Reduced to just a number

Welcome to the first of our podcast series, Immigration Detention, The Hidden Costs, brought to you by the Unchained Collective, where we will be hearing conversations between those who have spent time indefinitely detained on administrative grounds in British Immigration Detention Centers. The aim is to raise critical awareness through the powerful voice of experience of the destructive impact of immigration detention on many levels, on individuals, families, communities and society at large. Discussions encompass the ongoing harms of being dehumanized and criminalized, the stigma and rejection individuals face upon release into the community, as well as the economic impacts of the system on individuals and society as a whole. However these conversations, importantly also demonstrate the strength and powerful resistance of those targeted by the system. A crucial question is raised, why is this system that destroys lives, wastes public funds and fosters division in our society allowed to continue? Can we envision alternative ways of being together in our shared vulnerability? Can we build a society where everyone has the right to breathe? Ultimately, these powerful accounts serve as a collective call to action, when future books chronicle the history of systematic incarceration and torture, sometimes resulting in death, of predominantly non-white individuals for crossing borders. What role would you like to have played in that history? This is a question, this podcast series compels you to ask yourself. All these women, all these people, they have passed through a lot of trauma before even coming to the UK, so kind of detaining them is kind of re-traumatizing them again. They would be walking up and down the corridors in the night, you hear their boots, you know, thumping on the floor, you couldn't sleep, because they would be taking people to deport them in the night. The whole idea of a detention system. But they didn't tell me why I was detained. It's based on past experience of colonialism. I still don't know why they detained me. The extension made us to be a netted from each other. Nobody wanted anything to do with me because they felt I might have committed a crime. I am being labeled as a criminal, so I don't have any freedom. The wastage of money involved in running this whole institution. And you just feel losing my identity, having to get adjusted through, you know, being called out through a number. I feel like, I mean, just a number. You are unwanted, you feel like you are really not like a human being. Everybody's men and women, to be behind bars, is an economic wast, is a human wast. We need to counter balance the negative rhetoric that coming out there that immigrants are nothing but a board and two society. And this hatred, we hate other people who are not English, knowledge they say is power. Ignorance is a very big disease. They want to silence us. Take courage for us to be here. I refuse to let their system break me. I don't want to be a victim, rather I want to be a victim. Welcome to the podcast series, "The Hidden Costs of Immigration Detention" brought to you by the Unchained Collective. In this episode, Derek talks with Waller about the impact of detention on his life, wearing a tag and being labeled as a criminal. He feels rejected by the government and society, but despite the uncertainty he faces for his own future, he encourages vows going through similar experiences not to lose hope. He dreams of a world without borders and colonial divisions and hope for an end to stability towards migrants. How are you, Waller? I'm good. How are you feeling? I'm okay. Not too bad. Lovely. So, I want us to talk about the impact, the detention has had on our lives. How would you categorise the impact? The impact of detention on your life. You mean inside or outside? Both, generally. The inside life in detention was so bad. I experienced actually the trauma and people they didn't know, people had mental health and it made it worse on my case and I didn't know why I was detained. I was there for four weeks and I experienced that other people were there over five years. Life was just cruel. Most of the time you be detained, you'll be in your cell alone because detention was my first time to be in there. So I found it very traumatic to be there. And then when I was released, I was released, yes, I had a freedom, but I was given a tag. I was wearing a tag. I mean, I'm still wearing a tag right now. So I'm still under immigration powers. So you feel like the, you know, while you were in detention for that duration, you felt like you were imprisoned or something? Exactly. Yes. I felt that it was, school there's been imprisoned. And when you go out, what would you say the, you know, that detention, that duration of time you spent in there, what would you say it was the impact that it had on you within your community when you go out? When I got out, I was not allowed to work and I'm still not allowed to work and I had no further education. I'm not allowed to have government money to support myself. So that the impact really is still traumatizing me. I can't do anything in the community, I'm just a number. So you couldn't, you couldn't go to uni, you couldn't get any form of education. You wanted, you didn't have access to public funds. You couldn't work and, you know, you said it's an traumatized experience for you. Do you kind of get any support, any medical support in the community? Do you think it's any, is it accessible by you? When I came from detention, I waited for so long for a support for community mental health within the area where I live. I was told that I'm in a waiting list to have that support for mental health. It's only a few weeks ago when I had access going to see a psychiatrist as he helped. It does, but still, since I'm still wearing a tag on my ankle, I'm being labeled as a criminal, so I'm not, I don't have any freedom. And also, you know, how was your social life and the kind of relationship you had with family and friends before detention? How was it when you got out? Before detention, everyone was very anxious and they didn't know where I'm going to be deported. As I say, I was in detention for four weeks, but they didn't tell me why I was detained. And then I came out. I still now don't know why they detained me. So I've got this fear outside in the community. I'm living with the auntie by the way. So if I hear a knock, I'll be thinking that, oh, is that me aggression, I've got this fear with me all the time. So which means I don't have freedom in the community because I'm constantly frightened and I don't trust anyone. [BLANK_AUDIO] life is tough, and the trauma continues. Interesting. So you, when you got out of detention, you were still able to stay with an aunt that you said? Yes, yes. Did you have a relationship with this aunt before the detention? The relationship now has changed because of this homophys traumatic experience, which I have with the immigration. How long is going to be having money from my auntie? She's older now, and sometimes I feel sorry for her. She's having sleepless nights because of me, and she pays lawyers for these legal things for homophys. Homophys, they've got a lot of things which really confuses you. So you're not being able to work, so you have to depend on your aunt. As a person, how does that make you feel? You can't work, you can't do anything. How do you feel? What kind of impact does it have on your physical and mental well-being? I feel that the government really have rejected me. I don't have anything to do with anything in this society. So is it a traumatic PTSD? Yeah, PTSD. And that's what I've been diagnosed with at the first, because I've been suffered when I was young, and now I'm old. I'm still suffering about the same thing. So my life as a wall, I've never been straight. So if you lose the problem is still there, it's not getting solved, but even though you're out of these detentions. Yeah, the homophys has made it worse. They are actually traumatizing me. If you were allowed to work, what kind of job would you, what kind of things would you like to do? I would like to work as a support worker, especially elder people, that's what I used to do, and that's what I've been trained to do. And the reason why I want to help elder people is because, because of my childhood, I've never been brought up by my one mother. I, as I was abused, I didn't have that love. So I just want to take that love to the elders, like to comfort them, and to treat them as I was going to treat my mom or my dad. So I want to build a bond between myself and those people who are elder people. Trust him. It's very important to also understand the impact, you know, detention as a whole, as I don't on your social life. You know, you talked about growing up and things you would have like to do, or you didn't get a chance. As attention, what kind of impact has he had on your social life, you know, around as a person, what kind of things do you like to do socially that you can't anymore because of detention? Yeah, there are a few things. After detention, some of my friends started drifting away. It was hard for me to talk about detention and the impact, to tell them about the impact and it just limited me to say those things because I felt very emotional. When we are being traumatized, it's hard to just engage with your friends, even my family. Yeah, the life has changed, as I said before. I think the last question I would ask is, how has the experience of immigration affected your level of trust and opinion regarding politicians or politics in general? Listening to the politics, politics has said dangerous and dirty game to the society. Most of the politicians, I don't think they know what detention is or what prison is. Prison is something which really, if you go there, it's like hell, I still have flashback because of the detention and prison. It's really sometimes I get emotional because of that. Right, and the community are large. What do you think they feel like? What do they think about immigration detention when you speak to someone in your community? The system, they have made me to look like I am somebody who's bad here. But I'm not bad, I've never killed anyone. But if you go to detention, obvious, you're going to have a criminal record which is going to stay on you for a long time. So that's the impact to me, even if I look for work or talking to your friends or telling a friend to say I've been in prison. I think that they will look at you in a different way. So it's hard for me just to say those things. So I have to choose my words. So if you say one or two things to someone who currently in detention, what would you like to say to them? I probably would just encourage them to say I've been there. You know what, don't lose trust. And just to give them a word of support and at the end you'll come out one day. Do you think there is any possibility for a borderless world? People who are free to move about easily without passports or visa, they don't need any of that? Do you think that's possible in this life that we are? And if so, how do you think that would work? I wish it would be like that. But remember that we have been westernized. I'm sorry to say that we have been westernized by Europe and especially this country where I am right now. And because they're the one who came up with the border line to divide nations. And it would be nice just to come in here without a passport and just they will come you in the community. But you can't. You can't because they came up with all these things called terrorists and then they don't trust you then. And I mean, it is now a criminal. But I don't know whom I killed, I don't know. Because I'm just being labeled that if I go to the home office to report they look at a criminal, not a man. So because of that, I'll just ask myself as well to say, why did I choose Britain to come here? Because I was colonized by Britain, we've got a relationship with Britain. That's why I came here. But when I came here, the treatment, it is totally different when they came in to Africa, to my country. They were welcome, although they came with force, but they were welcome anyway, in a way. But I'm not being welcome here because I'm a criminal. I imagine that if the government changed the system, and this hatred to hate other people who are not English, not to have this hostile environment. And I think it will come up with the Ecclean page. They open a new page, the new generation to say, no, we are changing the system from this hostile environment to a better system. Because this system now is just broken. Thank you so much. Thank you. [MUSIC - "BEATS REST"] ♪ And grace will lead me ♪ ♪ All was one ♪