Interview

Helena Maleno Garzón is a Spanish-Moroccan human rights defender, journalist, researcher, documentalist and writer. She specialises in migration and human trafficking and has conducted extensive research on border violence and the rights of people on the move. Maleno holds an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the University of the Balearic Islands. She is the founder and director of Ca-minando Fronteras/Walking Borders, a human rights organisation dedicated to protecting the lives and dignity of migrants at the borders.

I come from a village in southern Andalusia, near Almería – a small village with a lot of poverty. Some time ago, they started installing invernaderos – greenhouses, to grow vegetables – that very suddenly changed the development of my village. Migrants started arriving to work in the invernaderos and found themselves in conditions of outright exploitation.

It really struck me. I come from a poor family, but also one very committed to defending rights, ever since the Civil War. And that’s how I got involved. I’m a journalist, but also a researcher. At one point, I was doing research on company outsourcing. I went to Tangier to finish that research and to work with Moroccan women in factories. There I discovered how migrants lived. I started working with migrant communities and, little by little, I stayed in Tangier working on other research projects. We created Ca-minando Fronteras with migrant communities. It wasn’t something planned – it was organic.

I’ve always worked with participatory action research methods, with communities. It’s a method I know very well. We started working in a horizontal way, with migrant communities, and we kept going. And since I’m a border girl – my village was also at the edge, between two worlds – I ended up on the other side of the border. That’s how it happened.

From the beginning, I wasn’t fully aware of the criminalisation. Maybe because it was already part of my family history: both my grandparents had also experienced repression. So, for me, it felt normal when you engage in rights work. In 2005, I was arrested after a serious incident in the desert while I was documenting mass deportations of migrants. We were the only ones able to follow the convoys. After that, I was injured, arrested, sent back to Spain. It was complicated.

But at that time I didn’t grasp the full extent. Later, in 2014, I survived an assassination attempt during a raid in Tangier which was racially motivated, where Moroccans attacked Black people. I tried to mediate, and they tried to kill me. I was injured, but Black Africans protected me and got me out. I thought it was just bad luck, but no – it was planned. The police had marked me. It happened again with ongoing harassment, and so on.

In 2017, Moroccan police summoned me to court. First, we didn’t understand why. Then we discovered that a file on me had been compiled by Spanish police since 2012. For five years, Spanish police, Frontex and Europol had been monitoring me – phones, movements, everything. In 2016, they sent the file to the Spanish justice, which closed the case. But Spanish police still sent the file to Morocco – outside official channels – to reactivate prosecution.

Before my first hearing, the Spanish consul told me: ‘Tomorrow, you’re going to provisional prison.’ Thankfully, there was massive mobilisation – in Morocco’s migrant communities and in Spain. Morocco’s government backed down. I got to see the file – it was unbelievable. The first section was a list of sexual relationships, comments on my private life – like a morality report. Nothing criminal. It was a political file. The Spanish police even asked for a life sentence.

Fortunately, mobilisation reached even the United Nations. Both the Moroccan judge and the Spanish prosecutor recognised there was nothing criminal in my case. But afterward, I was expelled from Morocco. I lost everything – my home, bank accounts, belongings. My underage daughter was left in Morocco, and the UN had to intervene.

Since then, it’s been the same. I travel to Geneva or elsewhere, and sometimes I’m followed. Even at a UN meeting in February, people were following me. I’m declared a ‘national security threat’ in Morocco. They wanted to use me as an example to justify persecuting others. The worst part is that Frontex and Europol were involved. The documents show police asking newly arrived migrants on beaches: ‘Do you know Helena? Did she tell you anything?’ It’s absurd. We are not protected. We’re threatened both by criminal networks and by states. And the only protection we have is each other.

We work for access to rights for all people on the move. Tragically, one key priority is the right to life. No one should die crossing a border. We also defend the rights of victims, the dead and the disappeared, and their families. We demand recognition, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition.

If we can say one thing, it’s that our dream is a world without borders. So that freedom of movement is for everyone. But until that happens, there are serious issues at the borders. There are violations of freedom of movement, and there’s also a business around borders. A border regime.

We work for access to rights for all people on the move. Tragically, one key priority is the right to life. No one should die crossing a border. It’s horrific. Nothing should justify that. We also defend the rights of victims, the dead and the disappeared and their families. We demand recognition, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition.

The Atlantic route became active around 2019, when Morocco shut down the north and pushed the migrant population towards areas between Agadir and Dakhla. From there, they started departing in inflatable boats toward the Canary Islands.

In 2021, the route from Senegal also became active, but became heavily used in 2023, with the political problems in Senegal. It’s a very long and difficult route. If something goes wrong in a certain area, you go straight to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

When we analyse each tragedy, we see that a large percentage of the boats could have been saved if the states had acted normally – with rescue equipment, planes and coordination between countries. But that coordination doesn’t exist. Salvamento Marítimo, our public rescue service, is excellent, but since 2018 it has been diverted by border control policies.

In 2024, there was a political shift. The Senegal route slowed, but the Mauritania route intensified. People from the Sahel attempted crossings in extreme weather conditions. In some cases, seven boats departed and only three arrived.

If you look at the profiles of people moving, the last boat intercepted came from Guinea Conakry. That’s at least a day’s journey from there to the coast. We’re also seeing departures from Algeria to the Balearic Islands. There are also people who were kidnapped in Libya – including Somalis and Bangladeshis. What we’re seeing is that borders and departure points change very quickly – faster than before. We constantly have to adapt our vision and our work. And, above all, many people are being expelled because of climate change and extractivism of natural resources. Over the past two years, we’ve clearly seen violence linked to natural resource exploitation, armed groups and conflicts – and a rise in child migration as a result.

The European Union doesn’t want to stop human movement – it wants to redirect it, because there’s a business behind it. The Transnational Institute has studied this business well: outsourcing, arms manufacturing, security systems. It’s a huge market. And Israeli technology – the same used in Gaza to carry out genocide – is used in migration control systems.

Maybe they want to make arrivals less visible, but the business is still there. When they give money to Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, it’s to buy control systems, weapons and technologies – from European companies. So it’s not about protecting lives.

There is a drop in arrivals, but that doesn’t mean there are fewer attempts. The routes are changing. For example, we’ve seen boats that left Mauritania and arrived in Brazil. These were boats we had reported as missing.

But despite alerts, authorities didn’t act. Even a progressive government like the current Spanish one behaves the same at the borders as more right-wing governments, like the Italian. It’s a ‘let them die’ policy. And it’s easy to let people die – you just have to do nothing.

Even a progressive government like the current Spanish one behaves the same at the borders as more right-wing governments, like the Italian. It’s a ‘let them die’ policy. And it’s easy to let people die – you just have to do nothing.

Yes, there’s an impact. I was in Los Angeles recently, and organisations there knew an explosion was coming. The current US administration seems proud to openly violate migrants’ rights – it’s becoming ‘trendy’. Trump paved the way for the far right to dominate the narrative, and now we’re seeing an unapologetic defence of ‘whiteness’.

It’s very serious. We’re going to pay a heavy price for what’s happening in Palestine and in the US. But what struck me was that American activists look to Europe as a source of hope. They say, ‘Not all is lost over there yet.’

The current US administration seems proud to openly violate migrants’ rights – it’s becoming ‘trendy’. Trump paved the way for the far right to dominate the narrative, and now we’re seeing an unapologetic defense of ‘whiteness.’ It’s very serious.

We never set out to have a project like this. We’re a small organisation that works using participatory methods, as I told you, and everything we do is organic. We don’t decide our actions in advance. It comes from the research, from the migrant communities themselves.

In 2007, we received a call from an inflatable boat in distress, just off Almería. It was at night. We contacted the rescue service, and they were able to save them. We said to ourselves: ‘Phew, let’s hope this never happens again.’ But then the calls kept coming. When we asked the women in our workshops why they were calling us instead of the official rescue service, they said: ‘I don’t know if, when I call the official service, they’ll let me die or not. But I know you don’t want me to die.’

So, our phone became one of the protection systems that migrant communities put in place during their journeys. It’s not just criminal networks. To survive, people also need solidarity, a kind of emerging citizenship and internal protection mechanisms. Our phone is one of those mechanisms.

We started training ourselves, learning maritime law, etc. In 2014, after the Tarajal massacre, we were able to identify the victims’ families very quickly. We went to Cameroon. We saw that there were many affected families, and we started reflecting on their situation. In 2015, we created an observatory. At first, our database was only used to respond to families and inform our research. But families asked us to publish the numbers. They wanted their memory to be recognised. So we published them – not for the media or institutions, but for the communities.

And then it became more visible. Today, we have two phones operating 24/7: one for emergencies at sea, one for assisting families. Even in court, a judge once asked me: ‘Why does everyone have your number?’ And I answered: ‘I don’t know, sir.’

We use primary sources. In our database, there’s no secondary information – no information from newspapers or the media. When we get an alert, we conduct transnational follow-up: we notify all the authorities involved in the migration route. The Spanish authorities receive exactly the same information as us, because every time we call Morocco or elsewhere, we also inform Spain.

We open a case and follow it. If the people are saved, we note that. If there’s a shipwreck, we verify who the victims were – women, children – and try to identify them. We also work with the Spanish Guardia Civil, which often asks us for help identifying recovered bodies. And once we have all the information, we only publish when we’re 100% certain. It’s heavy work, but it’s very rigorous.

We mostly collaborate with communities in Africa – mayors, local government officials, community-based organisations. But we don’t have the capacity to coordinate at a large scale, for example with European states.

Our goal isn’t for the governments of the Global North to know people are dying – they already know that. Our data is for the families, for the communities. If it helps elsewhere, great, al-hamdulillah. But our goal is memory, justice, truth.

Our goal isn’t for the governments of the Global North to know people are dying – they already know that. Our data is for the families, for the communities. If it helps elsewhere, great, al-hamdulillah. But our goal is memory, justice, truth.

Yes, but as I said, our position is clear. We don’t have the millions that the UN has. And at a certain point, we decided to stay a small organisation focused on supporting families and communities. If we grow too much, we’ll lose that spirit. We’re not against others. But our place is at the borders, with the communities – and we want to keep it that way.

We’ve seen that the thousands who have died at the border are dehumanised – they don’t exist. We are deeply engaged in this because families ask us to ensure that the dead and disappeared have rights. The families have rights, too.

When we talk about disappearances at the border, we’re not talking about isolated cases. Often we’re talking about mass disappearances, like during the Spanish Civil War or in Argentina during the dictatorship. It’s the same.

When we work with local authorities in countries of origin, we sometimes come across lists showing hundreds of young people missing from the same village. These are macro-disappearances – injustices on a massive scale that will never be addressed, not even in a single case.

Families go as far as Morocco to search for their loved ones in detention centres. And in this context, we’re not thinking of punitive justice, but restorative justice. We work with families in that framework.

For example, Algerian diaspora families have blazed a trail in Spain. When Algerians started disappearing at sea, these families went to the Spanish police. But the police would always say: ‘Go to the Red Cross.’ We started working with them using a disappeared-persons-centred approach. We reflected together: if your father with Alzheimer’s goes missing, you go to the police – not to an NGO. So why don’t migrant families have that right? A person who disappears at the border has the right to be searched for. The police must receive those complaints.

Why, when it comes to migrants, do authorities want us to take a different path? NGOs or the Red Cross can support, yes, but they can’t guarantee that right. It’s the states that must do so. And that’s how we begin. That’s how we work. There’s a large European association, well known in Spain called Fundación QSD GLOBAL. Its director, Paco Lobatón, is a journalist known for his work on disappearances. This organisation advocates for the rights for all missing persons and their families. They invited us to speak about disappearances at the borders and, for the first time, we felt truly understood. The families of other disappeared people fully understood the pain of migrant families. Thanks to our work, today some families of people who disappeared at the border are able to file complaints. Now there are official procedures in Spain where you can see the term ‘disappeared at the border’. And that’s a path forward. A good beginning.

It’s the same as I said before – behind all the propaganda there’s a business around necropolitics, around death at borders. Many people profit – not only when people die, but also once they enter the system. As you know very well, exploitation in Europe shows that there is a political will. The European migration pact isn’t just a signature – what they’ve been doing for years aligns perfectly with what they signed.

For us, there’s no real commitment. And the propaganda, you see, is like the multinationals – you’ve explained it well: it’s a war at the borders. A war against people on the move.

Yes, there’s a normalisation of the idea that a person crossing a border might die. That’s the result of propaganda. 2015 already feels far away. Back then, we were talking about Syrians: even though they’re Muslim, their skin looks a bit like that of Ukrainians. And everyone was saying: ‘They’re like us.’ Even in Spain. But me, with my skin colour, I say: I’m not like a Ukrainian, that’s clear.

And for people coming from Africa, it’s worse. It means that their lives are worth nothing in the dominant mindset. We’re in a different moment. Look at the images from Palestine: there’s no real solidarity movement. Because now, as I said before, the trend – after all this propaganda – is no longer to value human rights. It has become a problem, not something beautiful. The human aspect is lost.

We’re no longer talking about human beings. They’re treated like animals. Look at the images from Melilla in 2022, or the migrant prison with alligators that Donald Trump opened in Florida.

We don’t work with large state structures in countries of origin, and what we do serves the community and families. We work with grassroots, community-based structures, and that’s simpler. But there’s another problem: these countries of origin are not really free. Even Senegal depends on France. Their vast natural resources don’t belong to them. They’re still colonised states. And since they’re colonised, it’s the colonisers who decide who can travel and who cannot.

The resistance of ordinary Palestinian people is an example for all humanity. When I see their courage – journalists killed, doctors targeted – I’m reminded of what migrant communities endure. Gaza is fighting for our future. Those committing genocide want to eliminate human rights.

The people in power don’t offer support. The colonial powers decide. They install corrupt or easily manipulate governments to exploit natural resources. And it’s not just in Africa. It’s also Russia, China, the European Union, France. There are photos of people killed by paramilitaries just for going to fetch water from a river. African governments are corrupt because of this colonial system. Remember the time of slavery in America? There were the ‘house slaves’ and the ‘field slaves’ – it’s a metaphor. Colonialism is very serious, and it will only get worse with the scramble for natural resources.

In Los Angeles, we saw highly organised community associations. Every street had megaphones to warn residents when immigration authorities (ICE) arrived. Churches hosted legal workshops where parents could sign documents to ensure their children would be cared for if they were detained. It’s surreal – people prepare for every possibility.

In San Diego, at the Mexican border, we were told that land crossings were shut down, and deportations were happening by air to other borders in Central America. Everything can change from one day to the next depending on political decisions. The organisations are exhausted – stressed out by these unpredictable decisions. They reached out to us to ask how we resist, what our strategies are in the hardest moments. And when I returned, I took part in a workshop on border externalisation with participants from Central America and the US.

We have to understand that this is a global policy. It’s important to build connections, to share strategies from places like Morocco or Libya. We need to build links across the Atlantic and with the Global South, too. Otherwise, we’re lost.

Gaza shows what we already knew: that the United Nations is useless. It must rethink its role. It has no capacity to exert pressure, not even at very basic levels. In this global war, everyone sees the genocide.

They want to show that you can kill an entire population – because they think they have the right to do so. This discourse of dehumanisation will cost us dearly. The same applies to migration. The drones, the control systems used in Gaza are also used at borders. I’ve also followed the Zionist surveillance systems that have been adopted by Macron, Pedro Sánchez, etc.

When you witness a genocide live, with all the images and all the evidence, and there’s no response… We’re going to pay a heavy price for all this – the role of Germany, the propaganda, the Zionism that has even reached social movements.

The resistance of ordinary Palestinian people is an example for all humanity. When I see their courage – journalists killed, doctors targeted – I’m reminded of what migrant communities endure. It’s about the ability to struggle, to sacrifice, to say ‘no’ – not just for yourself, but for the future of the world. Gaza is fighting for our future. Those committing genocide want to eliminate human rights.

This is a critical moment. In Spain, there’s a clear stance being taken – but the UN doesn’t even have money, not even for UNHCR, which is starting to shut down.

As I said earlier, for us, the organised families are the future of the borders. They are the ones who make visible the impact of necropolitics. They are the survivors.

And they are also transformative forces – not just in countries of origin, but also in destination countries, through the diaspora. Communities are also essential. Despite all the repression, life continues, day by day. People live, they fight for freedom of movement.

But mobilisation in the North is dead. That’s a reality. We’ll see if it can be revived in the coming years. We saw that repression in the US reawakened people – we hope that could happen in Europe, too. But in the meantime, we must truly turn toward the South.

“I see a life force that resists necropolitics – a force rooted in communities. Often invisible in the media, it’s nonetheless very real. It’s life that renews itself daily, quietly, through the actions of mothers who rise each day, who may face deportation with their children yet still cling to hope.

I see a life force that resists necropolitics – a force rooted in communities. Often invisible in the media, it’s nonetheless very real.

It’s life that renews itself daily, quietly, through the actions of mothers who rise each day, who may face deportation with their children, yet still cling to hope. Despite the violence, they continue to seek a future with dignity and rights.

These aren’t institutional projects – but these women and families are there, every day. They build life at the borders, in transit. It’s not just ‘getting into a rubber boat’, as some imagine. During these transits, people fall in love, they work, they drink a beer. There’s life, even in the middle of repression. And I think we must cling to that. For me, love is what changes the world. In activism, we often think with our heads, without considering what it means to put our bodies on the line. But our wounds can be healed through love and solidarity.

In Spain, people mock buenismo – goodness – as if it were useless. But I was raised by a mother who told me: ‘You must be good.’ And I think we’ve forgotten that. But it’s so simple.

It’s not just ‘getting into a rubber boat’, as some imagine. During these transits, people fall in love, they work, they drink a beer. There’s life, even in the middle of repression.