Article #67695

Rounded up in raids and with no access to lawyers, 22 women including trafficking victims and refugees speak of filthy conditions and beatings while stuck in legal limbo

Nine months without the antiretroviral drugs that keep her alive has caused Mary’s* health to decline. For 29 years, the Kenyan mother of four had managed her HIV. Now she is being held indefinitely in an immigrant detention centre in India, it is becoming a death sentence.

Her legs are swollen and distended, her blood pressure has soared, and she has collapsed from weakness. “If I don’t get my tablets, I may become bedridden. And then no airline will take me home,” Mary says, speaking by phone from inside the facility.