Direct provision residents feel they ‘belong to the last class’

“I feel I belong to the last class,” a resident of direct provision has told a human rights school in Dublin.

Sylvia Mbasinge, who has lived in direct provision for almost 10 years, said, when filling out forms in Ireland for various purposes, she must always go to the last box because she is an "other".

“Who introduced this category of ‘other’?” she asked. “This makes me feel I belong to the last class.”

Ms Mbasinge was speaking at the annual Sheehy Skeffington School on Human Rights and Social Justice in Dublin today. This year's school is on the theme Re-imagining the Republic: the role of human rights.

Ms Mbasinge said her experience has been “painful” in a system that is “unjust, inhuman and ethically wrong”.

Residents of direct provision are stateless “others” who lose their identity from the time of their arrival here through their passports being taken, she said. That and the term “asylum seeker” makes it almost impossible to open bank accounts and obtain driving licences, she outlined.

Residents are not permitted to work, have no freedom of association and cannot afford to have their children participate in out of school activities with their friends because a resident’s weekly allowance is just €19.60, she said.

“We want our children to be able to grow and play with their friends but they cannot. They are labelled and discriminated against. I worry how this will affect them as men and women,” she said. “Many of our children were born here, we want them to be treated equally like an Irish child. They are stateless, they are not Irish and not from anywhere else.

“We are left to sit and vegetate in isolation,” Ms Mbasinge said. “All is provided, we must eat when we are told to, we queue for toothpaste and toilet paper. I cannot make a sandwich or teach my children cooking skills.

“This devalues you as a human person and this system is costing the Irish people. I want to work and provide for my children. Why can’t I labour for myself?”

A male resident who was caught working was jailed for six months, she added. “He cried as he told me he just wanted to be able to better the lives of his family, he had never been able to buy anything for his wife, never a card or a present on Valentine’s Day.”

The nature of the system has lead to many residents experiencing psychological and mental health problems, she said. “This system takes your power away.”

Ms Mbasinge also said some mothers become so desperate to provide for their children that they have resorted to prostitution. While men were taking advantage of women in this vulnerable position, it was the women, not the men, who are being criminalised.

Among other speakers at the school are Sinead Gibney of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, Martin Collins of Pavee Point and transplant surgeon David Hickey.