Detention As a Means of Protection?
Imagine yourself having to make the difficult decision to leave your home, family, and community to travel to a distant land in the hopes of finding safety and protection. Imagine being locked up when you finally arrive, maybe indefinitely, and treated like a criminal.
Each year, hundreds of people, including minors and pregnant women, are detained when they arrive in Canada seeking refugee status. Unbeknownst to most Canadians, detention of refugee claimants is quickly becoming an institutionalized practice rather than an exception. People seeking security and protection in Canada – frequently after harrowing journeys – are forcibly confined and treated as criminals, often simply because their proof of identity is deemed insufficient.
Alarmed that non-citizens were experiencing arbitrary detention, mistreatment, and lack of due process, Glynis Williams and Jenny Jeanes created Action Réfugiés Montréal (ARM), a frontline response to this injustice. Assisted by a team of volunteers, they make weekly visits to the Immigration Prevention Centre in Laval, Québec, where the majority of people detained for immigration reasons in the province are held. ARM’s team provides detainees with information on immigration and refugee law, and ensures that their basic rights are respected.
In a radio interview featuring the work of ARM, Duval, a Congolese man who arrived in Canada in 2009, explained how he was arrested and detained for more than a month after he submitted his refugee claim. He described feeling like a criminal, under constant surveillance during his detention. Duval recalled his encounter with the staff and volunteers of ARM – the only organization he saw in the detention centre. They assisted him in filling out forms, established contacts for him with outside resources, provided him with telephone calling cards, and were around "just to talk and listen." Duval acknowledged that "ARM can’t find all the solutions for the migrants who are detained, but they help us get started and understand what is happening."
Advocating respect for detainees rights is not an easy task. The prejudice with which many Canadians treat migrants is amplified when they are detained; detainees are viewed with suspicion instead of welcomed. In the vast majority of cases, the Canadian Border Services Agency does not even allege that the detainees pose a danger. In these cases, ARM insists that more humane and compassionate alternatives be used.
In times when more and more barriers are being imposed on the movement of people, especially those from the global South, organizations like ARM are keeping alive the spirit that brought Canada to sign the International Convention that protects the right of all human beings to request safe asylum. Through supporting ARM, Inter Pares is working to create mutual security where we care for – rather than fear – each other.
| Reviewed August 19, 2009 |  |
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