Co-authored with the National Survivor User Network (NSUN)
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Summary
Trauma, disability justice, and migrant justice
Dialogue around trauma as part of disability justice, and also migrant justice, remains largely absent.
The creation or exacerbation of mental ill-health, distress and trauma is often caused by immigration systems and policies, including:
- Interactions with the border
- Immigration raids
- Detention
- Asylum accommodation
- Interactions with the Home Office and caseworkers/staff (eg during an asylum interview)
- Right to work checks
- Sponsorship schemes
- Surveillance
- The No Recourse To Public Funds (NRPF) condition
Therefore, migrant justice movements must take the trauma, mental ill-health and distress of migrants, including people seeking asylum, seriously.
The social model of disability recognises traumatised people and those who experience mental ill-health, as disabled. As such, we argue that trauma and mental ill-health can be disabling, and should therefore be situated within wider discussions on disability justice.
PTSD and barriers to accessing support
In some cases, trauma can evolve into what is known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as experienced by 30% of people seeking asylum internationally, according to recent research by the Mental Health Foundation. Yet PTSD treatment is virtually inaccessible for most people seeking asylum, due to long waiting times for therapy. Those without legal status are also kept away from accessing PTSD treatment due to bureaucracy, stigma, racism, and fear of deportation.
Discussions around mental-ill health and trauma for people who have crossed borders are often narrow. They largely focus on distress or issues arising for people who have fled conflict, violence or persecution. Despite this, there are many other incredibly distressing circumstances in which people are forced to leave their homes, but which arise from the economic consequences of neocolonialism, for example. In such cases, where someone’s motivation to cross borders does not fit neatly into Western expectations about what a ‘deserving’ migrant looks like, people are far less likely to have the trauma of their journeys acknowledged.
Mental Health and White Supremacy
Racialised groups are more likely to be subjected to coercion and violence when experiencing mental distress. This stems from a history of White supremacist eugenics and cognitive theories, which framed racialised people as psychologically inferior, and contagious, with a particular focus on Black people. In the mid-20th century, Black people diagnosed with schizophrenia in UK psychiatric hospitals were simply labelled as ‘dangerous’ for no reason. By constructing mental-ill health as a symptom of inherent racial inferiority, these schools of thought did deep and lasting damage to the perception of racialised people who experience trauma.
We can still see the impact of racism and Islamophobia in mental health policies today. Black people are four times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act than the general population. Meanwhile, the Vulnerability Support Hub initiative – a “secretive counter-terrorism police-led mental health project” – understands migrants (written in the guidance as “migrants and asylum seekers”) with ‘complex needs’ like trauma as having “unmitigated” terrorism risks.
Trauma, Migrant Justice and Abolition: Transformational Approaches to Mental Health Care
Under capitalism, mental health systems are based on the carceral model, which effectively punishes or criminalises people instead of giving them the care they need. Under capitalism, mental health systems are also unable to address systemic oppression.
In line with disability justice frameworks, we must call for abolitionist and anti-oppressive approaches to mental healthcare—moving away from punishment and incarceration towards community, accountability, compassion and justice.
Notes on Language
Debility: A useful concept when thinking about the intersection of migration and trauma is ‘debility’. Marginalised groups are forced to live in debilitating conditions by systems like capitalism, imperialism and borders. They might, for example, be forced to flee violent occupations, live in hazardous accommodation, or face workplace exploitation because of their legal status. All of these factors put these groups at greater risk of becoming disabled – we understand people in these situations as living in a state of debility.
Survival: Those who have experienced trauma specifically can be labelled with the blanket term ‘survivor’. While for some this is a term of ‘empowerment’, for others it is simply inaccurate because their experience of trauma does not align with or equate to the notion of survival.