Voices #17: The Wrong Hands

Long-term volunteer, Sophie, arrived in Calais in September 2018 and joined RWC the following month. Through spoken-word poetry she has reflected on her experience on the ground and by extension how she views the European 'migrant crisis'. Below you can find her poem The Wrong Hands :

Convicted by the court

shackled by the state

family left fraught.

They say what you did was illegal

but that excuse is feeble

you were fighting a system

that calls you an "illegal human".

You used your agency

to try and set yourself free,

and now your hands are tied

when it's the state that should be tried.

Putting your child in a boat

hoping that it will float

is a risk taken

when the state leaves people foresaken

by not showing hospitality

because of Europe's warped mentality.

The walls are getting higher and higher

topped with coils of barbed wire.

This lack of compassion

leads to frustration

more dangerous passageways

smuggling, trafficking, running along motorways.

But organised crime is to blame for a fraction

the investigations are just a distraction.

When instead, we should be rounding up

those who build fortress Europe.

Sophie (2019)