Two women seeking asylum based at the Global Solutions Limited run Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre feature in a Chief Inspector of Prisons' Inquiry. Report by Jennie Bailey.

The report into healthcare at Yarl's Wood focused on the support and treatment of detainees with mental and traumatic stress disorders. This was also a subject in a study by Legal Action for Women that discovered that over 70% of women detained at Yarl's Wood were rape victims and found it hard to speak out as they were unable to get specialist help.

The detained women were two out of nearly 300 rape survivors in Yarl's Wood who had contacted the Black Women's Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape since 2005. Both projects say that often many women in Yarl's Wood and other detention centres are left feeling vulnerable and unable to access legal representation, medical help and other types of support.

The inquiry is helpful in the fact that it shows that women in detention centres are being treated unfairly and presents good arguments against detention and deportation. UN High Commission on Refugees guidelines mandate that victims of rape and torture should not be detained or 'fast tracked' (where asylum-seekers are detained at point of entry), however, this may not stop the government in their plan to extend the fast-track system further.

See Women Against Rape website for more details. 'A "Bleak House" for Our Times' is published by Legal Action for Women and is available to order.