ANALYSIS:Asylum seekers living in hostels for several years are facing significant mental stress
PERPETUA LOST her twins last month. She was six months pregnant when she miscarried, and believes the stress of living at the Eglinton Hotel – a 235-bed hostel for asylum seekers in Galway – contributed to the death of her boys.
“I was living in a small room with my five-year-old daughter, another mother, and her 1½-year-old son. It was impossible to get any sleep or rest. The young boy would often wake us up, or the television was left on. It was very tiring,” she claims.
The frustration of living cheek-to-cheek with another family in such a small room inevitably caused tension. Perpetua, an asylum seeker from Nigeria, claims she asked to be moved to a different room, but was refused.
“I got headaches, and there were fights with the other mother. I was scared and living in fear a lot. I pleaded for another room but all my complaints were ignored,” she says. “One morning in May I woke up in pain and my two boys were dead,” she says.
Her voice quivers and the tears begin flowing as she recounts her tragic story in the living room of the reverend of a local Methodist church, with several other residents at the Eglinton Hotel. They say they are too scared to meet a journalist close to the hostel for fear the authorities could find out, and this could affect their claims for refugee status in the Republic.
The Eglinton Hotel is one of 52 centres contracted by the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) to provide accommodation for asylum seekers. Almost 6,000 asylum seekers live in hostels like the Eglinton Hotel – the vast majority of which are run as profitable businesses by entrepreneurs.
The hostels are part of the direct provision system, which was established a decade ago as an emergency response to cope with large numbers of asylum seekers entering the country. Under this system asylum seekers are given a weekly allowance of €19.10 to live on and provided with a shared room and meals in hostel-style accommodation. A person waiting for their asylum claim to be decided by the State has no right to work.
The organisation AkiDwA recently published a report - Am Only Saying it Now: Experiences of Women Seeking Asylum in Ireland, which detailed allegations of overcrowding, unhygienic conditions, lack of play areas for children, poor nutrition and a lack of privacy at hostels.
Salome Mbugua, director of AkiDwA and author of the report, says the mental stress faced by people living for several years at the hostels is significant. It is particularly difficult for pregnant women, which is reflected in a high number of miscarriages.
“Overcrowding causes stress and there are no allowances made for pregnant women in terms of diet. They have to eat at set times in hostels and can’t choose what they want to eat,” says Mbugua.
Mofe, a mother of two living at the Eglinton Hotel, says bringing up young children is very tough in the hostel because residents are not allowed to cook for their kids.
There is also a lack of playing facilities for children, she adds.
Another woman, who says she is too nervous to give her first name, says she is completely depressed after spending three years living in the hotel waiting for her asylum claim to be processed. “Nobody listens to us – not the management of the hotel or RIA. Why shouldn’t my children get the same chances as others,” she says. The women say some residents resort to prostitution to make money. “If you are living on €19.10 a week then how can you provide for your children?” asks one.
The Eglinton Hotel, a large yellow building in Salthill with a facade looking out to the sea, is off limits to journalists. I was politely told to leave the building when I arrived to speak to management, making it difficult to get a first-hand insight into the conditions.
RIA also refused a request to visit the hostel. But in a statement it said it was “satisfied that the Eglinton Hotel has delivered all services it has been contracted to provide”. It added that hostels are monitored and inspected by RIA staff and an outside company, although the agency does not publish these inspection reports.
The Eglinton Hotel was last inspected on March 30th, 2010.
However, NGOs complain about a “culture of secrecy” surrounding direct provision, which means few people ever get to see how people claiming asylum live. It is also very difficult for asylum seekers to have their voices heard, as many believe they will be punished by having their asylum claims rejected for speaking out.
Flac, Free Legal Advice Centres, recently published a report on the 10th anniversary of direct provision, which criticised the Government for failing to meet its own targets on carrying out inspections at hostels. It also criticised RIA for not compiling statistics on the number of complaints made by residents and not creating an independent complaints system. Olufemi Johnson, who died on the May 13th at the Eglinton Hotel, had epilepsy – a pre-existing medical condition that is highly dangerous. But friends at the hostel believe she might still be alive if she had been given more support by the authorities.
“She complained she needed more room and had asked to move from the hostel. On a previous occasion she hit her head when she fell during a fit. She shared a room with three others and there were sharp objects that could hurt her if she fell during a fit such as the side of a bed,” says Funmi, a mother of three from Sierra Leone and best friend to Olufemi.
The Department of Justice said it would not comment on whether either Olufemi Johnson or Perpetua had asked to move to different accommodation.
The Rev Dr Sahr Yambasu, who presided over the funeral for Johnson, said more should have been done by management to ensure her wellbeing and questioned whether it was responsible to place her in a four-bed room.
“It is a very unnatural situation to place people of different backgrounds in a situation with no privacy. It causes stress and to live like this for years is not right,” says Dr Yambasu, who had to go through her phone address book to try and find a number of a relative to call to announce her death.
Gardaí are investigating her death. But RIA says it has no role in investigating the death of Johnson or the 45 other deaths of asylum seekers living in direct provision over the past decade. The agency does not record the cause of death in cases and does not keep records of the deaths of asylum seekers living outside the direct provision hostels.
NGOs say this reflects the problems with direct provision, which was set up to make it easier for Government to manage the system rather than provide care and support for the people in it.
“Irish people are very generous when it comes to giving aid to Africa but unfortunately when Africans come here through the asylum system they don’t want to know,” says Dr Yambasu. “The system needs to change,” he said.