UK locks up immigrant children - The Guardian

British Ministers were facing accusations yesterday that hundreds of children are being held unnecessarily in immigration detention centres as official figures revealed, for the first time, that 470 minors were being detained with their families.

The figures, made public following pressure from children’s rights groups and MPs, showed most were under five.

Many were from countries such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Democratic Republic of Congo. The UK has one of the worst records in Europe for detaining children, but accurate figures on how many are held, or for how long, have remained elusive.

While the Home Office has not divulged the length of detention, it provided a “snapshot” picture of those held on a single day: 30 June 2009. This shows that almost a third of children were held for longer than 28 days, which means that in each case an immigration minister had to sign an authorisation for their continued detention.

The figures also show that out of 225 children released from detention in the second quarter this year, only 100 were removed from the UK.

MPs and children’s rights groups Sunday called for an end to the “national scandal” that has allowed children to be locked up unnecessarily.

Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the children’s commissioner for England, welcomed the publication of the figures, but said they raised important questions. He said: “If they were allowed to stay at the end of their release, why did they have to go through the detention process in the first place?” He described the fact that one in three had been held for longer than 28 days as “extremely worrying”. - The Guardian