UK slammed for 'sexist culture' by UN. No kidding.
— EVAW Coalition (@EVAWhd) April 15, 2014
UN special investigator Rashida Manjoo, who traveled across the UK during a 16-day fact-finding mission into violence against women, said she was barred at the gates of Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre on Monday, on instructions "from the highest levels of the Home Office".
She told reporters she was deeply concerned at her exclusion "because if there was nothing to hide, I should have been given access".
Manjoo had received reports of violations at the privately run Yarl's Wood centre, near Bedford, before her visit to the UK and wanted to verify allegations of abuse. Last month a Jamaican woman, Christine Case, 40, died at the centre, which holds about 400 women.
Manjoo's full report is expected to be published later this year and will be presented to the UN human rights council in June 2015.
End Violence Against Women (EVAW) Coalition co-director Liz McKean said: "The EVAW Coalition is very disappointed that Ms Manjoo's requests to visit Yarl's Wood detention centre were denied by the government.
About Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre:Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre is an immigration detention centre at Milton Ernest in the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire. It opened on 19 November 2001 and was built to hold up to 900 people making it the largest immigration detention centre in Europe at the time. Since opening in 2001 has been dogged by controversy. In February 2002, it was gutted through a fire, reopening in September 2003. Throughout its operational period a number of hunger strikes and riots have occurred there. On 11 January 2011, the High Court ruled that the continued detention of the children of failed asylum seekers at Yarl's Wood is unlawful.
