Vulnerable to the System: Migration and Torture in Spain

Grounded on the results of an ethnographic investigation on asylum seekers as victims of torture in Spain, this chapter analyses the governmental devices that define the reality of migrants as victims of torture. Stemming from a critical review of the concept of torture, in relation to migration in contemporary European societies, the chapter puts forward the double vulnerability to which migrants are exposed, as unprotected victims of torture in their countries of origin and as potential victims of torture on arrival to Europe. The paper argues that the precarious legal status and the failure of systems victim protection, combined with meritocratic approaches to migrant incorporation, not only fail to ensure full protection of victims of torture but, moreover, it exposes these victims to further situations of violence and exclusion.