Shaker Aamer, father of three, the last UK resident detained at Guantánamo, long ago cleared of culpability, has been imprisoned for over 11 years. He has never been charged or faced trial. Political paralysis keeps him incarcerated. Aamer is one of at least 40 of the remaining 166 Guantánamo prisoners currently on hunger strike, some of whom are being brutally force-fed. In addition to Aamer is Babar Ahmad, a resident of Tooting, south London and the British citizen detained the longest without conviction. He was imprisoned for eight years in the UK, and, after extradition, is now in the US. He denies any involvement in terrorism.

The so called "war on terror" has legitimised practices in the UK most commonly associated with totalitarian regimes. Control orders restricting movement issued without public hearing of any evidence; extraordinary rendition across countries, continuous surveillance and, as Victoria Brittain so powerfully portrays in Shadow Lives: The Forgotten Women of the War on Terror, all have a huge impact on the women and children who are drawn into this world where deprivation of civil rights is the norm.

Brittain, a former associate foreign editor of the Guardian, describes, for instance, the tenacity of Sabah, wife of Jamil el-Banna, arrested in west Africa where he was setting up a peanut oil factory. She is left with five children, little English and no knowledge of where her husband is held. Eventually, Palestinian-born Sabah becomes a campaigner, keeping her grief to herself, stepping outside her house, "full of sleeping children" to shed her tears alone. After five years, her husband is finally released. "I think human rights here have taken an open holiday," says one of the children.

The pattern for family after family is similar. Acts of generosity but also children bullied, wives spat at and abused. Some men on control orders buckle and suffer shattering mental ill health, witnessed by their families. Police continually visit, children's computers for homework are forbidden, their toys confiscated and never returned. Some of the men subsequently receive financial settlements; the price that their wives and children pay is ongoing. "Listen to my story," one teenage girl says, "then decide if you will be able to live my life." When so many turn away, it is vital that eloquent and committed chroniclers of the calibre of Victoria Brittain persist.