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.

Event: BURMA - Prayers and Protest

Peaceful protests on the streets of London in sympathy and in support of the people of Burma's peaceful resistance

While I undoubtedly wear my politics on my sleeve, I none the less try to maintain the editorial distance of an observer and not a participator, on this occasion however, forgive me if I call for action, as my heart bleeds for Burma.

Recent events in Burma can hardly have escaped the attention of most. Twenty years after they last stood up (August 1988), only to be mown down by their own government (estimated 3,000 unarmed demonstrators killed), the people of Burma have stood up again. This is a big moment, a moment that those who payed attention knew was bound to come sooner or later, but what now? What will come of it? What will come of the current marches, what become of the marchers? And if the killings go on and if all ends in failure, when again will people next have the courage to stand up? What can be done to support the brave people who have stood up? Big questions and we are so short of time. Whatever can be done, must be done now!

Over the weekend I joined Burmese political asylum seekers and students, friends of Burma and sympathisers and others who joined along the way for protests which emulating those of the peaceful protesters on the streets of Rangoon. Various elements came together in organising this gathering, from Amnesty, to the UK Burmese Democratic Movement Association to Burmese Budhist clergy in London, to university groups. After an initial gathering in Trafalgar, while some went on to the Embassy of Myanmar - to doubtful effect - and others went on to the Chinese and Indian embassies calling on these countries to excerpt some of the influence they hold over Burma, many made there way to the pagoda in Batasea park for a vigil presided over by the presense of Burmese monks here in London.

Just as the flames of the candles lit at this vigil lit neighbours candle after neigbours candle, so this gathering had been lit from a flame burning on the streets of Rangoon and which has been kept alive secretly and has revived after all these years. This is a flame though being extinguished even as I write. Monks rounded up, derobed, shipped into holding pens outside of the city, murdered monks in the river, fleeing protesters shot in the back, a Japanese journalist shot deat at close range, internet and mobile links with the world severed, the monetaries that were the focus of these peaceful demonstrations now deserted and blood stained.

While many of the burmese souls I encountered over the weekend had fled attacks on their families and the destruction of their homes, and still others had familly out on the streets of Rangoon in protest despite the danger, there was a singularly impressive lack of anger in the croud. This spirit of gentlness and non-violence in the Burmese resistance of the military junta has long captivated the world, personified as it is in the carismatic and so often silent leader of the democratic oposition Aung San Suu Kyi.

Photos: Top - prayers for Burma made at pagoda in Batersea Park. Middle - gathering presided over by Burmese Budhist monks in Batersea Park. Bottom - member of Democratic oposition who fled to the UK via Thailand after his home was destroyed and his life put in danger by the junta stakes out Westminster.

To Develop:

Lots of attention and anger focused on China for not intervening, but is this not a  question of people being quicker to lay blame at the door of China because of it's record? Should we not in fact, expect more of democratic India?

The role that media and new media and communications technology has played in making recent demonstrations possible and the deep concern we should feel for the safety of the Burmese people now that the Junta have shut down mobile and Internet communications systems blinding the world and closing whatever windows we had on the country and events.

A friend said to me recently something along the lines of will the country not fall into caos if the junta are pushed out. One of the tragic things about Burma however has always been the existance of a compelling oposition making its case not at all like so many regiems which while brutal more often than not are holding a coutnry together against the odds. Now though, after so long in confinment, is the opposition up to establishing government up to coherant leadership even if given the opportunity?


Education, visas, ban on studying abroad but easy to get out for work etc. Remitences. Inflation. Foreign currency. (Seperate article).



Stop the Killing in Burma Petition:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/u.php?cl=21778297

Amnesty Demo - Sat 6th Oct and ongoing:
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/events_details.asp?ID=547

Burmese Democratic Movement Association - UK
http://www.bdmauk.org/index.html

Burmese Societies at SOAS:

SOAS Students for a Democratic Burma
Guy Craft: guy.craft@soas.ac.uk

Myanmar / Burma Society
Nicola Han: nicolajanehan@hotmail.com

US Campaign for Burma web page well layed out:
http://uscampaignforburma.org/aboutuscb/mission-structure.html

New Media

On Flicker:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=burma

http://blog.flickr.com/en/2007/09/25/burma-protests/

Blogs

News Links:
BurmaNet
http://www.burmanet.org/news/

Irrawaddy - Covering Burma and South East Asia
http://www.irrawaddy.org/

Mizzima - Specialising in Burma Related News and Multimedia
http://www.mizzima.com/