‘It’s like you’re a criminal, but I am not a criminal.’ First-hand accounts of the trauma of being s
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‘It’s like you’re a criminal, but I am not a criminal.’ First-hand accounts of the trauma of being stuck in the UK asylum system
Steve Taylor, Leeds Beckett University
Warning: this story contains graphic descriptions of violence. Pseudonyms are used to protect the interviewees’ identities.
Angela had already been in the UK as an asylum seeker for nine years and four months when we interviewed her. She was still in a state of limbo, unsure whether asylum would be granted, and her story was disturbing to hear.
Angela told us she had left Nigeria after an appalling terrorist attack. Her father was a high-ranking regional politician, a Christian in a mainly Muslim area. Following a political dispute, the family compound was attacked by members of the militant Islamist Boko Haram organisation. Angela told us that her father, her husband and others were killed – and that she was shot at, raped, beaten and left for dead:
I was raped not one, not two, not three … I can’t remember how many...
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