"There have been recent reports of sexual assaults within Yarl's Wood. In June 2014 the management of Yarl's Wood said that 31 allegations of sexual contact had been investigated and 10 staff had been dismissed," the report posted on the Women for Refugee Women website read.
The report was compiled between June and October 2014, based on the comprehensive accounts of 38 women who came to the United Kingdom to seek asylum and were detained at Yarl's Wood.
Another twenty-nine said that they were bullied by a member of staff and twenty-five said that they experienced a member of staff being racist to them. Twenty-four women reported witnessing another woman in detention being subjected to some kind of abusive behavior.
The report highlighted that the UK Home Office detained 2038 women seeking asylum in 2013, with almost half being held for more than a month. The majority of the women came from countries where they had experienced traumatizing sexual and physical abuse.
"This suggests that the UK government is still routinely detaining large numbers of women who are survivors of rape, sexual violence and other torture," the report stated.
The Women for Refugee Women called on UK authorities to rule out the detention of women who have experienced any gender-based violence, and to change the conditions under which women are detained at the center.
