Getting out of hell on a boat: the story of an asylum seeker

There was a full moon the night M escaped from Morocco. Its reflection outlined the silhouette of the Zodiac boat on the horizon, but it barely lit up the rough track leading to it. Any other source of light could have attracted the attention of the authorities. About eighty people, mostly men, made up the crowd. They ran in panic towards the boat, which was waiting at a distance from the shore. They stumbled over rocks and pushed one another. M kept falling over. She could feel the rest of them running over her. "If you can't go on, we'll leave you on land," they told her when they saw her limping. She got up as best she could and continued.

They arrived in a crush. The water covered them completely, so they could not push themselves up into the boat with the help of the seabed. M tried as hard as she could, but she slipped. She saw how the others managed to get in but she couldn't. She shouted for help, but no one would listen to her. She was gradually being left alone in the water. Just as she was about to give up hope, someone grabbed her arms and pulled her up. She never found out who it was. M was one of the last people to get in before the boat started its journey. Not all of them made it. She was escaping from hell, but also left a part of herself behind.

She remembers little of the crossing. Shouting, dizziness and vomiting that went on for more than 24 hours. When she arrived in Gran Canaria, she spent two days in police custody before being referred to the Cruz Roja, the Spanish Red Cross. She is now living temporarily in a Cruz Roja shelter in Malaga. She has access to resources, food, psychological assistance and more to help to facilitate her autonomy and integration in Spain, where she is applying for international protection. Sitting at one of the desks in the classroom where she is learning Spanish, M tells her story.

She was born in Guinea, into an impoverished family and her birth left her mother in a wheelchair. "She took care of me and I took care of her," says M. She recalls that every Friday, she would go with her to the mosque to beg for alms to meet household expenses. It was on one of those Fridays that it happened: "My father came home saying he had a suitor for me, a friend's son wanted me to be his wife," she says. "I didn't know him." Her mother objected, but the decision was already made. She was thirteen at the time. The stranger she married against her will was in his thirties.

When, at fourteen, she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, she ran away to her parents' house, only to find the doors locked. "My father told me that I was already a married woman and that I should be at home with my husband," she said. Then came the second child and the third. Her husband did not work and did not care for the family, so she looked after everything. "In addition to taking care of the children, I had to go out to work to earn some money," she explains. "I had to beg so that my children could eat."

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The odd jobs she found did not provide enough income to support her three children and her sick mother. M was forced to look for another way. With the help of her neighbour S, she contacted a family in Kuwait who were looking for someone to take care of their children. The contract, she was told, would be for two and a half years. She had no choice, so she accepted. She moved into the house of her employer, who lived with her husband, parents and a brother. A good part of her salary was sent to her mother through S's brother. The rest she saved with the idea of buying some gifts for her children when she returned.

The brother of the woman she worked for, she says, tried to rape her on numerous occasions: "Every night he would come to my room. I tried to explain that I had three children in Guinea, that if I got pregnant by someone other than my husband, I would be disowned by my family." One of those nights when she continued to refuse, he took a knife and stabbed her in the side. M threatened to tell the family, but he assured her that they would never believe her.

She dared to tell them, but what her attacker had predicted happened. "Everyone jumped on me and beat me for lying," she says. "They took me to the police station and accused me of stealing their jewellery." The Kuwaiti police kept her under investigation for a while, but found no conclusive evidence to prove the accusations. The family then decided to deport her back to her country. Under the 'kafala' system, a model of migrant labour exploitation found in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries, the employer can cancel the employee's residence permit at any time. "The police took me to the airport in handcuffs," she says. She later discovered that the family had gone through her belongings and taken all her savings.

When she returned to Guinea, her mother told her she had to leave. "She told me that my husband and my father were looking for me, that going back was a mistake," says M. "If I didn't leave soon, they were going to hurt me. She spent nine months hiding in the house of S's brother. During that time she was unable to see her children. Then she left for Morocco.

She worked as a cleaner in Rabat and Casablanca for two years. She supported her family as best she could. One morning, she received a message from S. She had a friend who had managed to reach the Canary Islands by boat. The crossing, she told her, had been hard, but a sea rescue team had saved them in time.

"Then I started thinking about my situation in Guinea, Kuwait and Morocco, with no future," she recalls. The idea of crossing to Spain was growing on her. She consulted her mother, who warned her of the dangers of the journey and asked her not to do it: "She said I should keep holding on in Morocco, that the money I was sending them from there was enough." But she chose to take the risk. "In my country, I was threatened from all sides. I wasn't thinking about the destination, but about escaping the situation I was living in."

She got in touch with the criminal organisation that would get her to the Canary Islands. She was sent to Tahala, where she was kept hidden for about a month. She shared a room with nine other women who, like her, were waiting for a signal from those in charge to start their journey. The men were hiding in another room. One night a man she had not seen before appeared at the door. The day had come. They were loaded into a vehicle that dropped them off at the coast. Then she spotted the Zodiac boat in the distance.

M is now safe in Spain. "I have a bed to sleep in and I eat better, but I can't stop thinking about what my children must be eating," she says. They are in Guinea, with their grandmother. Every now and then, their father goes to look for them. They take refuge at S's house. The last time he took them away, in addition to not providing for them, he mistreated them. Since they escaped, S's brother also protects them from their father.