I’m a torture survivor who was put in detention, this is what happened

Once I’d arrived in the UK, hav­ing fled my home coun­try and escaped tor­ture, I was tak­en to Har­mondsworth Immi­gra­tion Removal Cen­tre. The peo­ple in charge didn’t tell me where I was going, I was bun­dled into what looked like a prison van, and we drove for what felt like hours. I soon realised some­thing was very wrong.

When we final­ly got there, it was late at night. I was tired, I was very sick, and I was bleed­ing. I was fright­ened. I asked to see a doc­tor, it was obvi­ous that I need­ed med­ical care, but they told me I would have to wait until morn­ing. I wouldn’t see a health care pro­fes­sion­al for the whole time I was detained.

I was only in Har­mondsworth for less than week, but it felt like a life­time. The whole time I couldn’t sleep, and I was con­stant­ly cry­ing. It was here, even after every­thing that I’d been through, that my men­tal state real­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed. I was so fear­ful that I would be deport­ed, that I would be sent straight back into the hands of my tor­tur­ers. I com­plete­ly lost my appetite; I could bare­ly eat.

The peo­ple work­ing there didn’t care about me. They saw I was cry­ing, they could see I was dis­tressed, but nobody even asked me if I was ok. There was no inter­est or con­cern for my well­be­ing. I felt alone. Even­tu­al­ly I had to give an inter­view with some­one from the Home Office. Very quick­ly, from my answers to their ques­tions, they could see that I was a sur­vivor of tor­ture. They told me that I shouldn’t be there. But it was late in the day, so I had to spend anoth­er night in deten­tion. The next day, I was final­ly released and put into tem­po­rary accommodation.

It’s scary to think if that per­son hadn’t spo­ken to me, I could have been stuck there for much longer. There were so many missed oppor­tu­ni­ties for my vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to be spot­ted. I should nev­er have been there in the first place. The safe­guards sim­ply don’t work.

We’ve seen report after report out­lin­ing so clear­ly all the things that can go wrong behind closed doors. There are seri­ous sys­temic and cul­tur­al prob­lems with­in the immi­gra­tion deten­tion sys­tem. I was detained over 15 years ago but in that time a suc­ces­sion of inspec­tors have repeat­ed­ly iden­ti­fied that the fail­ure of crit­i­cal safe­guards, the mis­use of force and the cul­ture of dehu­man­i­sa­tion have con­tributed to an envi­ron­ment in which abuse is rife. And now things are about to get even worse. The Gov­ern­men­t’s cru­el cash-for-humans Rwan­da Bill will like­ly see a dras­tic increase in the use of immi­gra­tion deten­tion – detain­ing more peo­ple for longer.

To try and make their Rwan­da scheme work, the Home Office has just this week changed vital guid­ance that will mean tor­ture, sex­u­al vio­lence and traf­fick­ing vic­tims as well as those suf­fer­ing with men­tal health issues and dis­abled peo­ple are more like­ly to now be held. This is shame­ful, and I’m real­ly concerned.

To real­ly pro­tect the peo­ple who have fled the most unimag­in­able hor­rors, we need to see a more com­pas­sion­ate approach from those in charge. Peo­ple who’ve expe­ri­enced tor­ture, fled wars or per­se­cu­tion shouldn’t be detained. I know only too well how pro­found­ly dam­ag­ing it can be, both men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. When I was in deten­tion I had flash­backs, I had night­mares and bad anxiety.

Clin­i­cians who work with tor­ture sur­vivors every day at Free­dom from Tor­ture have recog­nised that, faced even with a short time in deten­tion, many will expe­ri­ence re-trau­ma­ti­sa­tion, includ­ing pow­er­ful intru­sive recall and a dete­ri­o­ra­tion of pre-exist­ing trau­ma symp­toms. All too often, sites of deten­tion can be so rem­i­nis­cent of the places in which sur­vivors were tortured.

For too long now we’ve seen the Gov­ern­ment pri­ori­tise enforce­ment poli­cies over the pro­tec­tion of vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple, includ­ing tor­ture sur­vivors. Detain­ing vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple is a symp­tom of an endur­ing and esca­lat­ing hos­tile envi­ron­ment towards refugees. The Home Office must release all sur­vivors cur­rent­ly in immi­gra­tion deten­tion. It is time for this to stop.

Most peo­ple in the UK are car­ing and com­pas­sion­ate, I know from my own expe­ri­ences how wel­com­ing and sup­port­ive many have been. They believe in fair­ness and the impor­tance of pro­vid­ing sanc­tu­ary to peo­ple flee­ing tor­ture and war. It’s time for the Gov­ern­ment to catch up with pub­lic opin­ion.

Kol­bassia Haous­sou MBE is a tor­ture sur­vivor who came to the UK in 2005 after flee­ing per­se­cu­tion in cen­tral Africa. Kol­bassia is Direc­tor of Sur­vivor Lead­er­ship and Influ­enc­ing at Free­dom from Torture.

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