“Bordering sorts people, creating the desirable and the unwanted”
Twenty years ago, 21-year-old Mohammed Ayaz was trying to get to the UK. Initially, he’d travelled from Dadahara, northwest Pakistan, to Dubai to work as a labourer. But he ended up being exploited. His salary wasn’t what he’d been promised and there wasn’t enough to start paying off the debt he’d racked up in flights, agent and visa fees-it barely covered his food.
So Mohammed decided to move to the UK. He travelled to Bahrain, headed for the airport and early one morning, broke through security and stowed away in the undercarriage of a plane. “He always spoke about going to work in America or England,” Mohammed’s brother, Gul Bihar, explained, “but they don’t give visas to poor people like us.”