FREE ADERONKE - Yarl's Wood freedom fighter

Enough is enough! Aderonke Apata is a leader and fighter for women from all over the world and we stand together.

With a deep belief and care for the rights of women to liberty, dignity and respect, Aderonke - a lesbian woman from Nigeria - helped women know how to fight for their rights in Yarl’s Wood. A group of gay women including Aderonke, started a Movement for Justice group to bring women together – lesbian and straight – to tell the world the truth about the brutality of detention, the denial of justice, the mental torture, the lack of real healthcare.

In October 2012 the women witnessed a detainee (Chirstine N) being dragged by male guards screaming and naked through the corridors to be deported. It lead to a protest, in which the a mass meeting was called in the canteen, and Adreonke read out the demands the MFJ group had drafted. The demands told about the terrible conditions in Yarl's Wood, the lack of justice, and added the demand for Christine's return from the airport, and were voted for unanimously. Women in the canteen, and more who were held in the corridors outside - over 200 - took this stand for the dignity and humanity of all.

Aderonke has since been beaten, and moved to a prison on no charge, to separate her from the other women and disrupt their unity.

In Yarl’s Wood there are women of every background: gay and straight, young and old, disabled or ill, pregnant, trafficked, raped, tortured, beaten, forced into marriage, mothers and grand mothers. Being sent back to home countries means being sent into the hands of oppressors and abusers, it is a death sentence.