Image: Simone J Rudolphi
Today we mark four long years since the first women seeking asylum in the UK were brought to Derwentside IRC. A gruelling five hour journey from Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre near Bedford, where women in immigration detention were then imprisoned – as many still are.
A year long campaign to stop the opening of the centre had received widespread support (read our letter to the then Home Secretary Priti Patel here). Since then we have been present at the gates of the IRC Saturday after Saturday, in solidarity with the hundreds of women who have passed through those gates facing indefinite detention in alien surroundings.
The photo above and these words below come from local news coverage on 22nd December 2021, when we knew the opening of the renamed detention centre at Hassockfield outside the Durham village of Medomsley was imminent.
Former detainee Agnes Tanoh reminded us, “People coming here to seek asylum are hoping for security and freedom. They want to rebuild their lives after what they went through. They believe that they are coming to a country of human rights but they find themselves in a prison. I don’t want that. I want the women at Yarl’s Wood to be released, not locked up in another far away place.
“Right now, other families are writing cards, doing their Christmas shopping, having a joyful time and sharing love. Thinking about these women who will be locked up alone and afraid, not knowing what to do, makes me so sad. This should be a time of smiling, loving, sharing and being together. It is not a time to be locked up.”
No to Hassockfield member Helen Groom, a retired Gateshead GP, accused the government of opening the centre at Christmas so fewer people would notice. She said: “The women arriving at Hassockfield/Derwentside are all somebody’s mother, wife, daughter, sister; many of them will have fled their homes after suffering sexual violence, persecution and abuse. To lock them up is cruel, inhumane, expensive and unnecessary. We call on Priti Patel to release all women in detention and to close Hassockfield now.”
We demand an end to the violence of indefinite and unnecessary detention!
Every word Helen said in 2021 is still true. We now have just as hardline a Home Secretary in Shabana Mahmood. Today we’ll gather at the gates of Derwentside and call on her to listen to the voices of women like Agnes and Helen – and to the hundreds more voices who have joined our campaign.
(Image: Simone J Rudolphi)
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