Nigerian women say "No fast-track back to abuse"
dublin |
racism & migration related issues |
news report 
Monday July 11, 2005 14:42
by Dave - RAR
Protestors tell their stories to Indymedia
Dozens of Nigerian women from four local hostels are currently living in fear of deportation - despite their harrowing accounts of abuse. They have called a 1pm protest on Thursday 14th July at Dáil Éireann to highlight their situation.
Below, two of the women explain a little of their stories and the threats they face if returned by Justice Minister McDowell’s fast-tracking policy.
Residents Against Racism is working closely with the women and lending its full support to the protest. Spokesperson Rosanna Flynn commented: “The oppression of Nigerian women is no ‘cock and bull story’. It’s time McDowell started listening and stopped sending women and children back to persecution.”
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My name is *****. I am a native of Modakeke in Osun state. My experience with my in-laws since 2002 was traumatic and agonising.
I was cajoled into bringing my late daughter for circumcision. I could not oppose as a woman my voice was not to be heard and my opinion was insignificant. I have given birth to five children – three boys and two girls. I lost my first daughter ***** when she was five years in 2002 to excessive bleeding.
I fled from Nigeria because my wicked in-laws demanded that I bring my only remaining daughter for the same circumcision that killed her sister. We cannot be safe if we are forced back.
I cannot afford to lose my daughter – I am existing because of my children.
My name is *****. I am a victim of sexual slavery. I am a hairdresser by profession, a single mother of one who was abandoned by my son’s father.
In an attempt to escape poverty I turned to a neighbour who offered to help me, saying that her daughter was in Italy and running a hair boutique and that she would arrange for me to find work in her salon.
Documents were prepared for me and the lady said that rather than pay her I could work in kind for the money to pay her back over a few years.
When I got to Italy, the story changed. Her daughter told me that I was going to be sleeping with men, that she had a brothel not a salon. She demanded that I pay her 55,000 Euros as a fee by working as a prostitute.
I was beaten and molested before - thank God - one of the male clients I was supposed to sleep with helped me escape by running away from Italy.
I cannot hope to clear the debts I was tricked into if I am forced back to Nigeria and they have promised to kill my mother if I return without the money.
This is my story.
Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3Italian security forces (the real ones - the recently exposed rogue ones who though to act by themselves after Madrid) rounded up over 250 people mostly in the surrounds of milan.
142 of these are now under arrest for anti-terrorims and a small quantity of explosives have been seized. 83 are "illegal migrants". A disturbing number are members of the gypsy community.
They will now be "processed", and thanks to the "G5" agreement of last week on common expulsion, be returned by the EU states acting jointly to their countries of origin if not charged first with anti-terrorist offences.
Upon repatriation, they will be held in "repatriation centres" which the EU contribute to the cost of building, though outside the EU they are the "final border posts" and for locals are a European initiative for which Europe may not guarantee the conditions within, in the countries of Northern and sub-saharan africa, and at some unspecified date shall be set free in those countries which lag far behind states such as the UK, Ireland and Italy on the human rights index.
In that time, they will have thought and felt, and their stories will have been told. In a way which is infinitely more significant and influential than the "fifteen minute" phone call home, "today i was abused, today i was marginalised, today your uncle or aunt were made feel so small"
And none of this will bring peace and security or guarantee the way of life of Europe whatever that is- an uncertain material opulence based on wholesale disregard and exploitation.
The security operations in Milan can be considered with those in France, where the prime minister De Villepin chose Perpignan to speak on the london bombings, the small pyrennean town in "french catalonia" was the recent scene of armed conflict between algerian and gypsy communities whose representives in the french political machine include members of the Front National, which saw deaths and is now today seeing a "round-up" as the minister of the interior Sarkosy himself ups the demogoguery against "illegal migrants" from - Muslim north africa and sub-saharan africa.
The french threat is it seems, algerian al qaeda and the pernicious gypsies.
Every person expelled is not brushed under the carpet, nor are the conversations they will have, and the experiences they will recount limited to some distant community of regularised seekers of work visas who will contribute to our knowledge based economies.
Every person expelled from Europe is a message in a bottle to Africa both africa of rock concert poverty and africa of islam of prejudice, disregard, and the priority we hold to preserve "our way of life". "Where problems or injustices were never so serious as to provoke murderous terrorist campaigns".
At end, think about the messages in the bottle you send. For the wall around europe has never been secure unless it is built at the sahara.
And not even the most ambitious neo-con 2build the western empire" ever thought on that. It seems they were too happy to use the word "crusade" without thinking properly on how they were caused, how they were fought, and how they were ended.
I hope this Nigerian woman's account of the suffering she has experienced, and the prejudice she feels, and the disregard for her life and the lives of those she left behind, move new people in Ireland to support RAR and others to support the parallel initiative in Northern Ireland and think long and hard on the underlying causes of
that new phenomona "anti-europeanism".
For you can not secure Europe by military force or exclusion order or sweeping problems away with a rock concert. And there are a lot of problems. Sadly I think they are too great for either this British presidency of the EU or forthcoming Italian one to deal with. They have neither the talent or the wisdom.
They say no but what do the people who favour these rules say?
is there some sort of rar campaign to reopen old threads?
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