THE HARMONDSWORTH DETENTION centre for asylum-seekers is not easy to find, not least because it has no sign. I am told that it is next to the Sheraton hotel on the A4 at Heathrow. Even then it is not so obvious, as the centre is set back from the road behind a row of houses. It is a large beige brick building with small windows. It looks new: the saplings that will one day shade the car park still have their garden-centre tags. From the front, it resembles a budget motel. From the side, where you can see walls topped by spirals of barbed wire, it looks like something else entirely.
I am here to visit a family in detention. It has taken months to find someone who is not afraid to talk to a journalist. I am not breaking any rules — anyone can go to a centre to see an asylum-seeker — but the nature of my visit is undisclosed to the centre. Detention is at the heart of the Government’s tough-talking asylum policy but the subject is shrouded in secrecy and bereft of independent scrutiny, despite the fact that, as of last year, families with children can be detained indefinitely without review.
Visitors enter through a temporary building at the front. The receptionist asks for my ID and takes the family’s name. I produce a driving licence. She takes my photo and says I must be fingerprinted, directing me to put my right index finger into an electronic machine that looks something like a GameBoy. I watch over her shoulder as my photo, and fingerprint, appear on the computer screen. I have become part of the system.
I am sent to another building. Three people stand by an X-ray and metal detector machine. I put my handbag in a locker and am given permission to take one sheet of paper into the visiting room. I put my index finger into the machine. It beeps when it identifies me. I go through the metal detector. A woman officer frisks me. I walk through two sets of doors. Two people sit behind the reception desk. On the wall is a UK Detention Services Mission Statement. It says: “Our purpose is to ensure people are held securely and safely and cared for with humanity.” I am asked to put my index finger into the machine, again. It beeps. I give the family’s name and am told to wait.
The room resembles an airport departure lounge. There are 30 or so low, round tables. Around each table are four chairs. Three are blue, one is red. The visitor must sit in the red chair. In 10 minutes or so, the family of four is escorted into the room by a guard. They are told where to sit. The man, Husein, is about 40. His wife, Ayse, looks drawn. They speak fractured English but are gracious in their lack of fear. I say they will be anonymous in my story but, after all that fingerprinting, the authorities will know who they are. They accept this risk and say it is important for people to know about detention.
They have a 12-year-old daughter, Elis, and a five-year-old son, Ali. Elis is fluent in English and we rely on her to translate. Ali finds a cuddly toy and plays with it, silently. Husein, a successful businessman, had been tortured and subjected to arbitrary arrest in his country because of his political beliefs. The family came to England 18 months ago on a visa, after receiving death threats against their children. They claimed asylum the day after their arrival. No one has ruled on their claim, however, as their case has become mired in a chaotic wrangle over the visa. The Home Office has repeatedly tried to send them to Germany to seek asylum there, despite the fact that they have claimed it here.
They have been in detention for more than two months and have no idea when they will be released. They have been taken to Heathrow four times and four times returned. The last time the British Airways pilot refused to take them for health reasons.
Harmondsworth can hold 550 people and single men are kept separately from the families. Husein says there is capacity for 24 families and draws a sketch plan of his unit: their room is one of 12 in two rows of six divided by a corridor with three separate security doors. The room has three beds and a cot. There is a TV and a phone; a toilet is attached. The two small windows cannot be opened. They hate the lack of fresh air and think this is why Ali has a rash. They are allowed no personal possessions (and that includes toys), only clothes. Their preoccupations are those of people who have no control. They resent having to ask for their medicine. They object to the fact that the guards do not knock when they enter their room to count them at midnight and in the early morning when they are asleep.
Britain is believed to be the only EU country that allows families with children to be detained for an indefinite period without safeguards. “In the great majority of countries, if children are detained at all, it is for a short period of time,” says Rupert Colville, of UNHCR in Geneva. “The UK is out of step on this one.” Nick Hardwick, chief executive of the Refugee Council, calls the trend alarming.
The Government’s decision to detain families for longer than a few days is relatively new, having been revealed last October in a letter from the Director of Immigration Services. In the UK no information is available as to why people are detained. The group Bail for Immigration Detainees says that many detainees are just about to be removed but a significant number have not had an initial decision on their cases yet. There is no automatic right to a bail hearing, though Husein has requested one and is hopeful. “I hope for tomorrow,” he says.
The family lived in the North of England for a year. Elis made quite a few friends at school but is too embarrassed to phone or write to them. “I thought they might think I had done something wrong to be in the detention centre,” she says. “Nobody is detained if they have not done something wrong.”
They move around their block during the day but cannot leave the centre. Meals are provided three times a day at specified times. They are not allowed to cook. The children’s menu is mostly chicken nuggets and fish and chips. There is a courtyard for exercise. Elis is not allowed to go to the library as she is not 18. She says there are 40 to 50 children at Harmondsworth but she is the oldest and has made no friends. She spent her 12th birthday in detention, a day during which there were no presents or special food. “I cried a lot, on that day, the fifth of August, I did. It was very bad for me.”
Elis, who is in year seven at school, says she does not go to school at Harmondsworth. I ask again, as detention centres must provide education, and she says there is an activity room. “But they lost a pair of scissors and they blamed us and checked all the rooms, even under the beds.” A Harmondsworth spokesman has told me that the centre provides “a balanced curriculum for children, meeting the requirements of Ofsted”. I ask Elis again and she says there is no maths or literacy teaching like she had in school. Instead there are activities, she says. Like what? “Like making leaves and trees out of pieces of paper,” she says. “They say there are teachers but there are not.”
