Campaign Update: 28 January

Selina Adda did not fly yesterday

Selina and her children were collected from Yarl's Wood IRC at approximate 8 a.m. yesterday morning and taken to Heathrow airport. They were shocked to find that they were not taken into the airport but round the back in the vehicle and taken to near the plane.

Meanwhile in Nottingham people continued to fax letters, petitions, letters to the airline and to the Home Sec, and also directly to the Immigration Caseworker.

In London, a group of people wearing campaign T shirts were at the airport to speak with other passengers.

The solicitor had made representations against the Home Office decision and these were not rejected outright but he was told that the UKBA needed to take legal advice. The UKBA was very slow in getting advice and meanwhile Selina was trying to explain this all unsuccessfully to her escorts. By 1 p.m. the solicitor had applied for an injunction and a Judicial Review of the decision and this had been granted. However, Selina and the children remained with the escorts close to the plane, and we held our breath that the injunction could be conveyed to the escorts in a form that they would accept.

Selina was advised that the group at the airport would not leave until they knew that she and the children were returning to Yarl's Wood, or that the plane had left without her. At about 1.30 Selina notified the airport campaigners that they could go home.

It was some time before Selina and the children returned to Yarl's Wood - she was advised that the driver had been working very long hours (!) and that he could no longer drive and a replacement was on his way. It seems unreasonable to place young children in the situation that they should show concern for a driver who chooses this line of work.

Bail is being applied for and it is hoped that Selina and the children should be back in Nottingham early next week and she thanks all of you who have done anything at all to support her and the children during this time.

You may also like to know that Selina reports that the family unit at Yarl's Wood is at capacity with 53 adults and children. Amongst these until Sunday was a woman from Sierra Leone and her two British born children. After a distressing time being detained and trying to resist removal, they were removed to Sierra Leone last weekend. On arrival the authorities in Sierra Leone said that they would accept the mother but not the children as they were British born. It is shocking to think that the UKBIA were not aware that this would be the policy. The escorts remonstrated with the authorities but they were resolute, and the entire family were returned to the UK, and shortly after they were released.

More than ever this looks like random and desperate removals without thorough research or knowledge of the countries to which people are being returned.

Selinas children could be heard in the background as they were welcomed by the other children in Yarl's Wood, who could not believe that they had returned. Yesterday in Nottingham children at the schoolgates were crying, thinking that they would never see their friends again, and had written in their scores, new letters to the Home Sec pleading with him to leave their friends alone. This morning they will all hear that it will not be long before the nine year old and his five year old sister are back in the playground with them again.

How many times must these children and their friends be put through this. A whole community now knows how the UKBIA behave towards children. A whole community of children and their families have learned something about how their Government works, and they don't like it.

Miriam Hollis on behalf of the Campaign

Campaign email address:helandy.cop@ntlworld.com

Sanctuary for the Adda Family

Selina Adda a national of Ghana and her two children aged five and nine years, residents of Nottingham for the last five years; are currently detained in Yarl's Wood IRC and due to be forcibly removed from the UK on Wednesday 27th January 2010 @ 14:50 on British Airways flight BA0081 to Accra.

Their asylum claim and all further legal avenues have been rejected.

Selina Adda was born on 25 May 1974 in Tamale in Northern Ghana into a Catholic family in part of the war-like Dagomba tribe. This tribe is ruled by strong chieftains and follows Muslim customs, including female genital mutilation (FGM). FGM is common in northern Ghana and, though it was made illegal in 1994, there are few prosecutions of those guilty of the crime.

Selina was betrothed to a Muslim chieftain of the tribe, who was 30 years her senior and already married to two wives. She fled to the capital Accra where a pharmacist took pity on her and gave her a job working in his shop. Several years later members of her tribe, close to the chieftain, spotted her and her whereabouts were made known.

Her mother visited her in Accra and told her that if she didn't return home and marry him, the chieftain would kill her mother. With the help of the pharmacist she left Accra to claim asylum in the UK. By this time she had met another man and had a child, Brian, in September 2000, and was pregnant with her second child Chelsea who was born in the UK in December 2004. She has no other relatives in the UK.

In 2005, an advert appeared in a Ghanaian newspaper offering a reward for information on Selina's whereabouts. When the family found out Selina had arrived in the UK, they informed the chieftain and he agreed to marry their other daughter. She could not face marrying him and took her own life by taking poison. Her death certificate says she died of food poisoning. The Home Office refused to accept the suicide letter as evidence.

The firm Paragon Law represented her, but her asylum claim was rejected on 7 December 2007. Her solicitor said there was not enough evidence to show that the chieftain would still pursue her and she could live safely in other parts of Ghana. But people who make threats don't tend to put it in writing in official documents. She and the children are afraid to go back.

Selina is seeking asylum in the UK because she is betrothed to a man she does not want to marry. She does not believe that the authorities have the power to protect her if members of the chieftain's tribe discover her again. Nor will they be able to protect Chelsea from FGM, despite the fact that it is technically illegal. Tribal customs mean that if she is discovered again in Ghana, she will be forced to marry a polygamous man, based on promises she made when she was just a child, and there will be an expectation that Selina will be required to adopt the faith of her husband.

To complicate matters, due to the public campaign in October 2008 when she was saved from deportation, her previous partner has since threatened that he would remove the children from her, if they returned to Ghana, as she has brought disgrace upon him and his family. This formed part of her fresh claim submitted by her solicitor. Selina rightly believes that going back to Ghana would place her and her children at significant risk. And an expert has also testified to this effect.

Since Selina has been in the UK, both her mother and her sister have died. She has few relatives in Ghana. She suffers from depression and although was prescribed medication by her GP, she stopped taking it fearing if she was sent back to Ghana, this would be used against her by her ex-partner in claiming she was not mentally stable enough to look after her children. The family receive support from a Family Support Worker. Under her advice and support, she attended an Access to Nursing course at Basford Hall College and gained a distinction. She is now ready to start a Nursing degree as soon as she gains her refugee status.

She has also passed Maths GCSE in order to get onto a nursing course, along with a Teaching Assistant course and has done voluntary work at a local school. Following her experiences of claiming asylum in this country Selina has also created, and is the driving force behind, a new community group called Kidz United, run in conjunction with Nottingham City Council and Nottingham Refugee Forum, which aims to bring together children from refugee and asylum-seeking families with those from the UK, and saw over 80 children from all walks of life attending its launch.

During 2009 Selina met an English man and in December that year, they became engaged. They celebrated this with a big party with all their family and friends. They plan to get married in the summer of 2010. Her children have got very strong bonds with him, and his family have welcomed Selina and her children into their family. The children look forward to seeing their 'grandma' at the weekend, and talk excitedly about their new life in Lincs where they will move to after the wedding. Their removal would have a devastating impact upon what has become a family unit, also breaching Article 8 of the European Court for Human Rights - Right to respect for private and family life.

Selina's children are achieving well at school and are very well settled. They are both considered high-achievers and are polite and respectful. The daughter attends weekly ballet lessons at a local dance school, and is a very good dancer. Her son attends tennis, karate, and football training each week and, being a natural at sports, often gains certificates and trophies, which he proudly displays in his room. Both children have many friends in and out of school, who would really miss them if they were to be sent away.

What you can do to help:

1) Email/Phone Willie Walsh, Chief Executive Officer British Airways and urge him not to carry out the forced removal of Selina Adda and her children. Please download the model letter You can copy, amend or write your own version and add your address at the top - if you do please include all the following details: Please do not remove, Selina Adda and her children, due to be forcibly removed from the UK on Wednesday 27th January 2010 @ 14:50 on British Airways flight BA0081 to Accra.

Email: willie.walsh@ba.com

Online Contact customer relations:
http://tinyurl.com/BACustomerRelations

Customer Relations phone: 0844 493 0 787 Monday-Friday 08:00-18:30  (hold line till operator answers)

2) Email/Fax, Rt. Hon. Alan Johnson MP Secretary of State for the Home Office asking that  Selina Adda and her children, be granted protection in the UK. Download the "model letter" which you can copy/amend/write your own version (if you do so, please remember to include their HO ref A1290971 )

Fax: 020 8760 3132(00 44 20 8760 3132 if you are faxing from outside UK)

Emails: Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk
CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

3) Sign the Online petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/adda3sum/petition.html

Please let the campaign know of faxes/emails sent:

Campaign email address: helandy.cop@ntlworld.com