A NIGERIAN woman who is an alleged victim of sex traffickers has agreed at Ballina District Court, Co Mayo, to provide fingerprints to gardaí and identify to them the house in Castlebar where she was held against her will.
Through her solicitor Aidan Crowley, Edith Orumenes (23), who has been in custody for nine weeks after being arrested under the Immigration Act 2004 for not having travel documents, in- dicated she would comply with a request for her co-operation made by Judge Mary Devins. The judge granted a final remand to Castle- bar District Court on January 21st saying she was going to insist the State come up with evidence, otherwise she would direct that Ms Orumenes be removed from the criminal prosecution system.
Gerardine Rowley and Emily Jamieson from Ruhama, the voluntary group helping women involved in prostitution, including victims of sex trafficking, attended court yesterday. Ruhama has been strongly critical about Ms Orumenes’s continued detention and “the criminalisation of people involved in sex trafficking”.
The organisation has officially asked the Garda National Immigration Bureau to consider Ms Orumenes to be a presumed victim of human trafficking and eligible for the 60-day reflection and recovery period. Ms Jamieson, an outreach worker, said if she was released, she would be brought to one of Ruhama’s safe houses.
Opposing an application for bail, Garda Supt Frank Walsh said the passport she had been carrying was false. He was not satisfied the woman was a victim of human trafficking as claimed and he asked for a continuing remand in custody in order to establish the woman’s correct identity.
Ms Jamieson said Ms Orumenes told her that she left home in Nigeria because she did not want to comply with an arranged marriage. She stayed with an aunt in Lagos where she was introduced to a husband and wife and coerced into travelling with them to Ireland. Both had Nigerian passports.
She had no knowledge when she came to Ireland that she would be involved in the sex industry.
Ms Jamieson said Ms Orumenes was kept in a house in Castlebar where she was forced into having sex with men. Because she was not compliant and was getting upset, some of the men did not want to have sex with her.
Cross-examined by Supt Walsh, Ms Jamieson said she was aware there was no record of Ms Orumenes arriving at Dublin airport on the date given. She accepted that some of what the woman had been telling her was possibly not true. She agreed there had been instances where people had claimed untruthfully to be trafficked.