Offshore processing nightmare

June 3, 2022

From Freedom United

It’s happening. Fifty of the people detained by the U.K. for seeking asylum have just been told by the Home Office that they face deportation to Rwanda[1] under new plans to ship asylum seekers thousands of miles away – also known as offshore processing.

We know that trafficking survivors can find themselves in immigration detention. Now they risk being shipped off without any assurance that they will receive support to recover.

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This scheme is also a trafficking concern for non-survivors. While many details on the U.K.’s plans remain unclear, a similar deal between Israel and Rwanda saw Eritrean and Sudanese migrants detained[2] in Rwanda. Many paid smugglers to flee the country and ended up trafficked.[3] Meanwhile, a legal challenge has been launched against the U.K. Home Secretary, calling the plans unlawful since under the Refugee Convention an asylum seeker cannot be an irregular or illegal migrant.[4]

To the government it doesn’t matter whether offshore processing will put people at greater risk of trafficking or if trafficking survivors are caught up in these inhumane plans. Their position right now is clear – cruel immigration policies will be prioritized over preventing trafficking and protecting survivors, no matter the human cost.

The government thinks there’s not enough of us[5] ready to stand against these cruel plans so we must keep showing them they’ve got it wrong. Leave a comment telling the Prime Minister to stop offshore processing. We’ll share your comments with him directly on Twitter so that he hears us.

The nightmare of offshore processing is well documented in places like Australia where people seeking asylum arriving by boat since 2012 have been sent to the small island states of Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island where they are often detained indefinitely.

Elahe Zivardar, an Iranian woman who spent six years in a detention center in Nauru, said:[6]

NO government should take inspiration from offshore processing systems. Take a stand today. Leave a comment on our page for the Prime Minister.

It’s possible that even trafficking victims were deported from Australia to horrendous offshore detention conditions. According to the 2021 US Trafficking in Persons report, in Australia:[7]

Unidentified trafficking victims risk the same fate under the U.K.’s offshoring plans. People arriving on small boats to the U.K., “traumatized [and] bewildered”,[8] who the government want to deport to Rwanda have already been locked up in detention, despite officials saying that people seeking asylum would be served with notice of intent to be offshored while living in the community.[9]

Prison-like settings are debilitating environments, even more so for vulnerable people who have experienced severe trauma from trafficking and exploitation. We are concerned that the “detain first, ask later” attitude taken by governments like the U.K. will result in potentially vulnerable trafficking survivors being deported to Rwanda and subjected to detention without access to support they are entitled to.

Detention of trafficking survivors ANYWHERE is inhumane and risks seriously exacerbating survivors’ “physical, psychological and social recovery, it may also result in accumulative trauma, suicidal behaviour and post-traumatic stress disorder.”[10] Medical Justice, a U.K. charity working to prevent medical mistreatment in immigration detention, said that a massive 87% of their clients had thought about suicide or self-harm.[11]

Detention is a nightmare that we must keep fighting. The more of us that add our voices to the campaign, the louder we’ll be.

Take action today and leave a comment for the Prime Minister to show just how many of us don’t support cruel offshore processing.

In solidarity,

Miriam and the team supporting the Freedom United community