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AN EU-FUNDED REPORT has highlighted the failings in the Irish State’s approach to dealing with victims of trafficking, criticising its provision of privacy and life autonomy.
Although Ireland’s asylum seeking process has been criticised before, this report by the Immigrant Council of Ireland specifically looks at how delays in the system and a lack of integration negatively affects victims of trafficking in Ireland.
The delays and lack of communication with applicants for asylum was noted as a prominent, repeated problem.
One victim of trafficking said:
I’m not sure if it was just for me, or all of the other women, but for me it took so long. I almost gave up.
Because I didn’t have enough feedback from them with my case, I was close to giving up. I remember I tried to take my own life twice when I was in direct provision. Just because it was taking so long.
I didn’t know what’s going to happen to me. And at least it would deal with me quicker. I know they have to carry out their investigation but in my case it was definitely too long.”
Between 2012 and 2016 there were 311 victims of trafficking detected by or reported to An Garda Síochána, the majority of whom were women.
But Nusha Yonkova, anti-trafficking manager at the Immigrant Council of Ireland says that figure is “just the tip of the iceberg”.
Yonkova added that urgent action was needed “to streamline the identification process so asylum seekers can be formally identified as victims of trafficking”.
According to the report, victims said they had “feelings of hopelessness” as they waited for a decision regarding their application, all while living in direct provision, “in some instances for years at a time”.
A lack of privacy was also cited as a huge problem, as it could “exacerbate pre-existing mental health issues”.
One victim said:
It bothered me that there were men. Me, I’m very shy kind of. After what happened to me, you know I don’t know. I feel less confident. About myself. Like I am worthless… I did not feel safe. Men were hitting on me.
I was going through a tough time. I was really depressed. And I was on medication. I didn’t sleep. Sometimes when you have somebody in the room, they can talk all night and you want to sleep or sometimes in the morning they turn on the light early, they would be talking and sometimes they want to bring their friends in. So it’s just like, too much.
“A number of those interviewed” for the report also cited a lack of trust in Irish authorities:
I think the government should please help the girls who are trafficked, trafficking is very difficult. It’s not the way they say that people come here to tell lies, it’s not everybody that comes to Ireland to seek asylum tells lies. Some of them are saying the truth. And some of them need help.
The report recommended for a much swifter process of identifying trafficking victims, including those in the asylum process, as well as more compassionate, gender-specific accommodation.
It also mentioned that staff dealing with applicants needed “ongoing and effective training” and legal representation for asylum seekers needed to be provided, among other recommendations.
The report, entitled Identification and Response to the Needs of Trafficked Asylum Seekers, was published by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, and co-funded by the EU.
You can read the full report here.
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This report seems to indicate that victims of trafficking have an automatic entitlement to asylum ?…would these women, mainly, not want to return to their home countries?
@winston smith: to be fair, they could be from cultures where their families would disown them for the shame of being trafficked. At the same time, would you want to return to a country where you had been captured and sold from once already knowing that it isn’t safe and could easily happen again?
@Jeffrey McMahon: So what about hundreds of millions of other women in these cultures where they can be captured and sold ?? Shouldn’t we offer all of them free asylum here? Or you like to help only the ones who got already delivered ???
a@winston smith: It is big business in some countries, to take a fellow citizen and exploit them to a deprave level and we are supposed to open our doors to everyone who practices any and all crimes against vulnerable non Irish people. If they don’t know what traps they are how do they know who to turn to when they get targeted. The ICI have never said a good word about Ireland or its services, just a stream of what we are not doing or what we are doing wrong. Never a mention about what Irish people have to go without in their own country as regard to services. This crowd are actively recruiting more migrants to bring here which is not why they are well funded by our government.
IF YOU have been processed ,and refused asylum , go home .
It’s pretty sad really. There are real victims of trafficking in Ireland who probably just want to go home but instead get mixed up in the legal bureaucracy that’s involved in direct provision. If the ICI stopped supporting economic migrants with false stories of persecution then maybe they could spend more time getting these victims home instead of lumping them in with a bunch of chancers.
Yes,I thought Ireland had at best an indifferent approach to Asylum seekers ,this report is an indictment of a policy of wilful neglect .
o policy to dehumanise ,a refusal by the State to harbour those victims of violence in a safe place ,strip them of dignity so they voluntarily leave,Not surprising ,seeing what we have as a Society, perpetrated on our own people ,and our continuing policy of inaction in not building affordable Social Housing but handing it over to a bunch of vulture developers,
Ireland should do its duty to these people,
@Brian O Reilly: ,as has already be en pointed out why dont they want to return to there own families ,its another way to try and stay in this country. have u been to dublin recently?
@ian kennedy: are you saying they are deliberately getting themselves taken or that they are lying? It’s hard to tell.
@Dave O Keeffe: lying
@Brian O Reilly: Brian while there are undoubtedly cases of trafficking it is also possible for people to claim they were trafficked as a way of seeking an advantage in the asylum process. I note that the spokesperson says that these cases are the “tip of the iceberg”. Is this so or is this simply wild hyperbole? Where is the proof?
Direct provision is not the culprit here. DP has nothing to do with the legal asylum process. It is a way of providing accommodation and related supports such as medical cards for asylum seekers who have no accommodation or means. The alternative is homelessness. Finally, processing most asylum claims takes time.
If additional supports are to be provided to alleged trafficking victims then the HSE should provide them. Not the Dept of Justice.
The vast majority of problems arose between the late 1990′s and circa 2005 when massive numbers of trafficked people were arriving here. People in the dept. were making a fortune out of them, as were the legal profession. No one wanted to know. No one gave a damn, in fact.
The IOC lol
have your say