Bloody Women

Women and children can be inconvenient sometimes. I am sure we all remember how Saddam Hussein used images of children to propagandise against the sanctions regime which did so much to purge Iraq of potential terrorists in the run-up to liberation. Some women have recently allowed themselves to be forced into wearing veils, and others have forced others into allowing them to wear cassocks, to the discombobulation of many dignified persons. Now a woman, Anne Owers, who may well have displaced someone Jeremy Paxman would approve of as chief inspector of prisons, is complaining that an immigration removal centre is insufficiently luxurious for the single women idling there. Conditions for the male majority are "largely safe and respectful", while women are "marginalised and almost forgotten". Single women apparently have to share facilities with the men, perhaps so that they can be opportunified to participate in hard-working families. The prison inspectors also claimed to have witnessed "unprofessional conduct" by external contractors (dear me, how those words keep turning up). Detainees are being restrained "prematurely" and non-consensually drugged without appropriate form-filling beforehand. The chief inspector of prisons does not consider this appropriate for a "vulnerable population", even one whose vulnerable members are being returned to war zones. A spokesbeing for the UK Border Agency, in describing the paradisal state of affairs which in fact pertains, noted that: "We are determined to treat children with fairness and compassion", as opposed to actually doing so; and that the jailing of children, like murder for Patricia Highsmith's Ripley, occurs only "where it is absolutely necessary".