The first proposed amendment came from Labour MP Diana Johnson, and sought to prevent immigration officers detaining unaccompanied children, families with dependent children, or pregnant women. Despite cross-party support, this was refused. 

Apsana Begum, another Labour MP, tabled two new clauses to the bill: one to exclude pregnant women from being removed under the bill’s power, and the other to introduce a requirement for an independent review of the effect of the bill on pregnant women. This wasn’t reviewed. 

Both recommendations came as campaigners raised fears about the safety of pregnant women under the government’s proposed legislation, which allows for indefinite detention and the possibility of removal for pregnant women. While the refusal of the amendments this week is hugely disappointing, these campaigners now hope that the conversation isn’t over, and that when the bill goes to the Lords, they will recognise the huge risks of detention on pregnant women and their unborn babies. 

“For those who are pregnant, the harm of detention is doubled, risking the health and safety of both the mother and the unborn baby,” Carenza Arnold of the charity Women for Refugee Women tells Stylist. “We know that healthcare in immigration detention is often very poor. Antenatal care and support in detention often falls short of care normally available.”

Ros Bragg, director of Maternity Action, explains that asylum-seeking women “are at high risk of complications during pregnancy and also face increased risk of poor mental health”. 

“Extended detention is completely at odds with the care and support which any pregnant woman needs, and particularly worrying for women who are at high risk of serious physical and mental health problems,” Bragg continues. 

Research in 2013 by the charity Medical Justice found that pregnant women detained in Yarl’s Wood – which used to be the main detention centre for women – often missed antenatal appointments, had no ultrasounds, and did not have direct access to a midwife.

After a major government-commissioned review of immigration detention in 2016 was carried out by Sir Stephen Shaw, former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales, he said: “That detention has an incontrovertibly deleterious effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children … I take to be a statement of the obvious.”

Priya*, a trafficking survivor who was detained in Yarl’s Wood detention centre when she was 20 weeks pregnant, was held for nearly two months in prison-like conditions with inadequate maternal health care for herself and her growing baby.

“I only had one hospital appointment while I was there,” she told Women for Refugee Women. “I felt frustrated that I wasn’t able to speak to the midwife after my scan because there was no time. The officers just took me straight back to Yarl’s Wood instead. It was not easy. I often felt weak and in pain. I’m anaemic and my blood pressure is very low, and on one occasion I passed out in Yarl’s Wood. They just took me back to my room and left. I also had problems passing urine, but Yarl’s Wood wouldn’t make me another hospital appointment, even though I requested one. I couldn’t eat the food in the canteen; that made me sick. A lot of the time I could only really manage milk. I’ve been released now but I still feel depressed, like everything is over. I don’t understand why I was treated like that.”

For these reasons, in 2016, the government introduced a 72-hour time limit on the detention of pregnant women to protect these women and their babies. But now, it appears this limit is at risk of being reversed. 

“We cannot go back to what was happening before 2016,” says Arnold. “Many pregnant women were being detained for weeks, and sometimes months on end, with no idea of when they would be released.”

Another woman held in detention described to Medical Justice how she complained for three weeks about abdominal pain, before finally being sent to hospital where she miscarried with two guards in attendance. She subsequently attempted suicide and was admitted to a psychiatric ward.

“If the tabled amendments pass, they will provide enormous protections to pregnant women and their babies ensuring they cannot be detained or removed from the UK to ‘third safe country’ such as Rwanda,” Arnold continues.

While there aren’t many pregnant women currently detained in the UK each year (nine in 2022, 20 in 2020, 23 in 2019, and 45 in 2018, according to immigration statistics), the tabled clauses will offer this small group of vulnerable women and babies vital protections they didn’t have prior to 2016. 

Begum is hopeful her clause, along with Johnson’s, will pass given the support from other MPs. “The plight of migrant pregnant women and girls have been raised by a number of MPs from different parties at all stages in the Commons thus far,” the Labour MP told The Lead. “The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have all raised concerns about healthcare in immigration being often of a very poor standard. 

“Given that the whole immigration system is plagued by mismanagement, profiteering of private companies and incidents of systemic and direct abuse and neglect, it concerns me that asylum-seeking women who have already suffered to reach safety, should be placed at even further risk to their health.”

Ideally, Arnold – and countless charities, organisations, and individuals working with asylum seekers and refugees – want to see the whole Illegal Migration Bill scrapped.

“[The bill] is extremely cruel and effectively destroys the right to claim asylum and will have life or death consequences for people seeking safety in the UK,” Arnold concludes. “It’s incredibly cruel and harmful, but also completely unworkable. We call for the entire Illegal Migration Bill, and other harmful legislation such as last year’s Nationality and Borders Act, to be scrapped and for a compassionate and supportive asylum process where people seeking safety are treated with fairness and dignity.”

Women for Refugee Women have drafted a letter you can send to your MP, asking them to stand up and speak out for pregnant women seeking safety in the UK. You can sign and send it here.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “As the PM and Home Secretary have said – we cannot allow a system to continue which incentivises people, including pregnant women and children, to risk their lives and pay people smugglers to come here illegally.

“This is neither compassionate nor fair, which is why our Illegal Migration Bill will end illegal entry as a route to asylum in the UK, breaking the business model of the people smuggling gangs and restoring fairness to our asylum system. It will ensure anyone arriving via small boat or other dangerous and illegal means will be in scope for detention and swiftly removed.

“Appropriate healthcare provision will be provided for all those in immigration detention.” 

Images: Unsplash, Getty