Our 6,000 asylum seekers deserve more dignity

EARLIER this week, a Nigerian woman who was about to be deported with her two young children, aged seven and five, was brought to the Rotunda hospital as she was bleeding and claiming she had suffered a miscarriage.

Well-known campaigner, Rosanna Flynn, says she was with the woman, Olayinka Ijaware, and saw the bleeding, and a doctor at the hospital wrote that if the bleeding continued, the woman was not fit to travel.

It then transpired that Ms Ijaware’s miscarriage occurred last month, not on the day of the deportation.

Whether or not she deliberately misled the authorities, or if something was lost in translation, is not clear — and perhaps not relevant — as the fact remains, she was bleeding, and in distress. Her two young children were no doubt terrified, having been taken from Tramore by immigration police, to the airport, to the hospital and back to the airport, all the while thinking they were about to be sent back to Nigeria.

For those two children, what will a life in Nigeria mean? They have lived here for most of their young lives. The five-year-old arrived here aged one, so knows no other life. You could hardly blame a mother for doing everything to keep her children in the country they know best.

This woman and her children are part of a community of almost 6,000 people living in limbo in this country, waiting in a system which will probably reject them in the end. Meanwhile though, they make lives of sorts here — their children grow up here.

Latest figures from the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) show that 3,031 of 5,778 asylum seekers have been living in state-funded privately run hostels (direct provision) for more than three years.

A further 1,072 have been living at the centres for between two and three years, and more than 800 for more than a year.

Of those living in this system, about one third — 2,084 — are under 18.

The figures are stark, and although new Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has promised “comprehensive reforms” to the system, until they become a reality, people continue to suffer. It’s safe to say these really are the forgotten people in Irish society. They are not Irish, have no vote, cannot work: they just wait.

This waiting causes distress, hopelessness and depression. Non governmental organisations (NGOs), doctors and academics are reporting that a significant number of people within the asylum system are suffering from mental health problems.

A report submitted to the joint oireachtas committee on health last year, by consultant psychiatrists, Dr Niall Crumlish and Dr Pat Bracken, said that existing evidence, including evidence from Ireland, suggests that asylum-seekers are at even higher risk of mental disorder than refugees.

“The disparity appears to be because asylum-seekers experience post-migration stressors that refugees do not, such as the constant fear of repatriation, lack of independent accommodation and lack of the right to work. “The consensus is that the asylum process is damaging to the mental health of asylum-seekers and that this can be tackled by social as well as medical means… which in practice means the right to work and the right to independent accommodation.”

On the ground, people who work with asylum seekers see the distress they go through from day to day.

They withdraw from society, over-eat, under-eat, and suffer physical symptoms including headaches, lethargy, unhealthy sleeping patterns, due to living in confined, inadequate accommodation for long periods of time. Families are living on top of each other, they cannot cook for themselves. Grown men often have to share small rooms. Over time the frustration and anger over being left in a legal system without answers causes depression and in some cases self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

A recent report from a forum of more than 10 groups advocating for asylum seekers looked at alternatives to the government’s policy of direct provision.

Its key recommendation was the complete abandonment of the system and its replacement with one which delivers a greater degree of dignity and autonomy to asylum seekers.

“However, given that this is an unlikely eventuality, it is necessary to offer a number of recommendations which it is deemed would improve the welfare of asylum seekers,” the report says.

These recommendations include reducing occupancy levels of the larger centres, locating more centres closer to major urban centres, providing study spaces for those who are participating in education and forging links with local community and sports groups.

Back to Ms Ijaware’s predicament, no doubt the fact that she appeared to lie will be used against her and all asylum seekers. But on the other hand, it smacks of desperation when a woman would prefer to remain in this country, living with two small children in over-crowded hostels on €19 a week, rather than return home to her native land and family.