Letter from the Executive Director
Last September, we began receiving messages from people claiming to be detained at the Welisara Detention Centre in Sri Lanka. The detainees came from nearly a dozen countries across Asia and Africa, including Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malaysia, and China. Most had been arrested because of their irregular statuses, and then sent to Welisara, where their cases stagnated and they began losing hope, trapped in frightful conditions for months.
“The camp itself is just one room with dorm beds and a small yard. It is overcrowded and … many people sleep on [mattresses] in a yard,” wrote one detainee. And another: “The food is poor. And I have health problems, but I cannot get medical help or go to the hospital here. Another Pakistani man died here before.”
Eventually, one of the detainees searched for the name of Welisara on a mobile phone and found the Global Detention Project’s website. They began writing to us. A detainee from China said that he merely wanted help returning home. Another claimed to be a persecuted Christian from Pakistan, and he was deeply worried about being sent home. Another was from Ethiopia, who expressed his growing desperation over the lack of progress on his case and his inability to provide for his family.
“It is already been almost a year since we became prisoners in Sri Lanka,” wrote the Ethiopian detainee, who sent us copies of his identity documents. “And we believe that it is a matter of Sri Lankan authorities having no will to do anything about our case that we are still here. … We have families in our homes that depends on us, but here we cannot earn and provide for them. And we have no idea when we can go from here.”
Convinced of their need, we reached out to our network of partners in the region, including the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, who quickly intervened, facilitating contact with a law firm willing to help. Sometime later, the detainee from China informed us that they had received help and that some detainees had managed to return home. He wrote:
“Although this experience has been challenging and unjust, it has made me truly aware of the power and hope represented by international human rights organizations and principled legal professionals. I will always remember and cherish the assistance and support provided by your organization.”
The case of Welisara is an important lesson for us: Although we focus much of our work on encouraging policy reforms and impacting the work of human rights monitoring bodies, our data and documentation are also vitally important to individuals. In fact, not a day passes without us receiving phone calls, emails, and social media messages from people either claiming to be in a detention centre or seeking help for someone who is.
The reason for this stream of requests is an unexpected— though, in hindsight, foreseeable—outcome of our methodology: By documenting where and in what conditions migrants and refugees are detained across the globe and converting that documentation into dedicated webpages for each detention centre (which, as of March 2026, numbered 2,831 individual detention centre pages), we have created what is often one of the few (or only) online resources about these sites. Thus, when those detainees searched for the Welisara Detention Centre, they inevitably found the GDP.
This unanticipated impact provides opportunities for advocacy but also places on us an important responsibility: In drawing the attention of people in need to our website, we must consider how to facilitate access to resources for them. The sheer volume of requests we receive makes it incredibly challenging for our small team to individually respond to all of them. However, it is incumbent upon us to explore other solutions, including exploiting the fast-evolving digital tools that can automate access to resources for people in need as well as improving how we present our information and data.
To be sure, these are not altogether new lessons or insights. As you’ll read in this Annual Report, the many activities and achievements of the past year reflect our continual efforts to be conscientious about where our work is making a difference and how we can do better.
Take, for instance, the launching of our new staff position last year, “Refugee Advocacy Coordinator,” which is filled by a formerly detained refugee who serves as the GDP’s primary representative at international fora, is involved in research, and recruits and trains other refugees to join our work. We created this post because of our experience observing the impact that people with lived experience have when they advocate for change, as well as our conviction that people who have suffered in immigration detention should have the opportunity to challenge harmful practices (see page 24).
Also last year we had our largest annual output in submissions to human rights monitoring bodies: 23 submissions, targeting 10 different mechanisms, working in collaboration with 10 partners. These numbers are a reflection of our maturing understanding of the relevance of our data and documentation across the entire human rights system, and not just those that specialise in detention or migrants’ rights (see page 16).
You’ll also read in this report about the growing impact of our work on a range of international monitoring institutions as well as local human rights advocates. On page 17, you’ll hear from a Belarussian refugee and activist who wrote to tell us how our documentation has helped fuel her efforts to advocate for other refugees at the European Court of Human Rights. On pages 20-23 you’ll read about the many different human rights bodies that have incorporated our recommendations in their communications to states. And on pages 26-27, you’ll learn about the impressive growth in traffic to our website and the growing use of our data and reports by journalists across the globe.
While it is important to take stock of our achievements, this is no time to rest on our laurels. As a reader of our Annual Report, you are doubtless aware of the growing isolation and scapegoating of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers across the globe today. Another important lesson from our work is that the voiceless and the most vulnerable are the easiest targets for unscrupulous political actors. Our job is to ensure that states are relentlessly reminded of their human rights obligations, to improve how our work serves advocates and aids those in need, and to create opportunities for those who have suffered harmful and arbitrary enforcement practices.
These tasks can seem daunting, but we are encouraged and empowered by our many supporters and partners like you. We are particularly grateful to the many institutions that have made our work possible over the past year, including the City and State of Geneva, the Oak Foundation, and Loterie Romande.
