Dr. Arjumand Younus:

Women in Research Ireland has six committee members of whom two are migrant women, namely, me and the other co-director, who is from Brazil. This situation happened last year because of the support of the previous founding members. When we discussed among ourselves who should appear before the committee today, I was reluctant because I felt that I did not have the confidence. In summary, that is what being a migrant women is like in Ireland and elsewhere in research and upper levels. My co-director then advised me that people will be very happy to see a person from an ethnic minority background here. Her words gave me enough confidence to agree to appear. In my experience, we keep doubting ourselves because we do not see similar faces in these spaces. There are just two minority women in the entire computer science department in UCD that includes ten assistant professors and professors. There are fewer women and even fewer ethnic minority women so that speaks a lot. I do not know what the situation is like in other western countries but I know that there are a lot of female academics in the US. Ireland has a lot of work to do but it has made a good start and that is why I feel very happy to be here.

I thank the Senator for her question. As an ethnic minority, one must be in that seat to face it. Although I have a permanent position in industry, I submit applications for posts as an assistant professor or lecturer. One only needs a name to do a search on Google and discover all sorts of information about an individual. Sometimes I question myself about whether I have been turned down for a position because I wear a headscarf and that is a situation about which we all need to ask ourselves.