Ban the detention of pregnant women

You report how a pregnant rape survivor experiencing a miscarriage and barely able to stand was unlawfully held in immigration detention which amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment (Home Office pays £50,000 to trafficked woman detained during miscarriage, 20 August).

This case show precisely why the Home Office must heed our advice and that of the medical profession, and actually ban the detention of pregnant women.

Medical Justice sent volunteer midwives to visit pregnant women in immigration detention for a decade. We warned the Home Office that women and their unborn children were suffering inadequate healthcare. The Home Office paid little attention.

In 2013 we published Expecting Change, a dossier calling for a ban on the detention of pregnant women, backed by the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, as well as 337 other organisations.

One of our clients complained for three weeks about abdominal pains and was sent to A&E, where she miscarried with two guards in attendance. She subsequently attempted suicide and was admitted into a psychiatric ward.

In 2016 the Home Office commissioned Stephen Shaw, a former prison and probation ombudsman, to review the use of immigration detention – he too called for a ban on the detention of pregnant women. In his 2018 follow-up, he called again for a ban – an option the Home Office again chose not to implement.

Immigration detention is optional, so the Home Office is responsible for any woman miscarrying in detention. The Home Office must do the right thing, urgently, and ban the detention of pregnant women.
Emma Ginn
Director, Medical Justice

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