Dear petition backers - all 87,449 of you!

Since I last wrote to you, the Minister defended his actions saying that the cartoons “were not age-appropriate”. We have written a letter to the minister and Home Office asking for a meeting to discuss the cartoons and see how we can help reduce the pain and trauma experienced by children arriving in the UK.    

Please share it widely - and encourage others to sign the petition. We have posted this on our Instagram channel here  - and on Twitter for sharing too.

We have since also found out that cartoons were removed from a second asylum centre. We need to take stand - to put this right, and make sure this doesn't happen again. Thank you for the support!

Full letter below: 

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Dear Robert Jenrick,

We are 87,000 people calling on you and the Home Office to restore cartoon murals for children at asylum centres. We heard your response in Parliament that the removals in Kent's Intake Unit were due to them not being “age-appropriate”. In trying to understand that better, we read the latest inspection report about the centre.

Within the report it says: 

“The range of toys for young children was too limited and there was little reading material. Some activities such as Jenga and dominoes were readily available and well used by detainees. Newspapers and a range of magazines were also available but were unlikely to have been of interest to young detainees.”

This tells us that young children stay at this centre. That they are not too old. And could be benefited by the murals. Yes, older children stay too, but murals bring them no harm. Since starting this campaign, we’ve heard from refugee charity volunteers and other professionals who say they’ve seen first-hand the small moments of comfort cartoons like this can bring.  The i newspaper even spoke to children who had been through the centre. 

One child told them:

“It meant a lot to me.. finally something colourful that helps a little bit to wash  away some of the trauma.”

In your response, you also mentioned “we provide very high quality care at all of the centres.” We want to bring to your attention that actually, far more needs to be done… 

The report also calls out:  

• Children were detained for “far too long” with many in recent months being held beyond the 24-hour limit.
• Care plans were not tailored to individual risks and there was no enhanced care planning for very young children or those who had experienced more severe trauma.
• There was little formal governance of child safeguarding and no monitoring to identify and act on emerging trends.
• All unaccompanied children were given a full interview to identify immediate welfare and trafficking concerns. These interviews did not usually take place until several hours after the children had arrived in the UK and sometimes at night. Children were not interviewed by specialist officers trained in safeguarding and modern slavery, and many were questioned with no responsible adult present.

Would it not be more productive for the Government to focus their energy and resources into solving these problems? And for you as Minister of State for Immigration to use the power you’ve been trusted with to help drive improvements to help vulnerable children at these centres - rather than undoing something that may help them in distressing times. 

In the same report the cartoon murals were praised for their “bright colors.” It’s devastating to read the Guardian’s report that cartoon murals for children were removed at another center on the Government’s watch. Part of being a leader is admitting when a mistake has been made, and making plans to set things right. 87,000 of us at the Cartoons Not Cruelty campaign will keep calling on you to do this. And we want to help. We have artists on standby ready to help to make sure there’s no expense on the taxpayer.

Please consider meeting with us as we would like to discuss these issues and work with your teams to try and reduce the pain and trauma experienced by children arriving here.

They deserve more. And we can do better than this.

We look forward to hearing from you, 

-Cartoons Not Cruelty Campaign.