rights grounds, the
Home Office appealed the decision claiming the treatment she
needed was available and free in Uganda.
Ms Namanda’s husband, father and siblings have all died
because they did not get the treatment they needed.
Her sister is her only remaining adult relative and is
raising ten children, of whom five are orphans, but has no
income. They have
been depending on whatever Ms Namanda managed to send from her
meager NASS support which has been stopped, so she is now
extremely worried about them. Recent press coverage has exposed how aid money meant to be
funding HIV/AIDs treatment has “disappeared”. Experts have
also challenged the authenticity of the government statistics on
the availability and effectiveness of its treatment programmes,
which the UK authorities have been citing.
Having very recently secured legal representation, Ms
Namanda has started taking a little fruit and vegetables as she
was becoming too ill to pursue her case.
Ms
Sophie Odogo (HO
Ref: O1086410/2)
was detained on 17 May 2005 and has been in Bedford Hospital
since Sunday, where we have not been able to speak with her
because she is too weak.
She fled to the UK after a relative helped her escape
detention in Uganda, where she suffered repeated rape and other
torture. She was
detained the day after her asylum interview.
The Home Office said they did not believe her account,
citing her lack of knowledge about her husband’s political
activities. No
expert evidence investigating and assessing the traumatic impact
of her experiences was commissioned by her lawyer.
Her account of rape was dismissed by the adjudicator at
her appeal and her application for Judicial Review was refused. She has a new lawyer who is pursuing her case.
Ms
Enid Ruhango
(HO
ref: R1095499 Port ref: LBE/393901) was detained on 17 May and has also been in Bedford Hospital after she
collapsed in Yarl’s Wood on Sunday.
She was raped by Ugandan soldiers looking for her husband
who was in the LRA, and again when she was taken into detention.
She was raped again by the man who brought her to the UK.
Again no expert evidence was commissioned by her lawyer
to document her experiences and needs.
The Home Office and the adjudicator at her appeal
dismissed her account. She
too has found a new lawyer through the help of Alistair Burt MP,
who has been intervening in the women’s cases.
Ms
Salima Sekindi
(HO
ref: S1060767 Port ref: EDD/00/9612) is
on the 32nd day of hunger strike.
She was detained on 30 May 2005 and is due to be deported
on 13/14 September.
Ms Sekindi fled from Uganda after being raped by members
of the security forces who came to her home looking for her
husband, who was involved in the opposition.
After she made her initial asylum application she never
heard again from her lawyer despite her numerous phone calls and
faxes. It was only
when she was picked up and taken into detention that she found
out that the Home Office had refused her case.
She found out that her appeal hearing had gone ahead
without her knowledge and without her lawyer present.
She has now found a new lawyer to pursue her case.
Since
Legal Action for Women issued an asylum rights Self-Help Guide*
in June, Black Women’s Rape Action Project and Women Against
Rape have been inundated with calls from women in detention.
Vulnerable and traumatized women are being forced onto
planes with the most appalling brutality and regardless of the
validity of their claim.
There is no
doubt that these women will be even more vulnerable in Uganda
having spoken out about the torture they suffered.
Please help save the hunger strikers.
Your calls/letters could be decisive.
Send us a copy of anything you write to the Home Office.
ACTION:
Write
immediately to:
Immigration
Minister Tony McNulty
Fax: 020-7219 2417
Telephone: 020-7219 4108
The
Women and Equality Unit, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET
Telephone:
0207 215 5000 Email:
info-womenandequalityunit@dti.gsi.gov.uk
Yarl's Wood Centre Manager,
Ray Reveley
Telephone: 01234 821000 Fax: 01234 217438
Alistair
Burt MP Fax 01234
314 691 or 020 7219 1740 Email: burta@parliament.uk
Send a copy of your
correspondence to us
*
For Asylum Seekers and their Supporters – A Self-Help Guide
Against Detention and Deportation is available from LAW
Legal
Action for Women
All
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