Women in Immigration Detention

“The following paper details some of the ways in which Immigration Detention Facilities (IDFs) are administered and how the system can cover up abuses of the basic rights and needs of detainees. Any closed system can be mismanaged, even where there is good will and no wrong intentions. This is particularly likely where the population mix are particularly vulnerable, where the leadership offers problematic political messages, where the operations are subject to conflicting views and where there are ineffective external and independent forms of official and unofficial scrutiny. There is ample material that supports the dysfunction of the immigration detention system, much of which emerged before recent official reports highlighting that the system is out of order, and is in fact seriously damaging to many detainees.”