Immigration » Feminist Peace Network

Women Hunger Strikers At Immigration Detention Center In UK Report Being Beaten

Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Immigration, Violence Against Women Comments Off

Feb 092010

The following report is via the Black Women’s Rape Action Project (UK):

Women on Hunger Strike in Yarl’s Wood Being Beaten by Guards

Over fifty women are currently trapped in an airless hallway in Yarl’s Immigration Removal Centre. On Friday 5 February they began a hunger strike. Today they were herded into the hallway were they have been left there for over two hours without access to water or toilets. Four women, including an asthma sufferer, have fainted. Around 1.30 the guards came into the hallway and started to beat women. As we spoke to one woman she told us that someone was bleeding. One of the managers told the women they would regret what they have done; she called the Chinese women monkeys, and the Black women black monkeys. Four other women have been locked in other rooms for three hours, and have been told by room mates that their belongings have been packed. They are worried they face immediate removal even though their cases are still being considered. Fifteen women have been locked up in “Kingfisher”, the punishment wing.

According to women on the other wings all movement has been restricted – even those not on the hunger strike are not getting any food including diabetics who urgently need it.

Hunger strikers want to speak to the press and get the truth out about the protest.

They are protesting at the length of time they have been detained – one woman who cannot speak English, has been held for over two years. Their statement is attached. Their demands include: an end to the “degradation and humiliation of detained/foreign nationals during deportation by detention staff and escorts during flights”; an end to the Fast Track for asylum seekers which denies fair decisions, the restoration of full legal aid and access to independent legal advice for everyone who is being detained.

Cristel Amiss, Black Women’s Rape Action Project which is supporting women on hunger strike said “Over 70% of women in Yarl’s Wood are rape survivors, many are sick and vulnerable. Why are they being punished for raising serious injustices? This “kettling” tactic has been thoroughly discredited, women should be allowed back into their rooms immediately, there should be an immediate investigation into what has happened and any guard found to be responsible for injuring women must be sacked immediately”.

More information about the conditions in Yarl’s Wood reported by women recently released who spoke at the House of Commons 14 January 2010 can be found here.

With thanks to Frieda Werden for bringing our attention to this story.

Jailed Undocumented Immigrant Chained Down While Undergoing A C-Section

Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Immigrants, Immigration, Maternal Health, Reproductive Justice, U.S. Politics, Women's Health Comments Off

Feb 012010

Did they think she was going to run away in the middle of having a c-section? Barbaric is not enough of a word here.

Miriam Mendiola-Martinez, an undocumented immigrant charged with using someone else’s identity to work, gave birth to a boy on Dec. 21 at Maricopa Medical Center. After her C-section, she was shackled for two days to her hospital bed. She was not allowed to nurse her baby. And when guards walked her out of the hospital in shackles, she had no idea what officials had done with her child…

…All hospitalized inmates are treated in the same manner as Mendiola-Martinez, according to Lt. Brain Lee, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. He said she had a “soft restraint” attached on one leg to her bed to prevent escape.

That soft restraint was a 12-foot-long chain…

…She says she was shackled during the two last months of her pregnancy too. Every time she had a pre-natal appointment, she waited in a small un-ventilated room with 20 other women. She had to sit in the floor. The chains were heavy and hurt her waist. Mendiola-Martinez often wept. She feared that her sadness could hurt the baby…

…About 1,500 pregnant women come through the Maricopa County Estrella jail every year. In 2009, 35 of them gave birth while in custody, according to Maricopa Medical Center records. More than 70 percent of the women detained in Maricopa County jails are accused of non-violent crimes and haven’t been sentenced yet. About 11 percent of them are undocumented immigrants. Health and county authorities say they don’t keep records on the immigration status or ethnicity of the women who give birth.

No of course they don’t keep records. Read the rest of this ghastly example of American injustice here. Many thanks to Attica Scott for bringing this story to our attention.

The Gendered Aspects Of Statelessness

Children, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Immigration, Refugees, Uncategorized Comments Off

Jan 062010

Via the Women’s Refugee Commission:

GENDER ASPECTS OF STATELESSNESS
excerpted from a talk by Ada Williams Prince on International Migrants Day

Statelessness, or the lack of effective nationality, impacts the daily lives of some 11-12 million people around the world. Although the exact numbers are not known, it is estimated that half of these people are women. All displaced women and girls face extreme levels of risk to their safety and well being. This is exacerbated when Women and Girls become stateless.How do women become stateless? This can be as a result of political change or when states deliberately write laws excluding minority groups from citizenship, such as in the Dominican Republic, Myanmar/Burma, Estonia and Latvia.

Gender discrimination is another crucial factor in statelessness. Gender discrimination in nationality means that a woman can lose her right to citizenship by virtue of marriage because she has to denounce her nationality when she gets married. And Women often cannot pass on their citizenship to their children.

Other ways of becoming stateless: People may lose access to their birth records and citizenship documents when the state systems linked to registration and citizenship are destroyed during conflict or disasters. Also, families forced to flee their homes and leave their possessions during conflict and natural disasters may leave without identification, or lose proof of citizenship documents, or have them stolen.

As a result of being stateless, refugee women and girls are also frequently unable to obtain passports, to travel freely, or acquire jobs in the formal sector. This puts them at risk of using smugglers to remove themselves from difficult situations or in hopes of supporting themselves and their families.

But, there are some solutions to these problems. For example, it is important that refugees receive individual ID cards, that women’s names appear on ration cards, and that births, marriages and deaths are registered. This kind of documentation and registration has an impact on refugee return, nationality and inheritance. For example, having an individual identity card can help facilitate movement, stop
the use of detention and offer protection against refoulement.

Statelessness has innumerable consequences on children, particularly girls. Those who suffer most are stateless infants, children and youth. Though born and raised in their parents’ country of residence, they lack formal recognition of their existence.

First, refugee mothers give birth outside their home countries and in most cases cannot pass on their nationality to their children. Countries that determine citizenship exclusively by the father’s nationality create problems for children born out of wedlock, separated from their fathers, or whose fathers are stateless.

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How Nationalism Trumps The Safety Of Women

Afghanistan, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Immigrants, Immigration, Iraq, Misogyny, U.S. Politics, Violence Against Women Comments Off

Aug 142009

Vivirlatino has a brilliant piece by La Macha deconstructing how nationalism trumps violence against women when it comes to reporting on violence against women in immigrant communities. She writes,

(T)his is what happens when people (more than likely men, although the author of that article was a woman), decide that “citizenship” and “questions of citizenship” are more important than understanding and dealing with violence against women. The women who are violated are completely erased from the story or become little more than the vessels that carry the more important story of “how are we going to catch us some alienz?”

Point taken and it is valid not only within our borders but also in our foreign policy. Time and time again it has been made all too clear that the lives of Afghan and Iraqi women as well as women in our own military count far less than our perceived national interest. Please read the entire piece, it is a chilling tale.

Excellent Court Victory For Abused Immigrant Domestic Workers

Economics, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Immigration, Violence Against Women Comments Off

Aug 122009

Via the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center:

Two women brought to the United States to work as nannies won a moral and financial victory in court last Friday when a jury awarded them $125,000 in back wages and other damages. The couple that hired them lost on five counts, including violations of federal labor and trafficking laws.

Alejandra Ramos and Maria Onelia Maco Castro were recruited in Peru by Javier Hoyle, an IBM executive, and his wife, Patricia Perales. The couple hired them to care for children. Once they were brought to the United States, the promised $7 per hour for 8 hours a day of work and benefits did not materialize. Not only were the women paid less than minimum wage, but their duties so substantially expanded that they were cooking and cleaning in addition to childcare. They ended up working at the employers’ beck and call from 15 to 19 hours a day, six or seven days per week.

The Hoyles had the women sleep in a converted closet next to a smelly trash chute in the Key Biscayne residence. They withheld the women’s passports and visas and constantly threatened each with deportation, denunciation and arrest if they tried to escape. Ms. Ramos, who has diabetes, was not paid for five months before she left, sick and distraught, never having received the medical insurance the Hoyles had promised. The jury found that the couple engaged in trafficking, acting with “malice or reckless indifference.”

Altogether the jury found violations on five counts: 1) Fair Labor Standards Act wage provisions; 2) Florida Minimum Wage Act; 3) Breach of Contract; 4) Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act; and 5) Fair Labor Standards Act retaliation provisions.

Ms. Ramos and Ms. Maco were represented in the civil lawsuit by the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC) and Erika Deutsch Rotbart of Deutsch Rotbart & Associates, P.A., in Boca Raton, Florida.

“Domestic workers often are subjected to false promises and threats of deportation if they object to exploitive work conditions. That’s why it is rare to see these types of cases in court,” said Jennifer Hill, of FIAC’s Workplace Justice Project. “We have our clients to thank for their bravery and persistence in bringing these issues to light.’’

Ms. Rotbart added, “Too often we see situations where immigrants and employees are taken advantage of by employers. It is about time that a domestic worker’s voice is heard. This is a victory for two women who truly deserved their fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.”

Cheryl Little, FIAC executive director, concluded: “Immigrant domestic workers are very vulnerable. They live in other people’s homes, and it’s easy for employers to take advantage of them. We believe this is the tip of the iceberg. There are many like Onelia and Alejandra out there who are invisible.”