LONDON: The UK’s top medical bodies have said that detaining children indefinitely under tough new migrant legislation will cause “unimaginable levels of harm” and mental distress.
Under current laws, detention is limited to 24 hours for separated children, 72 hours for children in families, and 72 hours for pregnant women.
However, if passed, the new Illegal Migration Bill would grant the home secretary powers to indefinitely detain all migrant children, whether they are accompanied or otherwise.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Psychiatry, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Faculty of Public Health have signed a letter to the Home Secretary Suella Braverman calling for an emergency meeting to highlight the mental and physical risks to children.
The medical bodies warned that children could develop post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts, among other conditions, if held indefinitely.
A Refugee Council impact assessment said that 45,000 children could be subjected to such treatment in the first three years of the power, including roughly 15,000 children who traveled to the UK alone without their parents.
“There should be no place for locking up children who have fled terrible circumstances to find safety in the UK,” Prof. Kevin Fenton, the president of the Faculty of Public Health, told the Guardian. “The evidence is clear that it causes horrific harm to their physical and mental health with lifelong consequences.”
According to Doctors Without Borders, a significant number of children held under similar detention rules in Greece and Nauru suffered trauma and fear-induced symptoms. These included nightmares, behavioral issues and developmental regression, helplessness and detachment, skin conditions and self-harm.
“Most people in the UK would rightly be appalled by the idea of locking up thousands of children who arrive here in search of safety, having fled war zones and persecution,” Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon told the Guardian.
Solomon added: “We know from our work that they are scared and deeply traumatized, in dire need of being looked after with great care. Putting them behind bars will only compound their trauma and cause huge distress.”
A Home Office spokesperson told the Guardian: “It is vital we send a clear message that the exploitation of children, used by traffickers and ferried across the Channel, cannot continue.
“That is why families, and children who come to the UK illegally will not be exempt from detention and removal under the illegal migration bill.
“An unaccompanied child can only be detained in very limited circumstances. The statistics do not take into account how the bill will be implemented and do not include any allowance for the deterrence effect of the measures in the bill.”
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