Rabbiatu Kuyateh is a nurse, a mother, and a caregiver to her elderly parents. These credentials feature in an international investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories and published by outlets including France 24 and The Guardian.
I worry about the childless accountants who do their jobs adequately and spend their evenings pleasing themselves. When their turn comes, will these institutions say anything in their defense?
“She cared for us; how can we treat her this way?” offers an easy route to sympathy. It also makes protection sound like repayment. The wrong should be identifiable before we check whether we owe her a favor.
Criminologist Nils Christie called someone an “ideal victim” when an audience readily grants them victim status. Being harmed is not always enough; being vulnerable, blameless, and doing something respectable helps.
His classic example was an elderly woman attacked while returning from caring for her sick sister. The visit doesn’t explain why robbery is wrong, but it does give the audience another reason to take her side. Someone returning from an afternoon of drinking has the same claim against being robbed, with less material for applause.
A reader unmoved by the treatment of immigrants might care about the treatment of nurses. Kuyateh’s biography can win her a defender without changing his mind about anyone else. The people with less impressive biographies still need protection after the exemplary case has been made.
Kuyateh’s patients and relatives may suffer from losing her. Those losses matter, but having no dependents does not mean your removal harms nobody. The accountant herself is there. She can lose her home, her safety, and the life she wanted to continue. If deportation circumvents protection against return to danger, nothing in that objection requires a grateful patient or a grieving child. She is enough.