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Voices of Pakistani Women Detained in UK

National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns | 16.08.2006 17:19 | Anti-racism | Gender | Migration | Birmingham

"We always are the slippers of our husbands"

A statement from Maliha, Sajjida, Farzana, Sadia, Adibunnisa, Masooma and Heenia, seven Pakistani women currently Imprisoned in Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre

Dear Madams/Sirs,
We are Pakistani women detainees at Yarl's Wood detention centre, and would like to bring your kind attention towards the problems we are facing at the moment. We need your immediate attention that we are Asylum Seekers some who have been put on 'Fast Track System'. This is not understandable and entirely confused system for us that is not enabling us to get any support and approach to solicitors. We are feeling like our hands are cut off, and we are terribly in the desperate situation and we cant do anything helpful, supportive in regard to our cases because we are not provided with any solicitors and without solicitors we are unable to deal with our cases.

We are very helpless here. We all here suffering loads of tension, stress and are becoming mentally and physically sick day by day and entirely exhausted because we are not getting any opportunity to do anything productive for our cases due to this shortage of time of this Fast Track System'. Some of us are fleeing domestic violence others religious persecution, some are divorced that is a terrible stigma in Pakistan.

This is the life of women in Pakistan, we always are the slippers of our husbands, when our parents married us they say to us whether he is good or bad you don't come in our house, live your life with him, when one woman is a mother, she no have any choice to go anywhere.

We have come here after suffered a lot of pain, stress and loads of difficulties and need your help and support to get shelter here. But we are not getting any positive response and this is a ridiculous system as one day we have been sent one letter for approval and the very next day we are getting its reply with lots of discrepancies in the letters as we told something about our cases but we are told something else which made us confused and we do not have this ability to deal and represent ourselves in the court without having any proper solicitor's help.

If they provide duty solicitors then they are not at all showing any interest towards our cases, as we are state our statement but they are writing something else. Which shows there are blunders are going on and they are just fulfilling the formalities and these things making us completely disappointed and we are compel to go to private solicitor and when they read the cases they told us that there is no points in the cases because from the beginning our case has been dealt as its incredible.

Nobody is giving us any support and we all are depressed and worried about our fate and future.

In the Detention Centre, we are being treated like we are criminal we have been brought here and our minds have been locked and our hands are cut off because we cant express any thing fully about our cases we do not have any approach to emails.

We can't discuss anything with anybody as we are detained and telephones are much expensive which we can't afford. We are all going to refuse and there is no choice whether you have evidences or not because they are saying these documents are fake and not genuine and the vital facts of lives are considered very rudely as they are fabricated stories this also shows lack of interest and just they are fulfilling their formalities.

And they are trying to remove us on the completion of their all formalities. But they do not understand how much we are suffering and we have reached here after facing loads of difficulties but they are not believing on us and not listening to us as well. They are giving us refusals only.
On the light of above facts we would like to request you to please consider this letter with great sympathy as we need your support and help and please, please do something because we all women and we have heard from our childhood that this country gives respect, protection and sympathy with women. But in fact on the contrary we are receiving very negative reply as we were expecting.

We also want to request you to please discourage this 'Fast Track System' and we need liberty. Please release us so that we can fight our cases.

Our life is in danger and at risk and we need your help. We are not political leaders and if something would not be done to save our soul we will be die one day and no body care for it. We need our life. And you bringing peace in the world and we are victims and we need your support. And we need to ask the question why have we been detained? Why they do not release us? Why!!!!
We want to say a lot of things, which we cant, explain here in this letter. By writing this letter we want to convey that we are facing mental torture and stress in the condition of depression and request you to please come and visit us to sort out our matters as soon as possible before they departed many girls from here hence your visit is requested please, please and get rid us off this Fast Track and Release Us.

With thanks,
Maliha, Sajjida, Farzana, Sadia, Adibunnisa, Masooma, Heenia

Maliha Naeem room 247 -
Adibunnisa Choudhry room 105 -
Sajjida Parveen 247 -
Farzana Kashif room 119 -
Sadia Gul room 255
Masooma Shah Room room 213
Heenia Muhammad room 105

Yarl's Wood IRC 01234 821000

Note from NCADC:
NCADC received the above from the detainees in Yarl's Wood.

All the women would appreciate phone calls, their preferred language is Urdu but all can speak some English. They all could do with visit. Their stories are all different, some have been in detention for 10/11 months some only a few months.

National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns
- Homepage: http://www.ncadc.org.uk/

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  1. The problem is your Undergraduation in 'western' dialects — Shokat Saleem