On Wednesday 9th September, JRS UK held the first of its new Accompaniment in Action online events. Nick, Sophie and Will, three members of our JRS team came together to discuss the ‘Detained and Dehumanised’ report that we released in June, highlighting the damaging effects of immigration detention.
If you missed the event, why not catch up and watch the recording on our Youtube channel?
The evening began with Will providing an introduction to how immigration detention is used in the UK for those who perhaps did not know a great deal about it. Attention then moved to the ‘Detained and Dehumanised’ report. Sophie explained why the report was so necessary and how the research was carried out with interviews conducted with some of our refugee friends who have experienced detention. Sophie and Will then went through the three main sections of the report which explained how people are detained, a look at life in the centres and how people are affected by their experiences after their release. The discussion highlighted the many ways that those who are detained are forced to endure traumatic situations which have adverse and long lasting effects.
The discussion moved on to the ways that JRS UK support those we accompany in immigration detention and how people can get involved in accompanying, serving and advocating for those who are detained. Those present were then able to ask some questions for the panelists, ranging from questions about how people are able to be re-detained, to how the Covid-19 outbreak has impacted those who remain in the centres.
Nick, JRS UK’s Community Outreach Officer and the event’s facilitator said: “We are very grateful for those who attended our first Accompaniment in Action event. We hope these events will allow people to learn more about the different ways JRS UK puts its mission to accompany into action and how they can get involved. It was very poignant to talk about an issue as important as immigration detention in our first evening, and particularly to focus on the ‘Detained and Dehumanised’ report which was a product of accompanying our refugee friends who had previously been detained.”
Those who missed the event can watch a recording of the evening on our YouTube channel. We will be holding an Accompaniment in Action event each month, so please do join us next time.
