UK detention centre 'fails children'

Children in UK detention centres are not receiving the medical attention they need with asylum seekers sent away without adequate disease protection, it has been reported.

An investigation of held children in UK, notably at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, by the Lancet reported around 2,000 children under the age of 18 were detained every year.

Several children were failed asylum seekers who had been taken from their homes without having had enough time to collect medication, papers or clothes.

Doctors who had treated children at Yarl's told the Lancet several children had not received adequate treatment for illnesses like sickle cell disease.

The Lancet editorial said: "It is noteworthy that the Government is committed to halting and reversing the spread of HIV/Aids, to reducing the incidence of malaria, and other major infectious diseases, and to doing all it can to increase child survival-except it seems in its own detention centres."

According to the National Coalition for Anti-Deportation Campaigns there were 232 detention places at Yarl's Wood, which is one of the UK's few family facilities, last year.

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