The following is two emails about how a breastfeeding mother has been
removed from her 3 week old baby by UK Immigration officials this weekend.
We need as many phonecalls, emails and faxes, to be sent as quickly as
possible, to get this mother back with her baby.
Please send on.
Instructions on who to contact are at the bottom of the second email.
- - - - - -
From: Solveig
Cc: BWRAP
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 1:47 PM
Subject: V. URGENT: Young breastfeeding mother detained and separated from
her babies.
Dear All,
Please urgently intervene and use your expertise to help a young
breastfeeding mother of a three-week-old son and one-year old daughter who
is detained in Yarl's Wood, and has been separated from her children. Aside
from getting her immediately released and reunited with her children, she
needs to maintain her milk supply, get milk to her son and avoid getting ill
herself - she is suffering great breast pain.
More details of the mother's situation and what to do are below. Please
also forward this message onto anyone whom you think can help, or send your
suggestions with the contact details.
Please let us know what you can do as soon as possible including over the
weekend by phone (020 8933 4949) or email. Please send copies of any
letters or notes of conversations to Black Women's Rape Action Project below
and myself.
Solveig
International Women Count Network
Crossroads Women's Centre
- - - - - - -
URGENT: Ms Janipher Maseko Room 211A
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre
We ask you to urgently act to help reunite Ms Maseko, a young Ugandan mother
aged 18 years, who has been detained in Yarl's Wood since last Tues 9 May
with her two babies – her new born son (three weeks old) whom she was
exclusively breastfeeding and her one year-old daughter - both children
have been brutally taken from her and placed in foster care.
Ms Maseko contacted us by fax (attached). When we called back she told us
she had been found on the streets just over three weeks ago by the police as
she had been thrown out of her accommodation despite being heavily pregnant
and having a one year old child. She was taken to Hillingdon Hospital and
gave birth to her son. When she told the hospital she had nowhere to live,
Uxbridge Social Services put her and her children into accommodation for two
weeks. On the third week they took her son whom she was breastfeeding and
her one-year-old daughter, and placed them both in foster care. Despite
being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they told her she was
being sent to Yarl's Wood and would be removed to Uganda without her
children because her asylum claim had been closed.
Ms Maseko is extremely distraught and desperate for her children. Her
breasts are full of milk and she is in constant pain. Her children need to
be urgently reunited with their mother. They must also be terrified and
desperate for her. One has been forcibly taken from his food supply.
Brief background to Ms Maseko's asylum claim:
Ms Maseko’s mother died when she was thirteen and having no siblings she
became a domestic worker in order to survive. The husband of the woman who
employed her raped Ms Maseko when his wife was out of the house. Ms Maseko
reported it to her employer who refused to believe her. Both husband and his
wife beat Ms Maseko badly. Aged 14 years, she fled Uganda to Britain with
the help of an agent. Two years ago she developed a relationship with a boy
she met at college, who left her when she became pregnant. Her daughter was
born in March 2006. She became pregnant again following a second
relationship.
Ms Maseko turned 18 in February 2007, which means she is longer treated as
an unaccompanied minor. Because of her great distress it has not been
possible to get more details. No removal directions have been set. We are
urgently trying to get her a solicitor.
Ms Maseko is the best person to meet the needs of her two babies who depend
on her.
Please send a fax or email immediately, followed by a phone call, to the
people below demanding that Ms Maseko be released and reunited her with her
children, and that they receive the accommodation and support they need and
are entitled to. Please stress the need for the infant to receive breast
milk immediately, that Ms Maseko must be able to express her milk and it be
taken to her son so that he is not deprived of this essential food, the harm
to Ms Maseko's immediate health as a result of being unable to breastfeed,
and the damage being done to the children by this separation at such a young
age.
Victoria Jones, Director Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre, Twinwoods
Road, Clapham, Bedsfordshire, MK41 6HL Fax: 01234 821152
Liam Byrne MP, Minister for State for Nationality, Citizenship & Immigration
Home Office, 3rd Floor, Peel Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF
Fax: 0207 035 4745
John Randall, MP for Uxbridge [log in to unmask] Tel: 0207 219 6885 Fax:
01895 904914
Dugald Millar, Quality Standards Manager, London Borough of Hillingdon,
[log in to unmask] : 01895 277261
Thank you,
Cristel Amiss
Black Women's Rape Action Project, 230a Kentish Town Rd, London NW5 2AB
Tel: 020 7482 2496 or 07980 659 831
*Send copies of any letters to [log in to unmask] or fax to 020 7209 4761*
- - - - - - -
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