More on Outsourcing Abuse
A new report, Outsourcing Abuse, was published earlier this week documenting 300 cases of excessive force used during the detention and removal of asylum seekers. The incidents documented were carried out by employees of private companies working on behalf of the Border and Immigration agency in the UK. It is known that one law firm has settled six civil action claims out of court against Home Office contracters, although the Home Office has refused to disclose details of other settlements.
In 2004, the Medical Foundation For the Victims of Torture published a report ‘Harm on Removal’ describing a number of cases in which gratuitous or excessive force was used during the removal of asylum seekers from the UK. Medical Justice, Birnberg Peirce & Partners and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns has since gathered evidence of 18 independent doctors who have examined detainees and obtained medical evidence demonstrating widespread use of excessive force by immigration escorts.
These injuries occurred in the process of removal or after failed removal (although some individuals subsequently won the right to remain) and often resulted in lasting damage to the face, neck or wrist. One woman was refused entry into Cameroon because of her physical condition on arrival. Even where lasting physical injuries were not documented, these experiences caused lasting psychological distress. The case studies also reported racist comments. Given the lack of transparency about immigration services’ contracts, allegations that escorts voiced and physically demonstrated their resentment that the failure to remove failed asylum seekers resulted in lost overtime and benefits are particulary worrying. Furthermore, Dr Frank Arnold, an author on the report, commented that detention centre notes rarely reviewed nerve damage to wrists, for example after injuries related to handcuffs. This in turn suggests that, by their negligence in examining patients, medical staff at detention centres are complicit in this abuse.
These injuries resulted from the excessive use of force in extremely tense situations. The routine use of force, which is legal in particular and specific circumstances, suggests immigration and detention staff stress the importance of efficiently managing asylum seekers. Many of the handling techniques used by those escorting detainees were developed by the prison service. The Home Office might argue that, legally, detention is not dissimilar from imprisonment and that it is difficult in any context to manage individuals who are physically resistant. In this context, an unwillingness to be separated from your family or people to whom you have formed an attachment in a foreign country, or an unwillingness to be returned to a country which you have fled in fear is seen as disobedient and threatening behaviour. The routine use of force in any environment demonstrates a lack of compassion, but amongst exceptionally vulnerable people it may seriously aggravate the effects of earlier traumas.
Managing the issue of immigration may cause the government to feel it must weigh a real political pressure (agitated by some of the media) against an abstract moral duty to a vulnerable minority of people ‘inundating’ Britain from abroad. The Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne said “We now remove an immigration offender every eight minutes- but my target is to remove more, and remove them faster”. (1) The Immigration and Borders Agency clearly feels that it is important that the public has confidence in their ability to manage Britain’s borders. This report suggest there are little grounds for those who are entirely dependent on a state -especially one which is not their own- to have confidence in their security whilst in Britain. Part of the criticism of detention is that individuals in detention sentences are not criminals, yet they are treated as though they are. This report suggests that those seeking refuge may be subject to treatment which would cause political outrage outside national borders, but which is largely ignored within the county line. Sophie and Christine
(1) Outsourcing Abuse, Page 7