Britain should stop locking up child asylum seekers

England’s children’s commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green criticised the government’s policy of arresting children of failed asylum seekers and holding them in a detention centre before detention. He said that almost 2,000 children were held at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre each year and they had told him that the experience was upsetting and frightening , and had likened the conditions to being in prison. Sir Al has called for community based alternatives, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw said the government did not accept the commissioner’s conclusions.