SERCO may be a name that most people would not recognise, though increasingly around the world it is running their lives. Around the world, governments are turning to SERCO to run what used to be public services - hospitals, prisons, schools and even military services. In the UK, if you go to prison it may be run by SERCO, and you will be taken there in a SERCO van. SERCO also own and run Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, where around 400 women and children seeking asylum are imprisoned.

Around 70% of the women there at any time claim they are survivors of rape. Conditions at Yarl's Wood are appalling, with inadequate food, racist and sexist abuse, and profiteering from the sale of essential items, (and SERCO were forced to investigate why they were no receiving their miniscule government allowance of 71p a day.) At times women have been prevented from contacting their lawyers.

Women there have responded with hunger strikes as well as letters and petitions to Gordon Brown and others demanding investigation of their treatment.

SERCO have a Research Institute in a court off High Holborn, and as a part of the International Women's Day, Feminist Fightback, All African Women’s Group and Black Women’s Rape Action Project held a picket there after the Million Women Rise event on Saturday March 8.

Around 40 people turned up to demand the immediate closure of Yarl's Wood and an end to the criminalisation of rape and torture survivors. They also called for an end to SERCO and other private companies profiting from the oppression and misery of others.
More about this – and many more pictures – on My London Diary soon.
 http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2008/03/mar.htm#serco