Impact on Children Women are particularly vulnerable again to rape, violence and imprisonment, and our children are deeply traumatised. If you are deported without having papers to prove your child is yours, the authorities can take her or him into care. In many rural areas women don't have birth certificates; many women have had to flee for their life, bringing nothing. One Nigerian mother whose children were being cared for by friends was deported from Tinsley House without her children. The Nigerian authorities returned her to Britain on learning that the British immigration authorities had forced her to leave her children behind. How can we cope with this trauma, on top of what we have already suffered? The authorities sometimes pressure mothers to leave their children here. One mother was told: "Your children are government property." They deport women without their children, and drug women who protest against this. But we often don't go quietly.Tony Blair’s government is detaining and deporting more people than ever; while importing "skilled immigrants" whose education and training they have not paid for to create wealth for Britain. They hide the fact that Black and immigrant women from Britain's former colonies have for decades been the backbone of the healthcare industry, doing low paid, backbreaking work. These are some reasons we are planning for the 2001 Global Women's Strike, an occasion to get together with women, South and North, to make visible every woman's contribution to both our native and our resident countries, and press for every woman to get the resources and protection from violence she needs and is entitled to. We are owed billions – we have helped create the wealth which Europe and the rest of the industrialised world continue to benefit from well before we had to come here. We invite women everywhere to join us and welcome men’s support too. Black, Immigrant and Refugee women's survival and Justice Work Asylum from Rape and Other Violence The Global Women's Strike Demands Payment for all caring work; pay equity for all, women and men; paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks and other benefits; abolition of Third World debt; accessible clean water and non-polluting technology; healthcare, housing, transport; protection and asylum from all violence and persecution; freedom of movement. Click here for the full list of demands You can contact us at: Black Women for Wages for Housework |