Life in detention damaging children

Since July, Zimbabwean civil rights activist, Nellie de Jongh, has been speaking to women who are being held "behind the wire" at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, which is situated in Clapham near Bedford in the United Kingdom.

She has been documenting the lives of the women, their children and the conditions under which they are all being kept.

This week, she visited two families who have just been released from detention.

She says these children and their families face many difficulties upon release.

"They might not be able to go back to the communities they came from. They lose their school friends, their friends in the community, re-registering with a general practitioner has proved to be extremely difficult for many of the children. Depending on how many times they have been detained, they may have to start rebuilding their lives again."

Nellie de Jongh says most of the children she has been writing about have left Yarl's Wood with skin conditions.

"Parents are quite clear that their children were not infected before detention."

In a narrative based on an email sent out following a visit to two families who were released from detention recently, Nellie de Jongh shows some of the effects life in detention has on children..