Our Children

Three or four years ago I read Margaret Humphrey's book "Empty Cradles"She described the mass transfer of little children in our orphanages to the Commonwealth countries. I was appalledat the callousness and the lack of regard for the future welfareof these our children,that successive government showed The book haunted me and when I was next on trial in Helensburgh for demonstrating against theTrident nuclear submarine I waved the book at the magistrate to prove that politicians do not neccessarily act in the interests of the citizen and for some reason in this country almost certainly not in the intrests of of our children.
We have more children in prison than any other European country.Report after report comes out damning our Young Offenders Instituitions now all being run privately for profit. Not one public inquiry has ever been made into the death of a child occurring in one of them even though the death might have been caused by restraint.Now Mr.Aynsley-Green has concerns about the imprisonment of children in the immigratinon detention centre at Yarl'sWood where some mother's are currently on hunger strike.Even the Church's are calling for better treatment for the children.
Itis good that Gordon Brown apologised last week for what happened to our orphans in the past but surely lessons have been learned.But some of our most vulnerable children and their families are suffering now and action shold be taken now. An apology in the distant future is not enough.