18/08/2018 Since its opening, the Caricole includes several rooms called “family rooms” what others call cells. These rooms have a slightly separate space for sleeping children. Those rooms are separated from the rest of the spaces by locked doors and have a small observation window. The detention of families with children has unfortunately been common for a long time, but the authorities were committed to consider detentions only very short periods. It is said that these detentions are limited to 24 or 48 hours, waiting for a deportation flight already scheduled. However, we are regularly informed that the duration of some of these detentions may nevertheless exceed 48 hours.
The imprisonment of families with children, which undermines their psychological integrity and sometimes traumatizes them seriously is developing, as new testimonies of persons detained in the Caricole for some time confirm us today :
” Since I arrived at the Caricole, I have seen many children come out with their mothers, which disgusts me, including a woman today with a child who is learning to walk. In general, they stay a night or two then are sent elsewhere. I saw a Palestinian girl, a Georgian grandmother, two African ladies, … ”
And another testimony:
“The previous weeks I saw:
– an elderly woman, Russian, I think, with her little girl who was about 5 years old. They stayed on Saturday and Sunday and left on Monday.
– a Moroccan woman with her 11-year-old son who stayed 24 hours (about 10 days ago) before being deported to Morocco.
And this week:
– a woman from Eastern Europe or Russia, about thirty-year-old with her daughter of two and a half or three-year-old. They spent 4 hours there today and
then left.
– a woman from the Middle East, with her 14/15-year-old daughter, they stayed 24 hours.
– an African woman in her thirties, with her 5-year-old daughter. They spent last night at Caricole and then left. ”
This practice may be one day, after another drama or shock report, described as “fading of the norm”. This is not the case, it is simply the will of our government to expel men, women and children regardless of the (Human) price to pay. A renunciation of all ethics, a dehumanization, a Kafkaesque world for its victims that only aim to obtain some beautiful figures to shake proudly in front of the most reactionary electorate. A curtain of smoke for the government Michel and his lieutenant Francken.
In the new 127bis family detention facilities, the difference is in the length of detention, which may be long, or possibly extra-long. “Specially landscaped” these spaces will circumvent the law, form prevailing over substance, the spirit of the law to protect all children going to oblivion. This is what those who govern us do and, in the process, dirty us all. Sad Belgium.
This is why we remember once again that no administrative detention in closed centers will ever be legitimate.
STOP CLOSED CENTRE
