On 27 July the parents of sixteen families at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire refused breakfast and refused to send their children to school, starting a hunger strike against the bad treatment of their children. They demanded to be allowed to speak to the Home Office.
One of the parents said: “We want the Home Office to hear us and free us”. Another said: “It is like they have put us in a small box, with the intention of forcing us to go back to our countries which are not safe… We are tired of being treated as less than human beings, the ill treatment of our wives and children must stop, they deserve to be treated with human dignity.”
Some of the families — including young children — have been locked up in the detention centre for weeks, leading to poor health and a heavy emotional toll. The Home Office has refused to meet the parents who are refusing the food they are given. Despite the fact that a family of four at the centre is only entitled to £4 per week ‘pocket money’, the Home Office claims that the hunger strikers are secretly buying food for themselves! While the government claims that “Every Child Matters”, they do not care at all about the plight of the children who they deport for the sake of looking “tough on immigration”.
This is not the first time that detainees have gone on hunger strike against the appalling conditions at Yarl’s Wood. In July 2005 alone, 30 Ugandan women and 55 Zimbabweans took action against conditions and at forced deportations.
In desperation at the situation, one woman tried to commit suicide on 8 August. Inadequate healthcare, food and education, and cramped living space, displays the Home Office’s complete lack of concern for the people it forces to return “home” against their will.