Inquiry launched to examine the use of detention in the UK immigration and asylum systems as UNHCR calls for such practices to end
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration yesterday launched a joint inquiry into the use of detention for immigration purposes.
The inquiry will be chaired by Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather and it will examine how detention is used in the UK immigration and asylum systems.
In particular, the inquiry will focus on the conditions within immigration detention centres, the impact on individual detainees and their families, the wider financial and social consequences, and the future role of detention within the immigration system.
Sarah Teather said: "I am very pleased that we are launching this inquiry … In the light of several high profile incidents within detention centres, including sexual abuse and deaths, there is a clear need for parliamentary scrutiny of how and why we detain people for immigration purposes."
The parliamentary inquiry has its own website here and it invites submissions, especially from those who have had direct personal experience of immigration detention.
You can read how to submit evidence to the inquiry here. The deadline for the submission of written evidence is 1st October 2014.
UNHCR calls for end to detention of asylum-seekers
The announcement of the parliamentary inquiry comes just days after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched a new strategy calling for an end to the detention of asylum-seekers and refugees.
UNHCR warns that detention has serious lasting consequences for the health and well-being of individuals and families, in particular for children.
The new five-year UNHCR strategy, Beyond Detention, calls firstly for an end to the detention of children, secondly to ensure that alternatives to detention are available in law and that they are implemented, and thirdly to ensure that conditions of detention when unavoidable fully meet international human rights standards.
UNHCR's Director of International Protection Volker Türk was quoted as saying: "Seeking asylum is lawful and the exercise of a fundamental human right. The detention of asylum-seekers as a routine response should be avoided – these are people who need protection. We are ready to work with governments on this, particularly to end the practice of detaining asylum-seeking children."
The UK is among a number of countries which UNHCR will work with initially to revisit detention practices and to strengthen alternatives to detention.