{"id":10020,"date":"2018-07-25T14:09:48","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T13:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=10020"},"modified":"2018-07-25T14:09:48","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T13:09:48","slug":"three-days-is-still-too-long-to-hold-pregnant-women-in-immigration-detention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/business-law\/three-days-is-still-too-long-to-hold-pregnant-women-in-immigration-detention\/","title":{"rendered":"Three days is still too long to hold pregnant women in immigration detention"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been two years since a coalition of lobbying groups in the UK successfully challenged Home Office policy on the immigration detention of pregnant women. Under the new policy, enforced in mid-July 2016, pregnant women can now only be detained for a maximum of 72 hours<\/a> (three days), or up to one week with the agreement of a minister.<\/p>\n

Yet around 50 pregnant women are still detained annually<\/a> for administrative immigration purposes, not on criminal grounds. They are rarely removed from the UK, but the experience of immigration detention puts them under avoidable maternal health risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A new progress report<\/a>, commissioned by the Home Office from Stephen Shaw, a former prisons and probation ombudsman, has provided an update on the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention.<\/p>\n

Between the point when the time limit was first enforced in July 2016 until November 2017, 73 pregnant women were detained, of which only 15 were removed<\/a>. This demonstrates that detention is not being mainly used for imminent removal from the UK, as it was first intended when the government expanded its detention estate<\/a> in the early 2000s. Nor is it being used \u201cas a last resort<\/a>\u201d, as recommended by the UN High Commission for Refugees.<\/p>\n