Detention centres near international borders function as field prisons, but with inadequate and often unmonitored healthcare. Detainees face severe marginalization often without recourse or consideration of human rights [8]. For example, a Somali held in an Italian-funded detention centre in Libya has little hope of help from Somalia or Libya—which has not signed any of the Geneva human rights conventions, or Italy, who may be paying Libya to detain Somalis. With increasing frequency, the international migration authorities are launching detainment programs with limited healthcare; for example, in Mexico, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Croatia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nauru and Papua New Guinea [4,5,9].
Humanitarian projects have attempted to address gaps in social and healthcare services. In Morocco, nearly half of all Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical visits (5,233 in 2012) were related to poor social and living conditions due to insecure travel routes and precarious settlements [5]. In Mexico in 2012, MSF provided 5800 medical consultations, 10% (600) were for physical violence. MSF also provided a total of 1000 psychological consultations, 42% were directly related to violence. Eighty percent of migrant patients in Mexico reported witnessing violence. In 2011, MSF field workers in Libya documented lack of healthcare and lack of back social services amongst the undocumented migrants during the Gaddafi regime. Migrants consistently report fear of disclosure of their status as a barrier to seeking help. As a result, these capture, detention and deterrence programs have now led to organized torture and extortion from migrants and their families that are unmonitored by humanitarian organizations [8].