Billionaire businessman Sir Richard Branson came under increasing pressure on Thursday to personally step in to prevent the deportation of a Nigerian mother and her two small girls, who she says are at risk of female genital mutilation.
Supporters of Afusat Saliu, 31, and her two daughters, Basirat, three, and Rashidat, one, have been contacting Branson on Twitter, after it emerged that the family were due to be sent to Lagos on a flight operated by his airline Virgin Atlantic.
Politicans on both sides of the divide entered the row on Thursday, with the deputy prime minister, and shadow immigration secretary, David Hanson, writing to home secretary, Theresa May, about the case.
Nick Clegg – who yesterday praised the anti-FGM campaign lead by Lib-Dem colleague Lynne Featherstone - confirmed he had written to the Home Secretary Theresa May demanding more details about Saliu's case. Answering a question on Nick Ferrari's LBC today, he said: "I will make sure that the case is brought to the attention of the Home Office in the right way, so they can take the right decisions, because there are clear rules everybody has to abide by when deportations take place."
He said the Lib Dems had campaigned to end child detention in immigration centres and had pushed the anti-FGM up the agenda. "It is a really good step in the right direction that people are now talking about this and saying that no cultural sensitivity can excuse this kind of mutilation and cutting of girls who are terrified and have terrible consequences for the rest of their lives," he said.
Hanson MP, shadow minister for immigration, said he and Saliu's MP, George Mudie, had written to May to ask her to halt the deportation until the outcome of the judicial review was heard. "The details of the case are for the Home Office to determine but it's important proper procedure was followed and the decision was made in a fair way, with reasonable consideration given to the threat of FGM, especially given the home secretary's statements on this issue and the push by Lib Dem ministers to raise awareness of it," he said
"Theresa May must review this case in light of the injunction and give proper consideration to the fears of what may happen to her children if she returns"
Saliu and her children were taken into custody by Home Office officials and have been transported from their home in Leeds to London for removal, the family's lawyer told the Guardian. They are currently being held at Heathrow airport, according to her lawyer.
Saliu, a victim of female genital mutilation, has previously spoken of her conviction that her daughters will also be mutilated and her fear that, as Christians, they could be targeted by the Nigerian Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, which recently kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls.
More than 120,000 have signed a petition on the website Change.org calling on the Home Office to reconsider the case. Many of them have bombarded Branson on Twitter, urging him to intervene.
Supporters of Saliu pointed out that the entrepreneur's daughter Holly Branson has previously spoken out about FGM. Writing on the Virgin website, she called it "a horrendous practice and a serious violation of internationally recognised human rights", adding that "more needs to be done".
John Coventry of Change.org said thousands of people were supporting Saliu because they feared for the safety of her daughters.
"It's a remarkable outpouring of support and testament to the power of social media to build powerful movements in a short space of time," he said. "In the past few months, FGM and asylum have become big issues for Change.org users and we've seen some powerful stories and moving campaigns on the site."
A spokeswoman for Virgin said: "The Home Office makes the flight arrangements for all deportee passengers. It is not for the airline to refuse to carry a deportee passenger on the grounds of their immigration case, as the airline has no knowledge of individual cases. It is for the Home Office to make immigration policy and take decisions of this nature."
Bhumika Parmar of BP Legal, Saliu's lawyer, said her client had applied for permission to bring a judicial review and had expected the deportation to be put on hold while that was considered. Parmar accused the Home Office of failing to follow its own rules by not giving Saliu the minimum 72 hours' notice of removal.
"Her treatment has been very unfair," she said.
Home Office officials did not inform Parmar that her client was being detained and refused to tell her where she was being taken on Wednesday, she added. "The fact that the Home Office did not come back to me to tell me where she was meant that I could not file a bail application," she said.
In a letter to Home Office officials, Parmar said Saliu and her daughters were being deported before their welfare and right to a fair hearing had been properly considered. She threatened the Home Office with a claim for damages if the removal was not delayed until due process could be observed.
She wrote: "You have clearly breached your own policy. Furthermore, you have not advised that our client will receive the relevant protection required in Lagos, especially in light of the public interest in her case. You have failed to consider that our client has no support if she is to be returned, especially with two very young children. What proposals are there to house and maintain the family unit once she arrives in Lagos?"
Anj Handa, a friend of Saliu who set up the petition on Change.org, said: "We have asked, please do this properly. It is almost like they are hell-bent on getting rid of her because we got the campaign going. The political timing is bad because the Home Office wants to show it is tough on immigration."
She said she did not want to see her friend become a victim of "political posturing".
Nigeria is home to the highest number of women subjected to FGM in the world and Saliu said her family do not want to subject her daughters to it. She won a temporary reprieve in April, with the help of her MP George Mudie and following an article in the Guardian.
"I don't want [my children] to be mutilated. I know it will happen if I have to go back with them, I know it because it is the culture of my family," she said. "They believe in it and I will not be able to do anything about it. Every woman should stand up for her children and do whatever is necessary to protect them from something like this."
Saliu arrived in the UK in 2011, and says she fled Nigeria when her stepmother told her that her oldest daughter would be subjected to FGM. Her youngest daughter was born in Britain. The Home Office said it does not comment on specific cases.
