Opposition joins bid to stop family deportation

OPPOSITION party leaders joined the growing campaign yesterday to save a Nigerian family of asylum seekers from deportation.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, Labour leader Ruairí Quinn, Green Party president John Gormley and Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caomhghín Ó Caoláin all signed a petition calling on Justice Minister Michael McDowell to allow the Onasanwo family to stay in the country.

Elizabeth Onasanwo and her five children have been served with a deportation order by the Department of Justice and are currently await the gardaí to act upon it.

Last month, 18-year-old Christina Onasanwo passed her Leaving Cert and has been accepted to study business studies in Rathmines College of Commerce.

Organising the petition, the Union of Students of Ireland said instead of heading into third-level education, Christina, along with her six-year-old sister Bolu, face the harrowing prospect of enduring female genital mutilation, or circumcision, in Nigeria.

USI women’s rights officer June Coghlan said if Minister McDowell fails to reverse the deportation order, he would be partially responsible for harm that comes to them in the country they fled.

“As a result of the impending deportation the girls’ mother, Elizabeth, has suffered a nervous breakdown and is now in psychiatric care as she witnessed her sister die from genital mutilation. The only reason she was singled out for this maiming was because the tribal elders decreed so,” she Ms Coghlan said.