Sarah Update

Sarah has been released on bail and is receiving pro bono legal representation.

Notice - Ugandan Refugee Sarah of Previous Post Not Deported Today

Unpack later. Still unclear why. I can confirm that a number of concerned citizens, journalists and activist support groups have actively pursued her case. The cancellation of her deportation today however, may relate to new EU legislation which we shall definitely be writing about. Details will follow once clear of the facts.

Sarah will meet two pro bono lawyers tomorrow from two different support organisations. There is no guarantee she will not be deported in due course, nor yet any reason to assume she can present a compelling case for asylum, but at least she may this way be granted the right to have her case heard.

Ugandan Woman's Deportation - Her Version

"Their version" to come. Her side of the story seemed more urgent

31 year-old Ugandan detainee at Beford's Yarl's Wood Sarah, will remember the 5th of November 2007.  If all goes according to schedule, 5/11 will be her last day in the UK before being sent back to Uganda. Trafficked to the UK now over a year ago by a female acquaintance and group of unknown traffickers, unwittingly Sarah had become another victim of the UK sex trade.  While being forced to live and work in a brothel in London, Sarah became infected with HIV and suffered severe sexual abuse which left her with constant bleeding.  A customer helped her escape from the brothel but kept her in his own home, using her for sex until her condition deteriorated to the point of demanding immediate surgical intervention.  After taking Sarah to the hospital her captor vacated his residence - nothing has been heard of him since.  At the hospital, Sarah received massive blood infusions to replace lost blood, and underwent surgery in her pelvic region. She still does not know, despite repeated inquiries, the nature of the surgery she underwent.

Within two weeks of her admission to hospital, Sarah was detained at the Yarl's Wood detention centre where she has remained. During this detention period, Sarah received her asylum interview - this despite her state of demoralisation and despair following her ordeal  - trafficking, frequent rape over an extended period, contracting HIV and losing - Sarah herself says she supposes - her uterus. In  this state of shock, unrepresented, and inhibited from volunteering much of her here related story by her own culture's attitudes to rape and HIV, Sarah felt she had been left unable to properly present her case as a result of which she has found herself unable to qualify for an asylum application, and on her way back to Uganda. Because however, one of Sarah's traffickers is connected to her own village community, if deported to Uganda, Sarah and her family face, she says, the threat of violent retribution.  Furthermore even if Sarah were to escaped the traffickers' retribution, a lack of access to ARVs would shorten her life expectancy dramatically.

Sarah's only legal council since her detention was provided briefly by the private firm that runs Yarl's Wood centre.  Instead of representing Sarah's needs however, the solicitor reportedly advised Sarah to go back to Uganda.  When Sarah stressed why that would endanger her life, the solicitor replied that she had no other options since she would be unable to afford a lawyer's fees. She was unaware of pro bono legal services until November 4th 2007, 36 hours before her scheduled deportation.  Despite repeated requests she has also not been granted a single consultation with a gynecologist since her operation in February,  meaning her clinical condition also remains unclear. Despite the extent of her ordeals, Sarah has also only been granted two visits with a psychiatrist in the last year.

On Monday evening Sarah will be handcuffed and bound at her ankles, sedated, and moved to the airport by van by a team of professional escorts not connected to the detention centre or the government but an outsourced operation.  This company itself has come under scrutiny in the past, in an earlier deportation case, failed asylum-seekers are said to have arrived in Cameroon so badly beaten by this professional escort company that the Cameroonian gaol would not accept custody of the victims for fear they would not survive in custody.

Sarah is by no means the first to fall foul of an asylum system that is often arbitrary and unfair in its decision making, nor yet is her story among the most compelling. Many are caught in the cross hairs of hardening public attitudes and policy initiatives towards asylum seekers.

The home office has quotas of number of people it deports, and the private company which runs the centre was recently hired after tendering a contract bid promising to cut costs by one third.  One of the cost-savings made has been on limiting the psychological therapy available to the detainees - people who have often been through considerable ordeals and who's needs are clearly often far more than purely clinical.

Sarah needs to have time to talk to a legal counselor.  In the past, media attention and calls to the Home Office (020 7035 4848, Immigration 02087 456 900) have helped forestall deportations.  Please take a moment during your lunch hour to help by making a call to ask what the Home Office is doing to ensure Sarah's human rights are respected.

Take a look at Independent article featuring a fellow detainee Maude  who has been on a hunger strike for the past six weeks, and narrowly escaped, for now at least, a very debatable deportation order:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3098868.ece
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article3101930.ece

Also worth looking at Guardian articles - undercover journalist's report on time spent as a professional escort and the brutality he witnessed during this time:
www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1428473,00.html

Contact

Devon Knudsen
07788477042

SOAS Detainee Support:
Theresa
07716510148

Home Office - Immigration
02087 456 900

Us at InformationOtherwise

Other Useful Links

Anti Trafficking and Sex Slavery:

Helen Bamber Foundation
http://www.helenbamber.org/index.html

The Truth Isn't Sexy
http://www.thetruthisntsexy.com/

anti-slavery
http://www.antislavery.org/

Government & Agency:

The Border and Immigration Agency
http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/

Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre
http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/immigrationremovalcentres/yarlswood

Photography by Andy Wang - Image of one of Sarah's immigration documents.