Freedom from Torture releases 'The Survivor's A to Z' guide to the Poverty Barrier

To mark this year's Human Rights Day on 10 December, Freedom from Torture is releasing the 'Survivor's A to Z Guide to the Poverty Barrier' featuring the voices of the torture survivors we support.

Here is some info and a transcript of the letter G, but be sure to listen to more audio in the guide.

G is for Guests – Quality of Accommodation

Related:

Cockroaches were just one of the many problems with Home Office accommodation Freedom from Torture clients reported in the 'Poverty Barrier' research. Other poor housing conditions included a lack of locks on bedroom doors, infestations of mice and rats, a lack of heating or hot water, broken windows, an absence of smoke or fire alarms, and poor hygiene in common areas.

Freedom from Torture calls on the Government to task an independent inspectorate to monitor the quality of accommodation provided to asylum seekers with powers to conduct proactive and unannounced inspections.

Transcript: G is for GUESTS (by Jade)

Guest is a noun. It refers to a visitor – normally invited, and welcome

I used to stay in a NASS accommodation hostel. Every night, as soon as the lights went off, my guests would come out in their thousands; some came by helicopter, others came crawling, some just sat, lazing around. They owned the hostel, so they were untouchable. One day as I was asleep, one crawled into my ear and the sound of its music woke me up. There was dancing in my ears – he could have given Michael Jackson a run for his Moon walk. The others were laughing and chattering as if they had been drinking at All Bar One the whole night.

I could not take it any more so I ran to my friend’s room. “There’s a guest in my ear!” I shouted. My friend knew what I was talking about because ‘guest’ is our slang word for a cockroach. She poured water into my ear to try and flush him out, but the guest stayed put! I ran to the housing provider and shouted at the top of my voice: ‘Help! Help! There is a guest in my ear!’ The man looked very confused and probably thought I had lost my marbles.

He asked me, ‘How can someone get into your flipping ear?’ My friends started berating him, telling him that they had repeatedly warned him that there were millions of cockroaches in the hostel, in all our rooms, and that he had done nothing to get rid of them. None of us was going to give him an easy ride.

He swallowed his pride and called an ambulance. Within minutes it arrived and two of my friends went with me to A&E. A nurse asked what was wrong and I told her that there were guests in my right ear. The original dancer seemed to have multiplied, which made me very uneasy.

As I lay on the bed, waiting for these annoying guests to be removed from my ear, I hatched a plan. I would suggest to my friends that we collected these maniac cockroaches and dump them on the housing officer’s desk, closing the door behind us so that none could escape. We would see how he reacted then