Early one winter morning, Beatrice Botomani and her children were woken by immigration officials banging on their door.

They were told to pack a few belongings before being transported in a caged van to Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire, a four-hour drive away.

The two months at the detention centre that followed have had a lasting impact on Beatrice and her daughter and son, who came to the UK from Malawi six years ago and now live in Great Horton, Bradford.

Since their release from Yarl’s Wood last year, Beatrice has campaigned against child detention, a controversial practice the coalition government recently announced it was committed to ending.

“The effects are huge upon the children,” she says. “From the way they come to your house, it confuses the children. They come while you are sleeping.

“They make you helpless, the children are confused and forced to think what’s going to happen to them. They think about the things they have left behind, like school and friends.

“The officers establish fear in children and fear paralyses everything,” she added. “You can’t control yourself, life becomes meaningless. Every person is miserable, you see people breaking down, trying to kill themselves.”

According to campaign group End Child Detention Now, more than 2,000 asylum-seeking children are held in immigration detention centres in Britain each year. The practise is subject to widespread debate, with charities, health professionals and MPs denouncing conditions inside detention centres and the lasting damage on children.

In February, the-then Children’s Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, published a report claiming the process was harmful to children, and called for it to end.

Life at Yarl’s Wood had a profound effect on Beatrice’s children, particularly her son, Wells, who was 13.

“My son was in the top set before we went into detention and he dropped right down back at school. He didn’t show any enthusiasm,” she says. “Inside detention there’s no school. This frustrated my kids.”

Wells now raises the profile of child detention and has sent an account of his experiences to Sir Al.

Beatrice says: “We didn’t want other people to suffer the way we have suffered. I want child detention totally finished and other means in place. We are dealing with a child’s life.”

Determined to put her experiences behind her, Beatrice has put the skills she developed as gender co-ordinator for the Council for Non-Governmental Organisations in Malawi to good use. She’s a committee member for voluntary groups including Bradford City of Sanctuary, New Community Music Development and Bradford Refugee Forum.

“Since I came to Bradford, I have been more protected than all the years I have been in England,” she says. “I feel Bradford is my home.”

Beatrice is behind the Bradford Women’s Network, representing 122 women’s organisations, which tackles problems including isolation, poverty, health issues, lack of education and decision-making.

“For women to fight their problems they have to be united,” Beatrice adds.