Party activists press Clegg to end “state sponsored cruelty”, aka the detention of children

As Nick Clegg faced his party for a Q&A session on Sunday, he was called to comment on a wide range of issues, from aid to education, cuts to child detention.

Our ears pricked up as an impassioned party activist reminded him of his own words on child detention for immigration purposes – a practice that is “state sponsored cruelty” and a “source of moral shame”. The promise is made but when is it going to end, she asked?

Nick Clegg assured the applauding crowd that while recent reports in the press have suggested that the practice of holding children in immigration detention centres would be minimised rather than eradicated, that it is going to end fully and in fact has already in the vast majority of cases.

He pointed to regional pilots taking place over the summer with families facing removal from the UK. Clegg reminded his audience that he had long campaigned, with many of them, against what could be described as some of the more “barbaric elements of the asylum system”.

The Medical Foundation has treated many torture surviving children and families who have been re-traumatised by detention in the UK.

The Medical Foundation publicly welcomed the Coalition Government’s commitment to end the detention of children. However, we are increasingly concerned that the unqualified commitment to end the practice is slipping as no action has been taken beyond the exclusive focus on the removal of families. The new family removals process also still includes short-term detention.

 It is clear that “alternatives” to child detention must not be established in isolation but engage with the asylum and immigration process as a whole, and the welfare of families and children. Reports of new children held in Yarl’s Wood detention centre persist this month, with the decision to detain on an individual basis being taken at a senior UKBA level, rather than by the Immigration Minister.

Nick Clegg may have assured his party that he was doing everything he could to put pressure on officials to end child detention now. However, if this is to become a reality, there is clearly much work to do at both the political and bureaucratic levels.