I read with horror yesterday, that Pamela Izevbehai and her daughters are to be deported; having lost the latest round of their legal battle to stay. Now hope resides with the European Court of Human Rights, whose job now (hopefully) will be to erase this shame from Ireland’s record.
Pamela is a Nigerian woman who already lost one daughter, Elizabeth to the vile practice of Female Genital Mutilation. Her husband’s family wish to carry out the same practise on her two remaining children Noami and Jemima. This woman wants only to protect her children, her innocent daughters, from the evil fate that awaits them should they return. Our government’s answer to this is – oh move somewhere else in Nigeria, you’ll be fine. For breathtaking ignorance, this has to be a prize winner.
Pamela thought Ireland would welcome her, appreciate her plight and protect her. Sadly she has been mistaken. While ordinary people seem to able to grasp the situation – one child dead, two in danger of being mutilated – our government seems to be incapable of understanding neither the situation in which women often find themselves in male dominated societies, the facts of the case in hand including that her in-laws have made repeated attempts to remove her children and attack them, nor the cruelty of forcing a mother to live in fear, day to day, witht his threat above her head.
Pamela and women like her represent a potential asset to this country. They are ambitious for their children, hardworking, respectable, and their children can in the future be good citizens, contributing to society. There is no reason not to let her stay and every reason to extend our famous “hospitality” – our much vaunted Cead Mile Failte.
Pamela’s story is tragic; a husband who could not stand up to his family, her own guilt at allowing herself to be pressured against her will into allowing Elizabeth to be mutilated, her grief at losing the poor mite, her anger and determination to save her other children.
Listen to Pamela On Marian Finucane; listen to her story and remember – if her children suffer, we did this.
