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GENEVA / MIGRANTS TORTURE VICTIMS
STORY: GENEVA / MIGRANTS TORTURE VICTIMS
TRT: 3:16
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 28 APRIL 2017 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Zoom out, screen in conference room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights:
“I think personally, we are at the cross roads, the cross roads in history, against which will be surely and solely judged and with respect to which there is no way for any of us to remain silent because its fundamental principles are at stake. Today we talk of migrants, tomorrow it will be the criminalisation of the poor, later on it will be the idea that somehow some countries are more important than other countries.”
4. Close up, Camera finder
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Ana Elena Barrios, Psychologist, Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Centre, Mexico:
“Since 2014, the Mexican government has put in place a program named like ‘South border program’ which is mainly an enormous amount of budget financed by the Government of the United States which is destinated to increase the control in the borders, in the north border of Mexico and most of all, that’s why the name, in the southern border of Mexico. So there is an enormous infrastructure that has been put in there to retain the people, to detain the people and then deport the people as fast as possible. So the number of people being detained and deported from Mexico, the Central American people fleeing their countries, is enormous.”
6. Med shot, Ana Elena Barrios with computer
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Ana Elena Barrios, Psychologist, Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Centre, Mexico:
“As the weeks go by and as we see them, one week after another, we can see how they really break down. How the detention, these detention centres means re-traumatisation of people that have already suffered.”
8. Med shot, screen
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Ana Elena Barrios, Psychologist, Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Centre, Mexico:
“In the detention centre, the main problem is the continuous and systematic violation of the due process, they cannot access to international protection, because what they are trying to do is to deport them as soon as possible. So that they don’t need to analyse and to get all this work of really recognising – we are talking about refugee people, people deserving protection and people needing protection. So what they are doing is that they are very often harassing them and not giving them any information of their rights, so that they can deport them as soon as possible. That is why we have this enormous number of people being deported from Mexico.”
10. Med shot, delegate reading brochure
11. Med shot, participant leaving room
Two-thirds of the nearly 50,000 victims of torture supported every year by the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture are migrants and refugees, according to the UN Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR).
During a public event today (28 Apr) called “A Victim’s Journey: Redress and Rehabilitation for Torture Victims in Migration” at the United Nations in Geneva, Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights said, we are at the cross roads, the cross roads in history, against which will be surely and solely judged and with respect to which there is no way for any of us to remain silent because its fundamental principles are at stake. Today we talk of migrants; tomorrow it will be the criminalisation of the poor, later on it will be the idea that somehow some countries are more important than other countries.”
Among the participants, experts who include medical doctors, psychiatrists and lawyers working for organizations supported by the Fund, there was also the Mexican non-governmental organization “Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Center”, represented by the psychologist Ana Elena Barrios.
She is working in migrant detention centres in the Mexican-Guatemalan border, providing psychological services mainly to Central American migrants, focusing on unaccompanied minors, indigenous women, pregnant women.
According to statistics gathered by the Mexican Human Rights Center, 400,000 refugees were fleeing in 2016 the violence in their countries- mainly in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – and arrived at the Mexican borders. According to Ana Elena Barrios the intense migration flux at Mexico's southern border is less known compared to the northern border of Mexico with the United States.
She said, “Since 2014, the Mexican government has put in place a program named like ‘South border program’ which is mainly an enormous amount of budget financed by the Government of the United States which is designated to increase the control in the north border of Mexico and most of all, that’s why the name, at the southern border of Mexico.”
Ana Elena Barrios explained, “So there is an enormous infrastructure that has been put in there to detain the people and then deport the people as fast as possible. So the number of people being detained and deported from Mexico, the Central American people fleeing their countries, is enormous.”
According to the Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Center, around 200,000 migrants were detained and 150,000 deported from Mexico in 2016 among which there were 40,000 children (detained) and 35,000 deported.
Ana Elena Barrios said, “In the detention centre, the main problem is the continuous and systematic violation of the due process, they cannot access to international protection, because what they are trying to do is to deport them as soon as possible. So that they don’t need to analyse and to get all this work of really recognising – we are talking about refugee people, people deserving protection and needing protection. So what they are doing is that they are very often harassing them and not giving them any information of their rights, so that they can deport them as soon as possible. That is why we have this enormous number of people being deported from Mexico.”
The Mexican NGO Fray Matias de Cordova Human Rights Center has documented systematic cases of torture inside the detention centers. Ana Maria said that “as the weeks go by and as we see them, one week after another, we can see how they really break down. How the detention, these detention centres means re-traumatisation of people that have already suffered.”
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