The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE Jamaican wife of a Bahamian man and her 11-year-old daughter were left traumatised and degraded after spending 10 days in detention at an immigration safe house for women and children, according to a court filed affidavit.

Kediesha Bent-John, 35, said she and her daughter were fingerprinted and forced to give blood and urine samples without their consent before spending the entire detention period locked in a basement room with poor ventilation. She also claimed she was denied food for three days while detained due to her behaviour.

She characterised the cramped environment as a “female prison” for adults but “torture” for children, including a five-month-old infant she said was being held there.

Mrs Bent-John alleged the infant had no formula and its mother was given only “bottled water with a capful of sugar to feed her baby over  the several days” she was at the facility.

She said the women at the facility did not feel safe as they were not allowed to close bedroom or bathroom doors, underscoring several instances of male officers walking into bathrooms while migrants, including herself, were showering in stalls with no curtains.

An occurrence that left her shocked and speechless, and vigilant to protect her daughter from being exposed.

“We were locked in this house all day and night,” read the affidavit filed on January 22. 

“It was a very frightening and humiliating experience, knowing that we were locked away in an unknown location and no one was telling us what was happening. We were cut off from our family and friends.

“(My daughter) is still traumatised by the whole ordeal. She hasn’t been sleeping in her bed,” the statement continued.

“She keeps coming to our room begging to sleep with us as she has been having nightmares since our release.

“She is fearful that we could be arrested again at any time since it was done so barbarically and casually the first time. The conditions of our arrest and detention was inhumane and degrading. I wish (my daughter) could erase this from her memory, but it will be impossible for a child to forget such a frightening and bizarre experience.”

Mrs Bent-John and her daughter were arrested on December 8, 2017 around 6am, and were released with reporting conditions on December 19 after filing a habeas corpus application contesting the legality of their detention.

Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hilton is expected to deliver his ruling on the matter later this month.

According to her affidavit, Mrs Bent-John had been a frequent visitor to the Bahamas since 2009. She said she reconnected with her husband Andrick John in 2012, and got married in Nassau after a yearlong courtship.

According to her affidavit, her husband travelled to Jamaica and adopted her daughter shortly after their marriage.

The 11-year-old is enrolled in a local primary school, according to her affidavit, which indicated the child maintained an above average GPA, is active in several extracurricular sporting and philanthropic groups, and has three scholarships pending for high school.

She explained her husband made several attempts to apply for her spousal permit but was frequently turned away by Department of Immigration officers for insufficient documents.

In one instance in 2016, Mrs Bent-John said they submitted a Jamaican police record but were told at the department it was stale-dated. She said she was later advised that police records are valid for five years.

Mrs Bent-John said her husband’s most recent attempt was in September last year; however, it was not accepted as the department requested a new police record from Jamaica. Her filed affidavit included copies of her Jamaican police record, application letter, and additional documents.

On December 8, according to her affidavit, immigration officers searched the home but did not allow her husband to produce any documentation. They told the child to take off her school uniform and put on plain clothes, the affidavit read.

“The immigration officers were armed,” it continued. “I went willingly as I was too shocked to even question whether they had a warrant or ask why we were being arrested…I asked how I could be illegal when I was married to a Bahamian and I lived with my husband. They refused to look at the documents we had.

“My husband pleaded with the immigration officers to allow (my daughter) to do her exams and he would get my documents sorted out. They told him to go to Hawkins Hill if he wanted but the mother and child will be coming with us.”

The affidavit continued: “(My daughter) started to cry. (She) explained to the immigration officers that she had an end of term exams…it was important that she did her exams as they were the district end of term exams.”

According to her affidavit, her daughter had been working hard to obtain a better score on the exam as it determined high school placement, adding that she wanted to secure a scholarship to attend Queen’s College.

After being placed on a bus, Mrs Bent-John said she and her daughter were driven around for hours as immigration officers rounded up and arrested more people. She noted the bus passed her daughter’s school three times, and the child cried persistently.

They arrived at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, the affidavit continued, where the pair was subjected to an hours-long processing that included fingerprinting, and blood and urine samples.

She said she was handcuffed and placed back on a bus with her child, and transported to a facility that looked like an old convent, which she would later learn was the immigration safe house around 9pm.

“Upon being handcuffed I asked to see a lawyer and they said no,” the affidavit read.

“I asked if I could call my husband and they said no. We were terrified as we had no idea where we were and I still did not get to speak with my husband.

“The building was very heavily guarded by a male defence force officer and two female immigration officers. There was also a social worker at the House. Only the defence force officers could open the main door.”

Mrs Bent-John said she and her child were taken downstairs to a basement and given a small Red Cross bag bearing the date 1991, which contained a small bar of soap and a hardened tube of toothpaste which could not be used.

“The ventilation in the room was very poor. There were two small windows, no air condition and they gave us a time when to open and close the windows.”

Mrs Bent-John said she suffered from severe asthma, and had her pump inhaler with her. She said there were two bathrooms in the basement shared by the occupants of four bedrooms, with four adults in each room. She said the pair shared a room with three women and their babies but they only spoke Haitian Kreyol.

“There was no radio or television access at the safe house so we were totally oblivious to what was happening around us. There were no books, magazines or anything to keep us entertained or occupied. 

“We could see outside the small window but we were not allowed to go outside. To the adults this was a female prison and to the children this was torture.”

Mrs Bent-John explained that each time the officers changed shifts they would patrol all rooms, and migrants developed a schedule to allow for “private moments in the bathroom.”

According to the affidavit there were two instances in the early morning when a female immigration officer threatened to cut her dreadlocks. She made several claims against the officers, including being starved for a period of three days.

It continued: “I started screaming and it was obvious that they didn’t want us to make noise, perhaps the location would be found if we became loud so I used that to my advantage.

“They told me for my outrageous behaviour I would not be given any food for three days.”

Mrs Bent-John claims migrants were only given bottled water with meals, and on those three days, her daughter brought her the bottled water. She said her daughter cried daily for her father.

On December 14, the pair were allegedly visited by two white human rights representatives - a man and a woman, who were accompanied by a female immigration officer. The pair were asked how long they had been in detention, whether they had been in contact with her husband, and if they had eaten. The representatives reportedly left after speaking with the other Haitian women detained at the facility.

On December 15, Mrs Bent-John said the pair were taken to the CRDC for “visitor’s day”, but when they arrived she was instead asked to call her husband on the telephone. However, the call was intercepted and she never spoke with him.

She said she and her daughter were asked to sit in a room.

“While we were there we saw two of the immigration officers placing what appeared to be a recording device under the desk and they opened a picture frame on the wall and placed a small device there also.

“We waited for about 20 minutes, then one of the said immigration officers who had placed recording device in the room brought a lawyer into the room and jokingly said ‘close the door so we don’t hear your conversation.’”

Mrs Bent-John said it was then she met with her attorney Crispin Hall, who had been retained by her husband.

“I was crying most of the time and I was guarded in my statement to him.” the affidavit continued.

“I explained to the lawyer what had happened, but I did not go into too much details because unknown to the lawyer we were being recorded.”

Mrs Bent-John’s application is among some 15 separate cases in which the government has been asked to prove the lawfulness of the applicants’ arrest and further detention at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre.

Of those cases, several applicants have been unconditionally released; however, the Crown has objected to costs being awarded due to its position that all the arrests and subsequent detention were lawful.

The Immigration Department has come under heavy scrutiny following the landmark case of Bahamas-born deportee Jean Rony Jean-Charles, which officials note has highlighted the need for widespread reforms.

Last night, a source close to the matter,  who spoke on  condition of anonymity refuted the existence of a “basement” at the Immigration safe house; however, it was confirmed that it was a multi-level facility.