Last week, Nigerian activist Joel Mordi shared his experience of immigration detention as a gay man at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Immigration Detention. Read his full speech below:
Good morning, everyone,
My name is Joel Mordi, and I am a former detainee, a refugee, and a proud advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. But I am also here as a survivor of the UK’s immigration detention system: a system that dehumanises, traumatises, and endangers those it claims to process with dignity.
When I was detained at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre, I saw first-hand the brutal reality of what it means to be LGBTQ+ in detention. I endured verbal abuse, the kind that grinds you down day after day, reminding me that, in the eyes of those in power, I do not belong. I witnessed sexual abuse, where vulnerability is exploited in a place that offers NO protection. And I suffered at the hands of a system riddled with staff failings: where officers turned a blind eye, ignore cries for help, or worse, participated in the cruelty as an enabler.
For many of us detained LGBTQ+ individuals, every day in detention is a fight for survival. We are locked away with people who see our identity as a threat. We are placed in a system where reporting abuse often means retaliation, or harsh rebuttal, not justice. And we are left in an environment where mental health support is inadequate. Suicide attempts are frequent in a place haunted by many suspicious and unexplained deaths like Mr Oscar Okwurime’ of blessed memory, amongst others.
Yet, despite the well-documented dangers faced by LGBTQ+ asylum seekers in detention, the UK government’s “Adults at Risk” policy fails to recognize the specific vulnerabilities of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. While transgender individuals are rightly considered at high risk and generally exempt, the policy excludes LGB asylum seekers, as if our suffering is somehow less urgent. As if being locked up with homophobic perpetrators is not a risk. As if being cut off from LGBTQ+ support networks does not exacerbate trauma.
This exclusion is not an oversight. It is a deliberate act of neglect that puts LGB refugees at risk of further abuse, re-traumatisation, and, in some cases, deportation to countries where they face imprisonment or death for who they are. That is why we say: No Pride in Detention.
No Pride in a system that detains people who have fled persecution. No Pride in a system that ignores the suffering of LGBTQ+ refugees. No Pride in a policy that refuses to acknowledge that LGB people are at risk.
At Rainbow Migration and Minority Inclusion Foundation we refuse to be silent; we are fighting for true inclusion; we are fighting for the abolition of “ALL” LGBTQ+ detention and for urgent reforms to the Adults at Risk policy.
Our chair Bell Ribiero-Addy, having authored an Early Day Motion opposing the immigration detention of LGBTQI+ people, which we encourage any MPs in the room to please sign. We are demanding an end to the detention of my social group who are seeking safety. And we are standing in solidarity with every LGBTQ+ person still trapped behind those walls.
To the UK government, I say this: If you believe in human rights, end the detention of LGBTQ+ people. If you claim to stand for dignity, stop placing refugees in harm’s way.
Detention is a life sentence, it further breaks already vulnerable and traumatised LGBTQ+ individuals, it only strips away never giving anything of value but lifelong trauma!
Detention is forever; detention bail only means one thing “it’s too late” the damage is already done. But as the saying goes “broken crayons still colour” but not everyone will find purpose in pain; others will go on to break others (hurt people hurt people), you see one thing about society: we are excellent in pointing out the problem but never our role in creating that problem. It is not what we say it is what we do, will you join us and act for our cause?
To everyone here today, I ask you: Stand with us. Raise your voices. Demand change. Because until every LGBTQ+ person is free from detention, none of us are truly free.
If you want to support our ‘No Pride in Detention’ campaign and call for an end to LGBTQI+ detention, join us, Ben & Jerry’s and over 3,100 people who have already signed in telling Ministers to act now.