![](\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.com\/files\/2016.03\/thumbnail\/56e68e3dc4618837228b4575.jpg\")
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Detainees at the Yarl\u2019s Wood immigration removal facility hung a banner from one of the windows alleging sexual misconduct by the staff. The action came as thousands of protesters gathered outside the center demanding its closure.<\/p>\n
The message, which appears to have been written on a towel or a bed sheet, was one of many makeshift banners shared by detainees with protesters. The banner read: \u201cYarl\u2019s Wood officers in relationships with vulnerable detainees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some 2,000 people marched on the controversial Bedfordshire detention center on Saturday in a protest organized by the Movement for Justice.<\/p>\n
The action was the largest protest against the center to date.<\/p>\n
The Yarl\u2019s Wood Immigration Removal Center holds primarily female asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected for indefinite periods of time before deporting them from the UK.<\/p>\n
It is the largest of the UK\u2019s 14 detention facilities for women. Campaign groups have repeatedly called for an end to indefinite detention in Britain, the only EU member state that can detain people without limit.<\/p>\n
Since the center opened in 2001, a number of complaints about sexual abuse and mistreatment have been lodged by detainees against Serco, the private outsourcing firm responsible for operating Yarl\u2019s Wood.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of allegations of rape inappropriate touching, harassment and humiliation were published last summer by the campaign groups Women Against Rape and Black Women\u2019s Rape Action Project.<\/p>\n
In 2014, UN special rapporteur on violence against woman Rashida Manjoo was blocked by the Home Office from inspecting conditions at Yarl\u2019s Wood during an official visit to the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe devastating sign we saw being hung from the windows by the women inside saying \u2018officers in relationships with vulnerable women\u2019 confirms what we already knew \u2013 Yarl\u2019s Wood is the embodiment of racist, sexist state violence against women,\u201d<\/em> a member of feminist direct action group Sisters Uncut, Janelle Brown, told the Independent.<\/p>\n \u201cImmigration detention replicates the torturous, coercive powers of domestic violence- male guards that control and abuse women trapped at Yarl\u2019s Wood are no different to the perpetrators of domestic violence who abuse women trapped in their own homes. No woman should ever have to face such invasive brutality. Yarl\u2019s Wood should be shut down.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Detainees at the Yarl\u2019s Wood immigration removal facility hung a banner from one of the windows alleging sexual misconduct by the staff. The action came as thousands of protesters gathered outside the center demanding its closure. The message, which appears to have been written on a towel or a bed sheet, was one of many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-231509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}