A migrant woman’s story: Hana

Hana is from Southern Africa. She came to Ireland as an international protection applicant about seven years ago. She has one child and is single.

Migration experience

I came to Ireland through the international protection process. It was very difficult. I was placed in direct provision, so I was isolated. Difficulties I have experienced personally as a woman, and a mother as well, are access to healthcare and to mental health practitioners. Also, trying to integrate has been difficult. How do you integrate into society when you have lived so long in direct provision? I am still trying to figure that one out.

[When I arrived I looked for help with my mental health.] I was told that I needed to see a General Practitioner (GP) who recommends services. It shocked me that a GP had to recommend and that there was only one option available and it did not include a mental health practitioner who could support my trauma. There were different mental health practitioners who wanted to help but the access is so limited when you live in direct provision. Basically I advocated for myself. After three years, I was able to find a psychologist who provided the therapy I needed.

Direct provision is very inhumane. Coming here with my daughter, I was limited in all my family life in one room.  I saw other families too and their family life was all in this one room. And also simple things that you could buy for yourself, you must rely on others to give you. You need to go to ask for toilet paper and they are counting how many times you are taking it a week. So even going down and asking for it, it is very hard.

And the restrictions of visitors mean you can’t have your visitors in your own room. You have to meet with them where there are cameras in an open space. There are cameras practically everywhere, except in your room. They are in the kitchen and in the social room, so for me, it is not a good or comfortable space.  Also [accommodation managers] can come in to check the rooms where they don’t tell anybody, they just come in. Sometimes you are tired or just sleeping and maybe you are dressed the way that you feel comfortable, and someone just comes in out of the blue. I had to fight to have some privacy. Post-COVID-19, sometimes I would go and live in the houses of friends while they travel and get a chance to cook and have that privacy.

DSGBV experience and access to supports

My husband continued to be abusive when I came here to Ireland and I took it for a few months because I had that fear as well that maybe I will not be granted protection. Already coming through the [international protection] system alone was abusive. Now living with an abusive partner, that is double abuse and I did reach out to my GP and I started looking for other options. [My ex-husband] openly abused me so he was hitting me and the security guards came to where we were staying and I was separated from him. I had to find help from strangers so I am very resourceful. That’s when I found Women’s Aid. They told me they could not take me in the women’s refuge and I needed to be accommodated in another direct provision centre.  Having the language and being comfortable using email was an advantage to me. I wrote a letter to the Reception and Integration Agency and I told them that I cannot be living in the same place with my abuser. He will either kill me or further abuse me, which he was doing. I informed them that I could not be moved to the women’s refuge because I am a refugee and requested to be moved. So, then I was moved and I got an accommodation centre with my daughter.

After that, he still followed me. Women’s Aid said I could apply for a safety order. They told me how to get legal aid and sent someone to be with me in court. So I had someone coming to every court hearing until I was granted a five-year safety order. Then my ex-husband went to apply for access to my daughter. And I said to him: “Even though you have access, I have this five-year safety order. I am going to go to the police if you ever cross the line whether it is me or my daughter.” I told my daughter: “If you are at his place and he abuses you, you must tell me.” So that five-year safety order gave me that confidence to stay out of the abusive relationship. I know it is not an easy decision for most women to make but it was the best decision I made after years of abuse.

One thing that needs to be done is to educate [protection applicants] about the services and the access and another thing is make access available to women’s refuges for women who come through the refugee process.

Interactions with the authorities

I have had two experiences with the police. The first one was when I arrived in this country. I didn’t know where the Department of Justice was but I believed the police (the Garda) would help me, so I went there. It was a Sunday evening and I told them I had just come into the country from the airport and I came to seek asylum. They said, “No, we can’t help you.” I had to stop someone in the street. It was during the month of Ramadan, so I was able to sleep in the mosque. The positive one that I had was when I was being abused, they came to my rescue. They came and warned my ex-husband that he cannot do this. The Garda just told me, “Anytime, wherever you are, you can call us. We will come.”

I didn’t have a very good experience with immigration officers. They were intimidating and interrogating you. The way they speak to you – they make you feel bad. I was interviewed twice. One was with a woman and one with a man. I left there feeling very low, very, very, very low. They are not rough in that they would beat you but they are rough in their words. They are rough in the way they deal with you and the way they question you.

Integration in Irish society

Some Irish people are warm and welcoming and some are racists and bullies. There are some who like you and some who don’t like you because of your accent and your skin colour. A good number of them are friendly, but their friendliness is limited. Volunteering for different organisations helped my situation and also finding out information. My mental health was going to deteriorate if I was not doing anything. So I found my first volunteering job.

For me personally getting the right to work [in 2018] changed my economic situation. So I started cleaning for a small business and then I worked for a non-governmental organisation. I  think if you become part of a network where you meet maybe once a week, twice a week, that’s the only way you are able to integrate. People slowly warm up to you. So that’s my own strategy of integrating into the community. I think it’s one of the hardest things that I am currently doing.