This LGBT History Month, we collaborated with Nigerian activist Joel Mordi to produce a series of 5 short videos explaining our No Pride in Detention campaign.
Joel is a Nigerian LGBTQI+ and refugee rights activist, who organised Nigeria’s first Pride in 2019. He came to the UK to seek safety, but the Home Office detained him when he arrived. Since being granted refugee status in the UK, Joel has continued to campaign for LGBTQI+ rights and more compassionate treatment of people seeking asylum.
Joel is currently walking 2,500 miles backwards in the duo Two Refugees Walking to raise awareness and funds for several organisations supporting refugees, and this week they focused on raising awareness of No Pride in Detention.
In these videos, Joel uses his own experience to explain what immigration detention is, the effects of indefinite detention on mental health and LGBTQI+ people, compassionate alternatives to detention and why now is a crucial time to change this.
Here are the videos: