The death of a young man in immigration detention last month raises questions about the purpose the British government’s detention policy. Who is detained and why?
Author: Rebecca Omonira Oyekanmi
Rebecca is a London-based journalist. In 2012 she was shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize for political writing in the blog category. http://tiny.cc/35uxdw
Nominated Georgina Henry Women in Journalism Prize 2016
Chuffed to be on the shortlist for the Georgina Henry women in journalism prize. Georgina Henry launched the Guardian’s hugely successful Comment is Free website and set up Women in Journalism back in 1995. She […]
George Orwell Prize Shortlist 2015
My work shortlisted for prize
How to Build a Law Centre
In many ways Birmingham Community Law Centre resembles the very first law centre in North Kensington in West London back in 1970. In 1949 the Legal Aid and Advice Act established for the first time a legal aid scheme for both criminal and civil advice.
Telling Stories
Telling stories is important, but change takes time. For things to change, there must be enough people asking why bother, and deciding to act.
A conference to end sexual violence against women
“It is not enough to talk about sexual violence in conflict. Sexual crimes against women, girls, and sometimes men, are a continual violence happening in every country, every single day,” says American Nobel laureate Jody Williams.
Town of stories
Illegal migrants, failed asylum seekers, even refugees; all of these labels are inadequate catch-all terms that can only dehumanise, and rarely capture the range of human experience you find at the ports of France, on the streets of Athens and London.
Black and dangerous?
Why are black people with mental health problems still more likely than whites to be heavily medicated, restrained and detained against their will?
Down the rabbit hole
The government’s punitive measures have made it harder to get out of poverty. And austerity is making it worse.
Rats in the lunchbox, mould in the mattress: living in squalor in London
In three decades a social welfare advisor has not seen the levels of poverty that are routine today.
When women fought nuclear bombs
Greenham women began the 1980s imagining a molten world victim to the posturing of the men who ruled it. In this nightmare, only their children survived, swollen and deformed by a nuclear winter, while they stood in silent horror, helpless. What they did next would transform their lives, and thirty years on the legacy of their protest is still keenly felt.
Set Them Free
A woman held at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre made a tearful plea by phone to a crowd of protestors outside the Home Office in London one evening in February. The crowd fell silent as her wavering voice echoed from a mobile phone connected to a speaker: “Can I talk please?”
‘Journalists take pictures and nothing changes’
On hearing about the deaths off the Italian island of Lampedusa last month, I was struck by the prescience of these words. Yasin, who made the comment, was Eritrean, like many of those who died. He made the same journey and survived.
Who are the “illegals”?
In Britain the term “illegal immigrant” is used to describe people who break immigration laws, but in popular culture and action it is a catchall phrase often denoting poor migrants, stateless people, and refugees.
Austerity bites
Political rhetoric and featherweight policy solutions disguise the fact that single parents are among the biggest losers of the recession. The Women’s Budget Group found that single parents will lose 15.1 per cent of their disposable income to austerity policies.
The Lone Parent Trap
When Jen Smith’s employer went bust she lost control of a life she had spent 20 years building. It took only a few years for life to unravel. In three years Jen got just four interviews and no job. Soon she had to remortgage the one-bedroom flat she shares with her daughter.
“reporting & writing” named one of 10 best migrant blogs
Originally posted on London Migrant Hub:
Photo by Mike Licht There are some great migrant blogs out there but they’re not always easy to find. So, for those on the hunt for migrant voices, someone…
The Absurdity of Mr Grayling’s Residence Test
Originally posted on Do right, fear no-one!:
Connor Johnston considers how a slave would have fared under the government’s proposed legal aid residence test. The House of Commons last week debated some of the issues…
Letter from Europe’s border
A question for the European politicians thrashing out a plan to provide “assistance” to Syria: if a bedraggled Syrian escapes the war, if he escapes the chaos of the refugee camps in Iraq or Jordan or Turkey, if he arrives tired but hopeful on your doorstep, what will happen to him?
Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi 