International Women’s Day 2016

Caroline Spelman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) on securing this debate. For many years, it was impossible to hold such a debate in the main Chamber, so the fact that we are here today is a mark of progress in itself. Today, as we observe International Women’s Day, the charity Women for Refugee Women is launching a new campaign in which 99 women stand in solidarity with refugee women. I have the privilege of supporting this campaign along with many notable women including Mary Beard, Charlotte Church and Romola Garai, who recently appeared in the excellent film “Suffragette”, which I commend to any hon. Members who have not yet seen it.

The campaign was created to reflect the 99 pregnant women who were detained in the Yarl’s Wood detention centre in 2014. Of those 99 women, only nine left detention to be removed from the UK. Indeed, the figures I have seen suggest that only a very small minority of detained women are removed while pregnant, suggesting that the practice is somewhat obsolete. I recently had confirmation from the chief executive of Serco that the total number of pregnant women held at Yarl’s Wood last year was 69; fewer than the year before, but still too many. I strongly urge the Government to do all that they can in 2016 to stop the holding of pregnant women in detention centres once and for all. There are better places for the detention of a woman who is expecting a baby. Sarah—not her real name—was detained while pregnant and said:

“When I was in Yarl’s Wood I found it hard to believe that I was in the UK. I seemed to be in a place where human rights don’t exist. I saw so much misery and depression and mental illness while I was in there. There is constant crying and self-harm because the women don’t know why they are there or for how long.”

Some 2,000 asylum-seeking women are locked up in Yarl’s Wood each year. The majority are survivors of sexual violence and rape. Up to 93% of the women detained at Yarl’s Wood claim to have suffered sexual violence of some form. The most vulnerable women we can think of are being kept in far from ideal circumstances. The new “adults at risk” policy should reduce the detention of vulnerable women and stress the need to move away from detention overall, and I commend the Home Office for those important steps. The recent report by Stephen Shaw also made strong recommendations in that area and I believe that Home Office Ministers have recognised the need for reform. Along with Women for Refugee Women, I hope that discussions will soon bear fruit, so that pregnant women seeking protection in this country as refugees will no longer face detention. The cost for individual women is so great that we cannot afford to wait any longer.

I also met the Yazidi women who are here today and was reminded of what drives women to seek safety in a country such as ours. Some 3,000 Yazidis are still in captivity in northern Iraq and Syria under Daesh occupation. Their children aged 11 to 16 are pressed into military service for Daesh and children as young as seven are being trained for action. These women are abused and raped. They are not in the UNHCR camps from which we have promised to take refugees, so a separate programme is clearly needed. Those two issues remind us of the drivers that bring pregnant women here and why we must ensure that we welcome them appropriately to our country.