Asylum Women Speak Out at Galway City Council Meeting

galway | racism & migration related issues | news report Wednesday December 15, 2004 19:49 by Global Women's Strike, Galway Ireland at allwomencount dot net 087 7838688

On Monday night (13th December) two women facing deportation with their
families spoke out at a Galway City Council Meeting presided over by the
mayor of Galway and attended by supporters who packed the public seats.
Together with Women in Media and Entertainment (WIME), they have campaigned
publicly on their own behalf and for others fighting deportation and the
devastating effects of the Citizenship Referendum. They have used the local
and national media as well as street stalls, petitions and letters to
government to advertise their case. WIME worked to get the council to hear
a presentation by the two women...

On Monday night (13th December) two women facing deportation with their
families spoke out at a Galway City Council Meeting presided over by the
mayor of Galway and attended by supporters who packed the public seats.
Together with Women in Media and Entertainment (WIME), they have campaigned
publicly on their own behalf and for others fighting deportation and the
devastating effects of the Citizenship Referendum. They have used the local
and national media as well as street stalls, petitions and letters to
government to advertise their case. WIME worked to get the council to hear
a presentation by the two women, Merriam Dike from South Africa and Landu
Mfumaleka Elonga from Angola, who, together with their children and husbands
have been part of the Galway community for several years. Asylum seekers
and immigrants voted in the elections which gave these councillors their
seats and WIME says that this council and others must now act accountably
towards their electorate. WIME has proposed that this type of action be
taken up with other councils round the country.

Family from their countries of origin came with both women, and both have
given birth to children in Ireland. The women described the different
community work they've undertaken since they arrived here as well as their
skills in managing to keep their families going. They spoke at length about
their friendly relations with neighbours and their daughters' success at
school. Both women are in fear of their own and their families' lives if
they are forced to return not only from persecution and war, but in the case
of Ms Elonga, because everything her family owned has been destroyed, and
they would face life-threatening poverty upon return.

The women were very critical of the Citizenship Referendum, which has left
them and many other families in legal limbo and great distress by removing
their right to residency in Ireland under the Irish Constitution on the
basis of their Irish born children. They asked the councillors what they
would do if faced with such a situation. As Ms Dike said, 'Would you leave
your baby daughter [born in Ireland] behind, so that at least one of us
could be safe, and bring the other two girls back to face possible death?'
Today, the good news is that the government has decided to regularise all of
those families in this situation who were here before the referendum.
However, we would like to know why this may take up to five years according
to news reports and what precisely is meant by the fact that people
in this situation have to be 'willing to commit themselves to becoming
economically viable?' (Irish Times 15th December, p. 9). Is caring for
children not work that makes you economically viable? Will immigrant
mothers be denied the social welfare Irish mothers are entitled to?

We were all shocked at the comments of Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Danny
Callanan. As members of the public entered the council chamber, a
procedural discussion was underway in which Mr Callanan queried the legality
of such presentations and of a possible vote on the matter and appeared to want
to stop the women from speaking out. He also then made the point, repeated
at the end, that these were only two out of many 'sad cases' which one must
be 'sympathetic' towards. Other councillors (Catherine Connelly (mayor), Colette
Connelly, Billy Cameron, all Labour party) spoke in favour of the women speaking
and the rest assented to proceed with the event. Ms Margaretta D\'Arcy, Chairperson of
WIME, explained afterwards that it was the council that insisted on a limit
of two speakers; many more women would have come if more speakers had been
possible. The two speakers began from their own experience, which, as we
women know, is the basis for learning the extent of the problems and
beginning to find solutions, and they also spoke of the situation of many
other families.

All councillors had received a letter from Aine Ni Chonaill of the
Immigration Control Platform, an anti-immigrant, racist organisation,
claiming that the women speaking out were 'illegal'. In debate, Mr Callanan
objected to being put in the same category as what he called a 'fascist'
organisation. Yet he was ready to prevent grassroots women facing
deportation from speaking out for their own and their families' lives on the
basis of a procedural point. We believe there are questions Sinn Fein must
answer as a result of his comments - is it party policy to oppose women
asylum seekers who speak out themselves? Is Sinn Fein ready to play party
politics with people's lives if they are immigrants from Africa?

Global Women's Strike, Galway
____________

The Global Women's Strike is a network of non-party political grassroots
women's organisations in over 60 countries which takes joint action on the
8th March and, increasingly, throughout the year to demand the return of
military budgets to our communities, first of all to women, the chief carers
everywhere.
For further information about the Galway council meeting action, call
Margaretta D\'Arcy from WIME on 091 565430. For this statement and for more information on the
Global Women's Strike, please call Maggie Ronayne from the Global Women's Strike, Galway on 087
7838688 or email: Ireland@allwomencount.net

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