The sexualisation of refugee children

sligo | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday May 28, 2008 22:48 by Kate O' Hara - n/a kittyohara at hotmail dot com

Some refugees in Ireland fear their children are being sexualised as their families are cramped into single rooms, Kate O’ Hara reports.

This is an article about what life is like for refugee children living in a direct provision centre in Sligo. It highlights parents' fears about the sexualisation of their children because they are witness to adults having sex under the cramped conditions of the centre.

A six-year-old Nigerian boy spots his four-year-old playmate. He grabs her and pulls her small torso towards his body. He puts his hands around her waist and rubs furiously up and down against her as he simulates sex.

All around him, along a narrow white corridor, his friends laugh as they watch him re-enact this primal scene. The hallway in Globe House is this boy’s playground. Children of all ages scream and squeal as they act out sex and chase each other around the worn floors of the direct provision centre for refugees.

But the six-year-old boy is just practicing what he sees. Over 300 hundred asylum seekers, including 100 children live in Globe House, Sligo. Whole families are forced to cram into one tiny space usually no bigger than an average council house bedroom. In some rooms there are only two beds for a family of four or five.

Kayla,* a Nigerian mother who has been living in Globe House for nearly three years, says: “Parents’ and children’s beds are right beside each other. Most of the kids are seeing their mother and father have sex together.

“The parents can’t help it. They are husband and wife and have been living in one room for maybe two or three years.

“It makes children of five, six and seven act like grown-ups. Young children are being corrupted. It’s not good. It’s breeding more corruption.”

The direct provision system for asylum seekers was introduced by the Irish government in 2000. Those looking for refuge are housed in shared hostel-like accommodation centres across the country.

At the moment there are 68 government run provision centres throughout the republic, holding approximately 7,000 refugees. A quarter of those are under the age of 4.

Parents are worried that kids as young as two and three are becoming sexualised. They are living dangerously in an adult world and are forced to share the most intimate details of grown-up life.

Kayla says: “It’s very difficult living in one room because most of the time there is no freedom. It’s easier for me because I have just girls. My children are very good at assessing my body because they are female.”

For many of the mothers with boys, life can be much more difficult. A Nigerian widow, who has been living in Globe House for a year and a half, finds sharing with her two sons a constant struggle.

The boys are nearly teenagers and so she refuses to undress in front of them. She waits every night until they go to bed before she has a shower or cleans herself.

She suffers regularly from thrush and when she menstruates the boys ask her to explain. She tries to hide the workings of her body from her sons but privacy is nearly impossible in such a confined space.

The women claim this chronic overcrowding is a breeding ground for infection. There are hundreds of people sharing only a handful of bathrooms. A lot of the mothers don’t allow their children to use the shared facilities.

Kayla says: “My daughter who is five years old has used a potty all her life. I don’t want her using the public toilets.”

In a cramped but tidy room across the corridor from Kayla, another Nigerian mother discusses why she has recently refused to let her daughter use the shared toilet.

“My five year old girl is having vaginal discharge. The doctor is aware of it and she has medication. The public toilets are full of infection. It is not fair to have a five year old girl, who is just a baby, get an infection at her age. That will affect her womb. It is very difficult because now she must do everything in the room. She must use the potty in the same room as we eat and sleep.”

When asked what would make life better in Globe House, all the women give the same answer. They want separate rooms for parents and young people.

Over-filling of direct provision centres is a growing problem in Ireland, with the country now standing at number 13 in the world as a destination for people seeking refuge.

Kayla says because of this enforced way of living, she fears for the loss of her daughters’ innocence. She says: “Most times I have a conversation with a friend and my daughter repeats it back to me after the visitor has gone. It’s not really a good way of training the children. I try to be very mindful of whatever I say around them because they are always listening and they want to know, but it’s not healthy.”

In the evening, Kayla’s two daughters, aged five and three, spend all their time making up stories. “I saw the baby cry for the mummy. He just fell down and banged his head. Then the baby had magic powers. Then the baby opened the cupboard and threw a cat in there and the cat turned into a monster.

“Then the monster threw something in the baby’s eyes. Then the mummy opened the door and nobody was there. Then the mummy didn’t find the baby ever again.” Kayla says they go on and on like this all night, chattering and playing games with each other.

Kayla hopes and prays every day that the Minister for Justice will offer her a visa based on humanitarian grounds. “My daughters say they want to be doctors so I need to work hard for the children. I need to work hard for them to give them a life. The hope for the future is to do well and get a white collar job and make a better life for myself and my children.”

Until that day the children of Globe House must continue living in a confusing and unnatural environment. Kayla describes the centre as a “mini-prison.” She feels frightened for her daughters. “We don’t know what the children are going to turn out like if they grow up like this.”

* Names have been changed to protect identity.