In response to the Children’s Commissioner for England’s report ‘the Arrest and Detention of Children Subject to Immigration Control’.

Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council said:

“The Children’s Commissioner has exposed one of the UK’s most shameful practices – imprisoning children for administrative reasons. The evidence contained in this report is shocking, and demonstrates once again how harmful detaining children is.

“It is particularly disturbing to hear children’s first hand accounts of being arrested very suddenly, and transported in locked vans to places that are, as far as they are concerned, prisons.

“We join the Commissioner’s call to end the practice of detaining children as soon as possible. And in the meantime, we urge the government to implement the recommendations contained in this report without delay.”