I am the Woman Who was Raped by an Immigration Officer in the Bahamas

I am the Woman Who was Raped by an Immigration Officer in the Bahamas / CID
Posted on September 27, 2013

My name is Maireni Saborio Gonzales, I am 23 years old and I live in
city of Caibarien, Villa Clara. I left as a boat person or rafter on
September 25, 2012 and I was jailed for 11 months in the Carmicheal
Center located in Nassau Bahamas, where later on I was deported back to
Cuba on August 21, 2013.

While in Bahamas, I psychologically suffered very much. I was the woman
who was raped by the immigration officer in Bahamas.

I am very afraid to be in this country – Cuba – because I declared
myself as dissident on some United States' radio stations, on the
internet and I repudiated wanting to return to Cuba in all instances.

I am under a lot of tension due to all the things that have happened to
me; I also had to denounce the Bahamian authorities because of their
lack of protection during the time I was imprisoned, due to the sexual
assaults that I suffered on several occasions and I am under pressure
too because I was returned to a country where I haven't been able to
find a job and I feel that I am under surveillance at all times.

I was one of the women who stitched their mouths shut; I surrendered my
beauty and I shaved my head to collaborate with my compatriots, 24
Cubans completely bald. I did two hunger strikes, one that lasted 18
days and the second one that lasted 16 days, and there were men on
strike too.

The Bahamian government detained me because I tried to kill myself due
to the psychological stress that I was under. They detained me and took
me to a mental institution in which around March I took a mixture of 20
different medications so I could take my life. Afterwards, they took me
to the Silent Hospital, another medical institution which the
Bahamanians have on the island of Nassau to treat the mentally ill.

As I said before, there they gave me medications and wouldn't tell me
anything about what was going to happen with our situation and I was
extremely stressed.

We witnessed beatings, we saw our compatriots be beaten, the video that
is going around the world is not a lie, this video is real and we lived
it and we, the women, decided to go through everything that happened
because nothing that you see in those photos and on the internet is a
lie and we decided to do it because we were tired of these things and of
existing under those horrific conditions in which we found ourselves
where we didn't even have drinking water and we had to sleep on the
floor and we couldn't communicate with our families and we were
continually sexually harassed.

In addition to seeing how they mistreated our compatriots, we had no
human rights, no one we could count on and we lived in this place in
this concentration camp that was horrible and what we wanted was for the
whole world to see what was happening and what happens with all these
Cubans. We were a little more than forty Cubans who were in the
detention center, we aren't criminals and the only thing we were looking
for was a window to freedom and I ask, please, that everyone who sees
this video knows what is is real and help us so that one day we can see
the freedom we so greatly desire.

Translated by – LYD and RST

13 September 2013

Source: "I am the Woman Who was Raped by an Immigration Officer in the
Bahamas / CID | Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/i-am-the-woman-who-was-raped-by-an-immigration-officer-in-the-bahamas-cid/