Persecution

United Kingdom 🇬🇧“When I first came to England from Zimbabwe, my dream was to travel the world. Growing up, I went to a boarding school where the headmaster was one of the provincial ministers of the ruling party. We were forced to go to pro-government rallies everyday, which myself I was like no, I’m not doing that. So it started there. I got into trouble. When I turned 17 or 18, I started to fully support the other party, going to demonstrations, being arrested, going back to protest again. When you believe in something, the more you are pushed away, the more you want to go for it: I wanted change for myself, for my future. But the thing that nearly broke me was on a Thursday or Friday when I went to this demonstration and we were all rounded up, hundreds of us. I was in a cell where you could hear people being beaten up, and worse, knowing your turn is coming. When the ordeal finally came, I blacked out. They do anything to try to make you change your mind, which just made me stronger. When I came round I was in pain, they had used some batteries attached to leads on my legs.

Concerned about my safety, my dad put me on a flight to England and I told the authorities about that hellish experience behind bars. They didn’t believe me. They said there are no signs of what I had been through. But by that time the scars were not physical, they were mental. The process of gaining official rights to live in England took years and years: being denied, sleeping on the streets, being homeless and moving around everywhere and anywhere. In the long run, it affects you mentally, I’m suffering from depression. I tried to block it out, and not think about it. That worsened my depression as I would bury it but then I found that I was suffering. It’s hard now as I process everything, but I’m going forward.

Leave To Remain in England, is the biggest thing I’ve achieved. The right to work and support myself, the right to have my own house and pay for it and pay my bills. I’m a survivor to have reached this far. When I came to this country, I wanted to travel the world. Now I can do that.”