The Experience of Undocumented Women and Children in Detention Centres in Belgium Ill-Treatment or Torture?

Abstract

The article examines one of the forms of state violence exercised on undocumented migrants in Belgium, in particular on women and children, since the introduction, in the late 1980s, of the new migration policies which notably consisted in the confinement in detention centers and the forced deportation. The analysis of that migratory flows control policy reveals the systemic violence practiced against these migrants and the repeated violation of their fundamental rights that have been condemned by eight judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The article aims at discussing the nature of the regime of violence inflicted on undocumented migrants in detention centers and during deportations: is it ill-treatment or torture? The first section briefly presents the political context and the institutional architecture of detention centers. The second section describes the violence of confinement and its consequences on women and children. The third section deals with the practices of deportation under their collective and individual aspect and their impacts on migrants. The article concludes that regarding, both, the norm of intentionality of migration policies and the detrimental effects on the mental and physical health of children and women migrants as powerful as those resulting from torture, the re-labelling and recognizing these inhuman treatments as typical forms of torture of detention centers established oneself. The challenge of this re-labelling lies in the need to shift the moral and legal debate to the political one in order to question that form of governmentality and policy unworthy of a democracy.