Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The main business today is a meeting with representatives of the Oversight Group on Women, Peace and Security. We very much welcome Ms Nora Owen who is no stranger to these Houses or this committee. She appears in her capacity as independent chair of the oversight group for Ireland's third national action plan on women, peace and security. Ms Owen is joined by a number of members of the oversight group, including Dr. Walt Kilroy, associate director at the Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction, and assistant professor at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University; Chief Superintendent Louise Synott of An Garda Síochána; Mr. Egide Dhala, outreach co-ordinator at the International Organisation for Migration, IOM, Ireland; Ms Áine Hearns, director of the conflict resolution unit at the Department of Foreign Affairs; Mr. Shane O’Connor, principal officer in the International Protection Accommodation Service, IPAS, at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, whom I knew in a previous capacity; and Ms Deirdre Ní Néil, assistant principal in the equality and gender equality unit of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Like Mr. O'Connor, I believe Ms Ní Néil is formerly of the Department of Justice. All the witnesses are very welcome.

On behalf of the committee, I thank the witnesses for agreeing to meet the committee to update members on their work and submitting to our questions, observations and submissions. The format of the meeting is that we will hear the opening statement of the oversight group before proceeding to a question and answer session with members of the committee. As we are time-limited due to Covid restrictions, I ask that witnesses be conscious of the time constraints when initially addressing the committee. Following the opening statement, there will be discussion and questions and answers from the committee. I ask members to be conscious also of the time when asking questions and to be concise in the manner in which they put their questions in order that everybody is allowed an opportunity for engagement.

Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him or her in any way identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. Needless to say, it is imperative that such a directive be immediately complied with.

For witnesses attending remotely outside of the Leinster House campus, there are some limitations to parliamentary privilege and as such, they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings that witnesses physically present in the parliamentary precincts do.

I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person outside of the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Members are only allowed to participate in this meeting if they are physically located on the Leinster House complex or from the Conference Centre Dublin, where the Dáil and Seanad are meeting in plenary session.

For anybody watching this meeting online, some Oireachtas Members and witnesses are accessing this meeting remotely. Due to the unprecedented circumstances and the large number of people attending the meeting remotely, I ask that everybody bear with us and with each other in the event of a technical issue arising. I thank the team on my left, Mr. Noel Murphy and the secretariat staff, for the technological expertise they bring to these proceedings to allow so many people in different locations attend the meeting.

I am delighted Senator Ardagh has joined us physically. I hope that as the weeks go by, we will be in a position to have more people present in our committee room, notwithstanding the caution we must all observe as we proceed with the lifting of restrictions in compliance with public health guidelines and Government decisions. I ask everyone to bear with us if any technical issues arise.

With that, I am pleased to invite Ms Owen to make her opening statement to the committee.

Ms Nora Owen:

Good afternoon Chairman and thank you very much for the warm welcome. Greetings to all my former colleagues and hello to the new Members who have entered the Dáil and Seanad since I left in 2002. This is my first time on this side of the table, as a gamekeeper turned poacher or poacher turned gamekeeper, whichever term one prefers to use, and it is a great honour.

I thank the Chairman and members for the opportunity to present to them today on the first annual report of Ireland's third national action plan on UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which is the founding resolution of the women, peace and security, WPS, agenda. I remind the Chairman that having launched the second national action plan, NAP, report in 2015, he is a friend to this oversight group.

As mentioned by the Chair, I am joined today by fellow members of the oversight group for the national action plan, NAP, on which I serve as the independent chair. The group brings together academics, civil society and representatives from Government Departments and is tasked with overseeing the implementation of the national action plan.

The adoption of Resolution 1325 by the UN Security Council over 20 years ago was a seminal moment for women’s rights and gender equality. It was the first time the Security Council explicitly recognised the differential role of conflict for women but also women’s agency in peace and security matters, particularly their essential role in conflict prevention and resolution, as well as in peacebuilding. For Ireland, this agenda has always resonated deeply - not least given our lived experience of women’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process - and we have consistently demonstrated our commitment to making its ground-breaking vision a reality. National action plans are key to ensuring that UN resolutions on women, peace and security, WPS, are adequately implemented at national level and in UN member states’ foreign policies.

This third plan builds on the ambitions of Ireland’s previous plans in 2011 and 2015, reaffirming the WPS agenda and gender equality as key priorities for Ireland’s foreign policy but also across government. It also included a specific provision on engagement with the Oireachtas to raise the profile of the WPS agenda. This is the first time the oversight group has reported, and indeed presented, to an Oireachtas committee. For that reason, we are delighted to be here.

The NAP includes an ambitious set of actions across government in development, peacekeeping and diplomatic engagement. It was designed with the collaboration of a large cross-section of Irish society and has been afforded special recognition by the UN Secretary General for including women from conflict-affected contexts living in Ireland, as well as rural and minority women, in its development. Reflecting this diversity, the plan adopts an intersectional approach to WPS, recognising that women are not a homogenous group and face many and varied forms of discrimination - including for being a member of a religious, cultural or ethnic community, for identifying as LGBTI+ or as a result of experiencing a disability – which affect their full and meaningful participation at all levels of decision-making in society. I also highlight that the NAP recognises that the WPS agenda is not simply an issue we should seek to promote internationally. It also has a domestic focus with provisions on how we engage with women from conflict-affected contexts living on this island. This third plan is particularly conscious of that responsibility.

The NAP is structured around four pillars – prevention, participation, protection and promotion – and highlights a number of specific focus contexts where Ireland’s engagement on the promotion of the WPS agenda is particularly relevant. I will use this opportunity to highlight some of the work that has been accomplished in these areas as featured in the report and to focus also on work undertaken by Ireland in one of the focus contexts, in this case Palestine, which is sure to be of interest to the committee.

Under the pillar of prevention, the NAP focuses on addressing the root causes of conflict and ensuring a comprehensive approach which ensures that Ireland adopts a gender lens in its engagements. Engaging men and boys in addressing gender-based violence, GBV, is one aim of the NAP, recognising the importance of combating discriminatory gender norms and harmful masculinities in efforts to combat GBV. In this area, Ireland funds research through the OECD Development Assistance Committee's International Network on Conflict and Fragility and Irish Aid supports partner organisations that engage refugee and displaced men and promote positive masculinities. The Defence Forces have also sponsored research on the topic of military masculinities using this information to inform practices and policies. Such initiatives contribute to the NAP's goal of transforming the deeply entrenched attitudes and behaviours that allow violence to prevail and supporting survivors of such violence both in Ireland and abroad.

Work in the area of participation focuses on ensuring that gender analyses and women’s leadership are strengthened in governance and peace and security processes at all levels. The empowerment of all women and girls is essential to unlocking their potential as leaders and full and equal participants in conflict prevention, resolution, mediation, dialogue and peacebuilding, both domestically and internationally. This requires ensuring access to education, expanding women’s capabilities and supporting women’s leadership in political, economic and social life, not unlike what we do in our own country. At the international level, the International Rescue Committee, a partner of Irish Aid, works to build the capacities of women and adolescent girls to be leaders and advocates for their communities.

While it is important not to view women through a solely protectionist lens, it is clear that we must redouble our efforts to shield women and girls from the impacts of conflict, including conflict-related violence. Protection forms the third pillar of the NAP and encompasses the protection of women’s human rights; their physical protection from gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and abuse; ensuring gender-responsive peacekeeping and peacebuilding; combating human trafficking; and, importantly, relief and recovery for victims of conflict-related violence.

Work in this area reflects the partnership approach adopted by the NAP bringing together NGOs, Government services and agencies and the communities they work to serve. The HSE works to support NGOs nationally in the provision of health-related services such as support for survivors of female genital mutilation; support to victims and survivors of torture; mental health supports and promotion; and the development of an outreach programme by the HSE sexual health crisis pregnancy programme to direct provision communities. Another example of this can be seen in the work undertaken by An Garda Síochána in its efforts to combat human trafficking in co-operation with the HSE, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and victim-led NGOs. Just recently, we saw the work of An Garda Síochána in bringing about convictions for human trafficking. Part of this work also includes awareness training and almost 5,000 members of An Garda Síochána have received human trafficking awareness training as part of their training curriculum.

Promotion in the WPS agenda includes advocacy, lesson sharing and communicating our efforts, including at international fora. WPS is a key priority for Ireland’s two-year membership of the UN Security Council and we have been consistent and strong in using this to advance the agenda across the work of the council. As members will be aware, we took up that position earlier this year. Together with Mexico, Ireland co-chairs the informal expert group, which is a working group of the Security Council, on WPS. This role allows for close engagement with senior leadership of UN missions on how they implement the WPS aspects of their mandates. Ireland also seeks to advance the WPS agenda more broadly across all its work on the Security Council, including on country, thematic and peacekeeping files, as well as through ongoing engagement with civil society. We have also reacted quickly to events on the ground. As shocking reports of conflict-related sexual violence emerged from the Tigray region in Ethiopia, Ireland convened a Security Council briefing with the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict to shine a light on the situation. Similarly, Ireland hosted a meeting between civil society and council members on how recent violence was impacting on women in Gaza.

This leads me to my next point. WPS is also a key priority for the work of many of our missions around the globe, of which Ireland’s mission in Palestine is one such example. I know the committee has a particular interest in this. Ireland has supported efforts to combat gender-based violence in Palestine through an agreement with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs that focuses on building institutional capacity to combat violence against women.

We also support the occupied Palestinian territory humanitarian fund, which finances projects related to gender-based violence, such as counselling and psychosocial supports for victims and survivors, as well as the provision of shelter services. Our engagement with civil society organisations in Palestine focuses on empowering women's political participation and implementation of the women, peace and security agenda.

I will spend a few moments on Covid-19. There are many positive developments to report but I also acknowledge the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the implementation of the national action plan and women, peace and security agenda more broadly, which we have been monitoring closely. To better understand the gendered dimensions of Covid-19, Ireland commissioned the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and UN Women to assess the impact that the pandemic has had on their ability to work at grassroots level, consulting with women peace builders from Northern Ireland, South Africa, Uganda and Colombia. The findings are in line with other international reports and clearly demonstrate that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women, as well as on women's organisations, at a time when their services are most required. We are all particularly concerned at the shadow pandemic of gender-based violence, which has been there all the time, regardless of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ireland has therefore made it a priority to maintain and strengthen funding for the WPS agenda and particularly gender-based violence programming at this critical time, including through trusted partners such as UN Women, the Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund and the International Rescue Committee, which carry out essential work.

I reassure the committee that all members of the oversight group are committed to the women, peace and security agenda and the promotion of activities under the national action plan. I hope I have given the committee a flavour of the scope and ambition of Ireland’s work on women, peace and security through its third national action plan. To conclude for now, I once again thank the committee for the invitation to present today and look forward to discussing the annual report and any questions and comments that members might like to make.

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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We will now revert to committee members. With the assent of Ms Owen, she might be best placed to distribute members' questions to the other members of the oversight committee who are with her. I will leave it at her discretion, unless there is a question aimed at a particular colleague of Ms Owen.

Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Nora for her presentation. It feels wrong to call her by her name as Ms Owen was Minister for Justice when I was growing up. I thank her for making the presentation and everybody involved with the group. It is doing incredible work. I am glad Ms Owen touched on the fact that we are seeing much gender-based violence in Ireland so it is not just happening in conflict areas. She said her group is tackling gender-based violence in direct provision-type settings, as well as other settings arising from conflict zones, including the human trafficking of women and children.

How is the group funded? Does funding come from the Irish Government or the UN Security Council? Is there much scope for interaction with our representative on the UN Security Council. The group does great work and I am glad to support it. If the committee can do anything to highlight this work or support in any other way, we would be delighted to do it.

Ms Nora Owen:

I thank the Senator. I will ask Ms Hearns to answer the question in a detailed way but our group operates across government. Our aim is to ensure all Departments and agencies are aware of the women, peace and security agenda. If we were to zone in and say we are just under the Department of Foreign Affairs, we would not get the message across to all Departments that they have a responsibility in the area. That dictates our budget in the sense that we do not want a specific budget, as it would be too easy for other Departments to dip into it and we work across all Departments. Ms Hearns, head of the conflict resolution unit, will answer the question of the budget.

Ms Áine Hearns:

I thank the Senator for the question. As Ms Owen has pointed out, the oversight group is just that and funding for anything we do comes from the secretariat, which is based in the conflict resolution unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Our costs are relatively low in running the committee and certainly since the onset of Covid-19 we have been unable to do any sort of external visits. The allocation has been quite low as a result.

The secretariat for the oversight group sits in the conflict resolution unit and I am the director of that unit. As our chair has mentioned, it is a 50:50 oversight group, with 50% from government and 50% from civil society, academia and independents. It is chaired independently by Ms Owen as well. Every quarter we meet and the group is given an update on what is happening across government with the women, peace and security agenda as outlined in the actions we have all committed to in the national action plan. Members have seen from the report we have submitted a monitoring framework at the back showing where we are with those actions. It is a traffic light system demonstrating where actions have started, completed and ongoing. The oversight group gets very up-to-date information.

Funding the WPS agenda has been a major issue, not just domestically in Ireland but internationally. There are arguments for and against having a specific women, peace and security budget line. Our view is that having a specific budget line could limit the work we are trying to do. As Ms Owen has mentioned, we are trying very much to mainstream the WPS agenda right across all our work, both here in the Department of Foreign Affairs and the other represented Departments and agencies, including the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defence and An Garda Síochána. The idea is that the women, peace and security agenda would become an integral part of all our Government's policies and we must proofread those policies to ensure the WPS agenda is actioned. By doing that, we are increasing the budget going to these areas. We have found that happening over the years.

We have also been doing some training. For example, in the Department of Foreign Affairs when anybody is going on a posting abroad, there is training about what the WPS agenda is, how to look out for it and ensure it can be promoted and prioritised. We have some focus countries in that regard. Again, across other Departments we are rolling out some training around the monitoring framework in the coming months to ensure everybody knows what is expected of them, what the WPS agenda is about and how they can identify, promote and move it forward. In that way, we will see significant increases in funding coming through in the next couple of years.

One example is a programme financed by the civil society fund in Yemen, which members know is a country in conflict and the women, peace and security agenda has been a key focus of political statements around that. It is €1.3 million going to Saferworld to work again with grassroots women, making them aware and politically active in the peace process. It is empowering young women as well. That is one example but there are many others as well. It is the best way of showing how we are moving this agenda forward and getting more funding to it.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their time and the information.

The report is interesting. It is a page-turner. When it comes to reports such as this, most of them could be a cure for insomnia, but not this one. That is important to say. I will give examples of some of the issues addressed in it. When we speak of leaders and advocates of those who have left the conflict zones, we need to be mindful that the trauma of that conflict and that lived experience is not something which disappears overnight. It stays with the people and their families and, in many occasions, echoes out into the wider new communities of which they are a part. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing. I say a good thing in the sense it raises awareness within our grassroots communities of what is happening in this conflict zone. It is no longer a report people can turn off on the 9 p.m. news. It is now their neighbour and their neighbour's lived experience. The education which comes from that is vital and key, if we are committed and determined to raise awareness of these issues.

I am glad to hear that case of human trafficking being mentioned, which is in my constituency. I have a couple of questions around this area specifically. When we are talking about those people who come from conflict zones, what interaction do the witnesses have with local support services on the ground that may be best placed to help these individuals with managing that conflict and trauma as they continue to build their new lives here? When we speak of human trafficking, what awareness campaigns are being created in these new communities and for these people to say this is not right or normal but is wrong and that help is available? Language aside, we all have a basic need to feel safe and secure. How do we communicate that to these people, who may be in an extremely vulnerable position?

Covid-19 was mentioned before. I have said before and will say until I am blue in the face - I think everybody has heard me - that Covid-19 cannot be used as an excuse to roll back on any progress that has been made in terms of rebalancing the gender issue. It is something my generation has experienced, as well as my mother's and grandmothers', going back in time. The progress we made was hard fought for and hard got. The pandemic cannot be used as an excuse to roll back on any of that. If anything, it should be a catalyst for the change needed globally and nationally in order to finally say we have got true gender equality.

I am glad to hear the oversight group works across all Departments. That is important because this is not something that sits neatly under any one Department and nor should we try to make it fit. There was reference to the informal expert group and the Security Council. What would be the witnesses' asks with regard to the roles Ireland has? How would the witnesses like to see those implemented both abroad and with those who have come to find Ireland as their new home?

Ms Nora Owen:

Deputy Clarke has raised a number of the issues. Her first question was on what interaction do we have with what are sometimes referred to as the new communities or new people who come to Ireland. When we were doing our second plan, the numbers arriving in Ireland and the setting up of the direct provisions and all of that came into our agenda. The first thing we did was to get speakers to come to talk to us about how those issues were rolling out and they were not always rolling out in a good way. We brought that front of centre in our agenda, whereas perhaps in the first national action plan in 2011, it was not so much a focus.

Deputy Clarke has raised a number of issues about what we are doing or what is being done for people coming from conflict resolution areas and who have been subject to sexual violence, rape and female genital mutilation. I will ask Shane O'Connor from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to take up some of Deputy Clarke's questions or comments.

Mr. Shane O'Connor:

I would be delighted to do so. I thank Deputy Clarke for the questions. If memory serves, the first question was on what interaction we have with victims of trauma and trafficking. A key part of our efforts to identify and deal with the vulnerabilities many people arriving on our shores come with is the introduction of a new vulnerability assessment process within the International Protection Accommodation Service, IPAS. This process has been rolled out on a pilot basis since the beginning of the year and is delivered to all applicants for international protection, regardless of whether they stay in IPAS accommodation or not. Its purpose is to determine whether vulnerabilities exist and if they do, what special measures need to be taken to ensure the needs of people with vulnerabilities are met.

I have some figures to hand on this. We have had 489 people participating in the vulnerability assessment of whom 207 have completed the vulnerability assessment process and 282 are still in it. That is the majority of all applicants coming into the State. Nobody has opted out of it, at this stage. Interestingly, of the 207 completed, 113 people have been identified as having some form of vulnerability. The range of vulnerabilities is quite broad. Under the reception conditions directive, a person who is pregnant and all minors are deemed vulnerable. However, a significant proportion of those, perhaps more than we expected when embarked on this new process, are presenting with some form of psychological issues or trauma-based behavioural issues and mental health difficulties. It is approximately half of those 113 people.

The scale of the task ahead of us in managing those issues for people is quite large and we have been working with our colleagues in the HSE for some time on developing pathways to services. The process involves an interview with an appropriately gender-based interviewer and, if deemed necessary based on the initial presentation of vulnerabilities, there is a follow-up session with social workers and they continue to monitor the progress of this person for the duration of his or her stay in IPAS accommodation, to case manage as needs be and to ensure appropriate referrals to HSE services are provided.

We also work quite closely with the Spiritan Asylum Services Initiative, Spirasi, for victims of torture and we have a referral mechanism for persons who clearly come from conflict areas and have been subjected to some form of psychological or physical torture. There are also linkages with other NGOs, such as the Peter McVerry Trust and the Jesuit refugee service, which provide psychosocial supports to applicants, not just upon arrival when they get some orientation but also in the quarantine and isolation centres we operate for people who have come into contact with Covid-19 or are close contacts. The Peter McVerry Trust provides psychosocial services on site. That is a model we hope to expand on across the entire network of accommodation, as part of a new procurement to secure independent living accommodation for all families and appropriate accommodation for all applicants, between now and the implementation of the new model under the White Paper.

I think I have covered that point. The Deputy asked how we communicate with grassroots organisations.

Ms Nora Owen:

If I might come in at this point, Mr. Dhala might speak on that aspect as he is working hands-on with some of these local groups. Would it be all right for him to address that point?

Mr. Shane O'Connor:

That is absolutely fine.

Mr. Egide Dhala:

I thank Deputy Clarke for her question. This is my area of work on a daily basis. For the past 23 years, I have been living in Ireland, working closely with migrants and very much involved in civil society organisations. I worked with asylum seekers in direct provision centres. I worked with Spirasi and led its education and integration centre for many years. I also trained many communities who were supporting people coming here under the resettlement programme. After that I worked with civil society organisations to see where people were at.

The reality is that although people are assessed at the beginning and receive a degree of cultural orientation, living in a community remains a challenge. People can carrying on suffering from trauma. I have seen people who came here from a conflict zone who are still very much traumatised having lived here for 15 years. Many of them have become Ireland citizens and are very much embedded in the community but they are living on the margins in their local communities. I am involved in an organisation, Wezesha, and we did research with Congolese refugees who were resettled in Monaghan. We noticed many of them were still at that stage. I was involved in providing training to the local community who were welcoming the refugees in Monaghan. We noticed intervention was still needed. We started to involve the local community in trying to address racism and cross-cultural issues and promoting mentoring so that people could start living together and mutually accept other cultures. Trauma and mental health issues are not perceived in the same way here as in other cultures. It is important, therefore, that people in Ireland understand where people are coming from.

In the oversight group we are conscious that involving non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and civil society is important. One of the key recommendations of the oversight group is to work closely with NGOs. The oversight group is involved with a number of NGOs on the development of the action plan, notably AkiDwA, the network of migrant women in Ireland, which has been very much involved with the women, peace and security group. It is working with different communities through local initiatives to support people who are moving into the community. Another NGO is Wezesha.

In the IOM, we are very much conscious that, as a UN agency specialising in migration, we try to work across the board, not only with civil society organisations but also with State agencies. We are currently running a project called PROTECT. We are conscious that people who have come from conflict zones, especially women, and women who have been the victims of trafficking find it difficult to negotiate life in Ireland or in society. Accessing services is quite difficult for them. Even front-line service providers do not understand where they are coming form and what they have gone through. We have cultural mediators who provide training to front-line staff in State agencies. We also try to support victims of trafficking, gender-based violence and trauma who are accessing services. We engage with diaspora groups, civil society organisations and State agencies. We believe that by doing that, we will leverage the issue to a level where everybody will have a good understanding of the issues and newcomers will feel at home.

Ms Nora Owen:

I thank Mr. Dhala. I will ask Ms Hearns to briefly answer Deputy Clarke's questions on Covid and the UN Security Council. I remind the Deputy that Mr. O'Connor mentioned the Jesuit Refugee Service. It runs an independent confidential phone line for people in the centres. If they have a problem, complaint, concern or need, they can use this confidential phone line. Sometimes confidentiality is essential. I wanted to stress that. Ms Hearns will briefly respond to the Deputy's questions on Covid and the UN Security Council of which our oversight group is a part.

Ms Áine Hearns:

I thank the Deputy for her questions. She is right that the Covid pandemic has sent us backwards in terms of gender inequality, which, as the Deputy said, our own mothers and people across the world fought for. It has shown how universal, foundational and structural gender inequality is, both nationally and internationally. It has also shown us how much we need to redouble our efforts to avoid reversing the gains the Deputy spoke about.

Globally, women were estimated to be 1.8 times more likely than men to lose their jobs as a result of the pandemic and move into poverty. It was also estimated that 47 million women will move into extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic. Women overwhelmingly take on the additional burden of care. This was the case before and during the pandemic. It is important we do not reverse the gains we had made. We have also seen an increase in gender-based violence, both nationally and internationally.

On the international scene, UN Women is one of the key partners for Irish Aid. We invest heavily in gender equality and try to respond to the challenges the pandemic presents to women and girls. This year, we increased our funding to UN Women by almost 60% for its efforts to ensure it is able to deal with the Covid pandemic. We fund an organisation, the Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund, which responded very quickly in the Covid-19 pandemic by setting up a rapid response window in its trust fund for women who are affected by Covid-19. We undertook work last year for the 28th anniversary of the WPS agenda in a report called Building Peace from the Grassroots. We looked at women peacebuilders at the grassroots level, in Colombia, Uganda, South Africa and Northern Ireland. Covid had not hit when we started, so when it hit we had to go back and do a smaller consultation process. We were able to see clearly and quickly the impact that Covid had on small civil society organisations. Some of them were unable to access funding or digital media.

On the Security Council and the informal experts group, IEG, we are delighted to be co-chair of the informal experts group with Mexico. As the Deputy will be aware, the UK is the penholder on this. We want to push the WPS agenda on the Security Council. We believe the WPS agenda should be there in all its products. It should be right across the thematics, the countries and the peacekeeping mandate renewals. We are working very strongly to get the narrative in there and out there. In the first six months, we have had some successes and some push-backs, which is the norm. Effectively, we are now being recognised as a leading voice on the WPS. UN Women keeps tabs on who is doing what on this in the Security Council, and we are coming to the fore. The team in New York is doing quite a lot to push this forward.

In May, Ireland, in co-operation with the NGO working group which reports to the IEG, organised a closed briefing for Palestinian women activists, ensuring that women’s voices were heard on the recent conflict in the Middle East. We were able to push those issues. More importantly, on 8 March, which was International Women's Day, we had an Arria-formula meeting, which looked at the UN-led peace processes. Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, attended. The idea was to push the UN on this.

When it leads peace processes, it needs to ensure it leads by example by having women involved at all stages of the process. We are six months in. This is a key theme for us. We are going to continue pushing this agenda so that WPS becomes synonymous with any product that comes out of the Security Council. I will leave it at that.

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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That included a number of answers to Deputy Clarke's questions. I will move on to Senator Craughwell followed by Senator Joe O'Reilly and they will be grouped together. I am anxious to let Senator Brady in later in the meeting.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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I welcome the witnesses, particularly Ms Owen who has been a trailblazer and who broke through the glass ceiling long before many women in Ireland. She comes from a family of very strong women. I am delighted as a brother of eight sisters. All my sisters were strong, independent women in their own right. I never really understood anything but inequality until I left home.

It is a strange world that we live in. On the day we are speaking about this, some 29,717 people had to report domestic violence in Ireland over the last 12 months, which is horrendous. Is domestic violence more prevalent in direct provision centres where I am sure there are severe psychological pressures on those who are in them?

I was brought to Italy in 2018 to look at the migration issue for myself. I am delighted to hear it referred to as "migration" because the people were misclassified as "refugees" in the early days. There certainly were refugees but a number of people who travelled across the Mediterranean were migrants and should never have gone through the process they went through to get into Europe. As migrants, the Irish should have a much better understanding of what drives people to take those awful trips. The women I met in Italy went through horrendous times only to be trafficked. It was not sufficient for them to pay their way with many of them sold and resold during the trafficking process. Does Chief Superintendent Synnott have any information in regard to this? One of the problems that was initially identified was that young women were trafficked as far as Tripoli. They were sold into sexual slavery there for a period of time. They were then sent across the Mediterranean as migrants or refugees, or however one might classify them. They went through the system and when they came out the other side of it, those who trafficked them were waiting for them to put them back into sexual slavery of some sort or other, or some form of sales. Is there any evidence in Ireland of young women, who were brought here as migrants or refugees and put into direct provision centres, being used in that industry? Have there been any arrests or convictions in this area?

I will be as quick as I can be on this because I appreciate other members want to get in. We talk a lot about women in peace and security. Irish female members of both the Garda and Defence Forces who have served oversees have blazed a trail of being able to negotiate or speak with people, particularly on gender-related issues. It is a proud track record to have. The day the first female general was appointed by the United Nations was a proud day for Ireland. Recently, Maureen O'Brien was appointed major general. In 2012, the reorganisation of the Defence Forces resulted in the narrowing of the pyramid. That narrowing has meant that a significant number of women, particularly those of childbearing age, in the Defence Forces are confronted with making a choice early in their careers to remain childless or leave the Defence Forces. This is an extremely disturbing thing. When a rotating position comes up, a female is identified to be rotated to the Lebanon or Mali, or wherever we are serving at a particular time. If she has young children, she may be excused. That leads to two inequalities in my view. The first is that the woman has to be given an alternative role in Ireland for the period she would have been rotated. Frequently, one finds that a woman serving in Cork is sent to Dundalk to fill a vacancy there. That vacancy in Dundalk arises because a man is chosen to fill the rotating position in the Lebanon, or wherever, that she should have filled. We finish up with two women being negatively impacted by the system. The woman who should have been rotated is, nevertheless, moved across the country away from her family. The second woman impacted is the wife or partner of the male colleague who, at very short notice, is told that he is going to the Lebanon, or wherever, for a period of six months. Is this something the oversight group thinks about when it comes to service in the forces?

To have equality, we must have family friendly systems in place. None of the women I have spoken to want to go public. When I talked to them about the reason they left, they explain that there were unfriendly family circumstances and they leave because of that. I am sure this impacts gardaí as well. While I have not heard any personal information from gardaí, I certainly have from members of the Defence Forces. Given that both serve in uniform, I am sure it impacts both forces. I thank the witnesses for their time.

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I intend to take a contribution from Senator Joe O'Reilly before reverting back to Ms Owen and her team, because he has been waiting for some time.

Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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I join others in welcoming our guests. As Senator Craughwell has done, I particularly welcome Ms Owen who I had the privilege of working alongside in the past. I know from that experience that she has significant energy. When I go abroad, and within the Council of Europe, I am asked about Ms Owen's Criminal Assets Bureau legislation all the time. It has been studied by countries throughout Europe and implemented in some instances. It was a precursor and a trailblazer.

I will quickly ask a few questions in deference to the time consideration. I could not attend earlier because of Seanad duties but I know the context from what I have picked up on here and I have read the briefing materials and initial submissions. Deputy Clarke raised the question of how Covid has impacted negatively on women and set their rights back a lot. I will focus on one dimension of this which I would like further comment on from guests. I am involved with another international body and my understanding is that the education of women has taken a huge setback internationally. What has happened is very disturbing. The education of young women has been set back in that it has ceased in many instances and has been thwarted in others.

I wish to ask Ms Owen about Palestine, which she referred to in her opening remarks. We are happy as a committee that the oversight group has hands-on involvement there. I will not chronicle the shocking events in Palestine. It is good that the group is involved in the prevention of gender-based violence there. I wish to ask Ms Owen about the cultural context there. Is it valid to say that western values, in terms of women's rights, gender balance and gender equality, do not pertain to the entire region to the same degree? Is cultural negativity towards women, which is apart from the violence, which needs overcoming being encountered? In her opening remarks, Ms Owen referred to masculinisation in the Defence Forces.

I would like her to comment further on that and on how she perceives young women who join the Defence Forces. What are their operational day-to-day lives like and are there any in-built discriminatory practices? Do they experience any subtle or gender-based discrimination? I would be interested in that.

The horrible, shocking and barbaric practice of female genital mutilation was referenced in the submission. Will the witnesses comment further on where we are at with that issue? That leads neatly to my question about direct provision centres. There is a Government commitment to get rid of them. Will the witnesses comment on the position of women in these centres?

I am trying to be deferential to the Chair's wish to get on with things. It is very good that the witnesses are involved in this, but Ireland has a strong position on sexual violence in the Tigray region. I ask one of the guests to elaborate on the most recent position in Tigray. What we are reading and hearing about from that region is beyond words and human description. I welcome our guests and thank the Chair for the opportunity to contribute.

Ms Nora Owen:

A wide range of topics has been raised. It is very heartening because it means members are realising what a wide range of topics are covered under the WPS agenda. I will start with Senator Craughwell's comment and question on whether domestic violence is more relevant, or more obvious, in direct provision centres. I will ask Mr. O'Connor to answer that question. I will follow that by asking Ms Synnott to address the work on trafficking and domestic violence the Garda has been doing, particularly Operation Faoiseamh, over the past year and a half. We will then come back to Senator O'Reilly's question on Covid rights and education in Palestine. I ask Mr. O'Connor to clarify whether there is more relevance to domestic violence complaints in direct provision centres.

Mr. Shane O'Connor:

I thank Senator Craughwell for his question. I do not have actual statistics to date, or a comparator of direct provision and domestic violence reports, on a national scale. We have had a policy in place for dealing with issues of gender-based and domestic violence since 2014. It is probably time to revisit it, purely because the same policy has been in place for so long. The purpose of the policy is to assist in the prevention of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. It is also to ensure that managers of centres know the procedures to follow when they come across issues of domestic violence, residents have a pathway they can use and the information they need to report issues of domestic violence and IPAS staff react properly and liaise with the Garda authorities when an incident comes to our attention. There are other operational issues with regard to incidents occurring where we have to consider whether to move people or arrange safe accommodation for a victim of domestic violence. All those matters are taken into consideration.

On numbers, my experience is that the number of cases brought to my attention by the team is relatively low. I could probably think of a handful of cases in the last six or 12 months. The big unknown is what is not being reported. This is where the information piece is very important. It is incumbent upon us to ensure that any new policy deals with the provision of information to residents, especially female residents, or any resident who may be a victim of domestic violence, on their options, the correct course of action and what we will do in order to make them feel a little more comfortable reporting it. Without doubt, there are cultural barriers that affect the degree to which issues are reported to us by victims.

Ms Nora Owen:

Chief Superintendent Louise Synnott will outline the work on trafficking. As I said in my submission, 5,000 gardaí have been trained in dealing with this issue. We are now beginning to see the effect on convictions. Senator Craughwell asked if there was any evidence that people being brought over as migrants were then being moved into prostitution. It is quite clear from the most recent court case that this is exactly what has happened. Girls thought they were coming over to get jobs and then were immediately put into prostitution in Ireland.

Ms Louise Synnott:

To follow on from what Mr. O'Connor said, unfortunately, I do not have numbers for incidents occurring specifically in direct provision centres. Covid has provided an opportunity and a growth industry for domestic violence in family homes. We have worked very closely with Women's Aid and other agencies in the community, as well as the Department, in raising awareness of opportunities where domestic violence and a range of abuses can occur, and have been occurring, during Covid.

On direct provision centres and what Mr. Dhala said, again, it is about information, working within those communities and, from a policing perspective, overcoming barriers to allow reporting. It is also about highlighting cultural differences to enable women and men in direct provision and communities to make reports and feel comfortable in reporting to a policing agency. Police services around the world do not necessarily have the relationship we have with communities in respect of providing community-based policing. It is about providing information and opening doors. We have diversity liaison officers, who used to be called ethnic liaison officers, whose details are available on the Garda website. They are working with direct provision centres and diverse communities to provide information and awareness and to create opportunities to report abuse and violence.

Our most recent statistics show that for the duration of Covid we have, through our callback systems on domestic abuse calls, created almost 35,000 contacts with victims of domestic abuse, where they had the opportunity to perhaps report further incidents they may not have reported to us if we had not been there to make contact with them. We noted an increase of 29% in detection of incidents where domestic abuse was a motive. I am not sure if that answers the questions or if there are further questions arising from that.

Ms Nora Owen:

It is very clear from what Ms Synnott said that more knowledge of domestic violence is emerging because of Covid. The pressures and tensions under which people are living because of Covid, such as not going out to their daily work and children not going to school, creates a tension inside the house. It is definitely having an effect. As a group, we do not specifically deal with domestic violence. We make sure that we raise these issues with An Garda Síochána and we note that it took them on board, for which it deserves full praise. I also noticed that the Courts Service was very good at keeping courts available to issue protection orders and so on.

By our work, I hope we are stimulating and keeping the other agencies of the State aware of their responsibility.

Before turning to Senator Joe O'Reilly, I will quickly touch on an issue Senator Craughwell raised. He is correct, it is difficult to recruit women into the armed services, the Defence Forces. Approximately 7% of the forces at the moment are women and almost the same percentage take part in the UN peacekeeping forces overseas. Currently, a working group is involved with the reorganisation of the Defence Forces. If you want more details on what the Defence Forces are doing, Chairman, I have no doubt you will have a meeting, if you have not had one already, with the Minister for Defence.

Vice Admiral Mark Mellett is very anxious to make sure that any of the gender biases in the Defence Forces are removed. He has spoken to our group and we have a member of the Defence Forces, a Naval Service person, on our committee as well as Ms Noreen Woulfe from the Department of Defence. We constantly keep an eye on that. A Defence Forces women's network has been established. I remind members that Brigadier-General, Maureen O'Brien, has been raised to second in command in the Defence Forces, the highest position any woman has ever reached. She is now working with the UN Secretary General. As the expression goes, if you cannot see it, you cannot be it. We are beginning to see some women emerging from the background in the Defence Forces.

Senator Joe O'Reilly raised a number of issues, including Covid, and the fact that women have lost some of their rights. He raised the cultural context in Palestine. I do not want to get into a cultural argument about whether some of these things are normal opportunities or actions. There are different cultural situations in many countries. I have travelled extensively in Africa and I have seen that where a woman loses her husband, his brother is entitled to take her into his family. There are all sorts of cultural differences that we would not countenance here in Ireland, but it is not for me to comment on them now.

I will ask Ms Hearns to speak about education. There is a frightening figure on what Covid has done to education facilities, in particular for girls. We have some figures here that the committee might be interested in that Ms Hearns could share with members.

Ms Áine Hearns:

I thank Senator Joe O'Reilly for the question. He is correct: education for girls is key. Some of the alarming statistics from Covid include an estimation that 20 million girls are expected to never return to school. Tackling this requires strengthening all of our partnerships and supporting those working on the ground to ensure that we can make a dent in those figures.

Later this month, there will be what is known as the Generation Equality Forum, which will be held in Paris. It is chaired by Mexico and France. Ireland will speak at the forum about the amount of measures that we are putting into this area in the coming years. More than $70 million will go to the global partnership for education. As part of gender transformative education, we will get $12 million earmarked for what we call the girls' accelerator mechanism. This is a 44% increase in funding to that area. It is about accelerating education for girls. We also know from our own research and experience that the longer we can keep girls in education, the better their outcomes will be as they mature through life and in their employment opportunities. It is of concern to us, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the aid programme as well.

Senator Joe O'Reilly had a question on cultural differences when it comes to gender equality. For us in Ireland gender equality is non-negotiable, as are women's human rights. We also engage consistently with men and boys to bring them into the gender equality debate and into the women, peace and security agenda. The oversight group has had some sessions on this in recent years and research has been done on the area as well. It is important that we bring everybody on board. Gender equality is for everybody. It includes everybody's lives. It is non-negotiable for us. We are definitely doing a lot of work in that area as well. It is a priority for Ireland's foreign policy.

Many members will be aware of A Better World, our overseas development aid policy, which commits to an overarching focus on women and girls in all our partnerships and interventions. This is key for us. We also work with partners on the ground on cultural differences to understand these issues and to better educate organisations but also women and men in the national context. We are working on that with organisations and civil society groups in Palestine as well. Senator Joe O'Reilly is correct that gender equality is key. From our perspective on it, there is no compromising.

Ms Nora Owen:

We find that the more we can raise this issue, the more mainstream it becomes in many countries where heretofore, perhaps, there had not been much evidence of responsibility being taken. We must be conscious that people live a different kind of life to us and therefore, in any meetings we have with them, we must have respect and try to bring people along and recognise their responsibilities.

I want to bring Mr. Dhala in to speak about female genital mutilation, FGM, because he has been dealing with it. Mr. Kilroy also wants to speak about cultural issues if that is possible.

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Before we go to FGM, I will add to what previous speakers have said about it. FGM is not something that we speak about in this country. It is a most unacceptable practice. I would have thought that through our agencies and in particular the HSE, we might have some targets to ensure the elimination of FGM in Ireland. In the context of the work being undertaken by the HSE, given that it is more of a health issue than a criminal justice issue - although I note some cases are going before the courts and that some convictions have been achieved - I wonder about the monitoring of the targets and if there are targets for the elimination of FGM. If there are not, then why not? If there are, who monitors them, and does the oversight group have any role in ensuring that this practice is eliminated entirely? I am sorry for interfering.

Ms Nora Owen:

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Dhala might be able to handle that, although we do not get figures very often in our work. I will give him the floor.

Mr. Egide Dhala:

A few years ago, I did research on knowledge among GPs in Ireland on FGM. The result is that very few GPs knew about FGM. The work on FGM was started a decade ago by AkiDwA, an NGO, but it was interagency work involving the HSE. As a result of the work, FGM is now against the law in Ireland. Since that time, AkiDwA, which has been piloting the work on the elimination of FGM in Ireland, has been working hand in hand with the HSE to address the issue.

We have the law that prevents FGM in Ireland and we try to prosecute offenders. AkiDwA has been working intensively to raise awareness of FGM and has always been funded by the HSE. Also, as a result of the research I did on female genital mutilation, one of the recommendations was to set up a clinic to support victims. Now the Irish Family Planning Association has set up a clinic which is also funded by the HSE. It tries to support victims through not only physical reparation but also psychological reparation. A few years ago the number of victims of FGM in Ireland was about 6,700. That number may have increased to about 8,000-plus. The work is being done on the ground. In one case of FGM that occurred in Ireland a few years ago I was involved in the education of the family that was the perpetrator of the act. I engaged especially with the male figure involved in the process.

To put it briefly, the HSE, which is supported by the WPS committee to address these issues, has been working jointly with civil society organisations to address this phenomenon.

Ms Nora Owen:

Now Dr. Kilroy will talk to us a little about the cultural issues and the experience of Tigray.

Dr. Walt Kilroy:

I thank the committee for the attention it has given to this and for the very interesting, searching, hard and good questions which have been asked. We are very happy to have an opportunity to engage in this kind of dialogue.

Senator Joe O'Reilly asked a very interesting question about culture. We have experienced this in our own country. We have gone through a lot of change, including a lot of social change, and our own culture has in a way evolved. That is an experience we can call on. It is very important. Looking from afar, we can see a culture as if it is a monolith, but every society has many different strands within it, and many cultures have contradictory parts to them. All these societies such as the Middle East and Europe are all evolving and changing all the time. In many ways, for better or worse, the pace of that change is increasing all the time, driven by technology, globalisation, Covid more recently and all the other things which in many ways seem to be accelerating. We are not dealing with a monolith or something static. If the progressive change we would like to see, such as the empowerment of women and a decrease in discrimination, is seen to be driven by outsiders, it is always much easier to reject it as being the agenda of the outsiders. We have seen that in this country. That is not the only reason for the model but it is why the model of working through partnership with indigenous organisations that have credibility on the ground is a really powerful one. Often the actions, the funding or the programmes we talk about are devised, designed and implemented by organisations from the country in question. The role of the international community in such cases is to try to empower those organisations, to make connections and, if necessary, to provide resources. Having myself worked in development briefly, I have often been incredibly impressed by the quality of these national or local organisations on the ground that might not have the brand leader of being a UN agency but which are deeply rooted in their own cultures, providing incredible and often very courageous, inspirational and strong leadership, with many of the leaders being women. That is a very positive model to try to bring about the right kind of change in what is already a changing environment. Senator O'Reilly's question is a very good one. There is not a simple answer to it, but this is one of the ways forward.

Senator O'Reilly asked another question about the very important and very worrying situation in Tigray. Everything we are hearing coming out of Tigray is extremely worrying: the level of violence, the violence against civilians in general, conflict-related sexual violence and violence against women. This is highly credible and comes from well-documented sources, but this is with humanitarian access and access for journalists severely restricted. That is one of the first demands, apart from reducing or stopping the violence, especially by the Eritrean forces, which have been brought into or allowed to operate in the area and which seem to have carried out some of the worst atrocities. Apart from stopping the violence, humanitarian access is one of the key demands in order to provide relief and that monitoring, accountability and access for journalists. There are a lot of regional tensions. Ethiopia is a very strong and independent nation and, speaking of actions by outsiders being dismissed, a very proud nation with a very long tradition and a country which was never colonised formally. There are also a lot of regional tensions we need to be aware of, especially over the filling of the dam on the Blue Nile, which is causing huge sensitivities and anxieties in Egypt, which, along with Sudan, gets almost all its water from the Nile. The most important things are humanitarian access, ending the violence and addressing the question of impunity for the actions which have already happened.

Ms Nora Owen:

May I add to that? Regarding Tigray, there is a programme being run by Trócaire, our Irish agency, whereby it is spending €400,000 to provide specialised gender-based violence response and GBV risk mitigation services, so we are in there. Also, Ireland was the first country at the UN to raise the issue of Tigray and the first to get a press statement out condemning what was going on with the allegations, as Dr. Kilroy said, of human rights violations and sexual violence, trying to bring those responsible to justice. We have also raised this at Security Council discussions, and on 12 April Ireland convened an informal briefing with the UN special representative on sexual violence, Ms Pramila Patten. Ireland has a very long connection with Ethiopia. I travelled with the Oireachtas committee I chaired to Ethiopia at the time of the 1984 famine. Ethiopia really progressed after that famine and built its country up, and it is tragic for somebody like me and others who have been there to see these difficulties arising now. I point out to the committee that no matter what country we talk about, sexual and gender-based violence seems to be a pandemic in many of those countries and is being used as a tool of war or conflict. We must be aware of that and we can raise it every time and at every forum as an issue for the protection of people.

We have been through most of what Senator O'Reilly has asked. As for the masculinities issue, very early on in our group we got somebody in to talk to us, on the recommendation of Mr. Dhala, if I remember correctly, about masculinities. Trócaire and Concern, two of the Irish agencies, have been doing work in this area in order that boys and young men recognise their responsibilities. We also have to talk about our own boys and young men here. They have a responsibility to be careful how they behave and how they treat the girls and young women in their lives.

Senator Craughwell referred to an issue in the Army whereby a person who cannot take an overseas posting may end up being posted elsewhere in Ireland. That is being examined now to see if we can make the Defence Forces more gender-friendly and family-friendly, just as the Oireachtas - the Seanad and the Dáil - is struggling with and constantly discussing making its working conditions more family-friendly.

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank our guests for their comprehensive replies to Senators and Deputies. I am not sure it is our role and function to get into any regional conflict in great detail but I am pleased that the committee made reference to the situation in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, having regard to the reports on the level of violence being perpetrated there against women and girls. In the context of reference to the work of our guests, I believe it was not inappropriate to shine a light on the Tigray region. I know there were elections yesterday in Ethiopia. I acknowledge the remarks of Dr. Kilroy. It is important that we all continue to monitor the situation there. The reports are quite shocking.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I thank our guests for the comprehensive overview they have provided this morning. I commend and thank them for all their ongoing work on the national action plan. I am delighted to meet them. It is not lost on me that our meeting coincides with the launch by Women's Aid of its annual impact report. Some of the statistics in the report are shocking. In the context of gender-based violence and domestic violence, it has given a figure of 29,717 women having contacted its services alone in the past year. Senator Craughwell stated that was seemingly the totality of women who contacted services looking for support but, unfortunately, that is not the case. The figure relates to its services alone. It is an increase of 43%. I am conscious that there are many other services doing exceptional work and providing assistance to women who need it. The reference in the report to this being the tip of the iceberg is certainly not lost on me. It just shows the unfortunate level, unfortunately, of gender-based violence, not just nationally, but internationally as well.

I refer to the issue of Covid, which has been extensively covered. A very grim statistic is that 20 million girls will never return to school as a consequence of Covid. That is absolutely shocking. I completely agree with the observation that we need to ensure that as many young girls as possible get back to education and that we do not lose any of them. That should be the target. I commend all those who will work on that issue.

I also wish to touch on the impact of Covid on peace processes across the world. The committee has previously heard testimony regarding the peace process in Mali, where there have been significant efforts to get female participation in that peace process, as has also been the case for many other peace processes around the world. We know the benefits that derive from having males and females engaged on peace talks and peace processes. It has been suggested that, unfortunately, there has been a considerable fall-off in female participation in the peace process in Mali as a direct consequence of Covid and women returning to caring roles at home. I ask our guests to comment on whether that is prevalent. Is there evidence of that happening in the context of peace processes?

I welcome some of the commentary regarding Tigray. It is an issue the committee has dealt with extensively. There are serious concerns that we need to ensure that Ireland, through its seat on the UN Security Council, continues to give prominence not just to Tigray, but also to Yemen, which was mentioned. The unfortunate reality is that both those areas are moving towards famine as a direct consequence of conflict. More needs to be done in addressing those issues.

Another issue with which the committee has dealt is that of the genocide of the Yazidi people perpetrated by ISIS in 2014. We know that more than 12,000 people were slaughtered in the initial assault on the Yazidi people by ISIS and that more than 3,000 women and girls, some of them as young as nine years of age, were taken into captivity by ISIS and used as sex slaves. It has been suggested that Ireland was very slow to prioritise the victims of sexual violence in that conflict. I ask our guests to comment on that issue and the use of sex as a weapon of war, as has been alluded to not just at this meeting, but by witnesses at previous meetings of the committee. The recently established Yazidi Survivors Network has a specific request on which the committee has picked up and we have formally put the proposal to the Minister. It is looking for the mere sum of €368,000 to give voice and real tangible assistance to the survivors of the genocide of the Yazidi people by ISIS. Is that something to which the oversight group would lend its support? It would go a long way towards helping the healing process there, as well as the accountability and justice that many of the Yazidi people deserve.

I refer to the major failure to address sexual violence against women, children and other refugees in camps ostensibly run by the EU, such as that at Moria in Lesbos, where there are major issues of psychological trauma, extreme poverty and ongoing violence. Why is there a perceived lack of prioritisation in terms of addressing those humanitarian crises in the camps?

An issue that has come to the fore in this State is that of mother and baby homes and the publication of the recent report. Many of the wounds and much of the trauma have been reopened for so many survivors, including the many women who had harrowing experiences in the mother and baby homes. In light of that continuous hurt, what should be done? What does the oversight group consider must be done to try to address the recent harm done to the survivors and the women who went through many years of harrowing experiences in mother and baby homes?

The last issue I wish to raise is about the Defence Forces. A number of people have spoken to us about this. The figures have been referred to with only 7% female membership within the Irish Defence Forces. That is a shocking figure. We know many of the issues affecting why there is such a low number of females within our Defence Forces. However, there are many structural issues within the Defence Forces which add to the impact on the recruitment and retention of women. It has been stated that even on some of our overseas missions, there are no specific shower facilities for women members of the Defence Forces who participate in overseas missions. I wish to ask the oversight group whether this is a specific issue that has been raised with the Minister and the Defence Forces. I see this as a major impediment. If we are serious, which I hope we all are, about gender equality within our Defence Forces, structures are one of many blockages in achieving that. I would like to hear witnesses’ views on this and whether it has been an issue that has been highlighted and raised with the Minister and other powers that be.

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I will revert to Ms Owen and her team, however, I am conscious of the clock and that members of the panel may not get another opportunity to contribute. As well as addressing Deputy Brady’s questions, perhaps Ms Owen will provide us with some final comments.

For my part, I note that reference was made earlier to human trafficking. I ask members of the oversight group and Chief Superintendent Synnott to comment on that. This time last year, there was strong international criticism of Ireland in regard to human trafficking. As far as the oversight group is concerned, this is an area that almost exclusively impacts on women and girls. International criticism came from the United States of America, in particular, which highlighted “major failings” within our system and where we were downgraded in terms of a position on its watch list. I do not believe there was criticism of any particular agency, for example, our prosecution services, but the criticism was levelled generally on our regime. Have members of the oversight group had a look at this and are they in a position to comment on where the most acute challenge is or was? I know of a recent conviction, but that was just one case. It is also true to say that instances of most unacceptable human trafficking are evident in many of our major towns and cities across the country. It is not just a Dublin capital city issue. If the oversight group has a message for the Government, what would it be in terms of ensuring that fingers are not pointed at us for having failings in our system, in our laws, or in our practices?

I give the floor back to Ms Owen and her team to deal with Deputy Brady’s questions. I noticed that Deputy Craughwell indicated he wished to speak but I do not see him now. I will hand over to Ms Owen and her committee for answers and perhaps a final commentary.

Ms Nora Owen:

I thank Deputy Brady for raising a number of issues. He began by raising the 29,770 cases that were announced today of people who reported domestic violence. Earlier, we spoke about the role the gardaí have in this and the tensions that have arisen in people’s households during the Covid pandemic. In a way, it is a lesson to us all to be aware that this is going on inside houses and homes all around us. It does not affect just one particular section of society - it is throughout society. We must be very conscious of that.

I know that Deputy Brady has a particular interest in the situation in Mali and in the wider Sahel region, which covers Burkina Faso and Niger. That area is extremely complex and challenging. Mali is the epicentre of that area. There are significant levels of violence from armed terrorist groups and intercommunal groups, and the insecurity for women and girls has been devastating. As Deputy Brady probably knows, the social norms and multiple discriminations based on age have been exacerbated by what is going on. Women and girls have been exposed to widespread fears of abduction. They have been married by force to soldiers. They have been sexually assaulted and raped.

With Covid and the complexity of the violence, many schools there have remained closed. That meant that the children, young girls and boys, were all around. They were losing their chance of an education and would never get it back again as all the schools were shut. The efforts of the UN peacekeeping forces that are there, while they are doing what they can, sadly we have not seen any significant lessening of that violence in Mali. We have made various statements on it and we have highlighted at the UN Security Council the role of the UN forces there and seeking a meaningful implementation. As Deputy Brady said, there needs to be more women involved in the peace agreement. A peace agreement made in a room full of men discussing it, leaves out a whole part of the agenda of solving those conflicts. Our efforts, whenever we talk to the Department of Foreign of Affairs and the Department of Defence, are to make sure that women are involved in those discussions, otherwise the issues of women and girls will disappear.

The genocide of the Yazidi people – I must be frank with the Deputy – is not an area our groups have been involved in. It is moreso the Department of Foreign Affairs that has been handling that. I cannot answer questions on that, but he did raise the issue of the refugee camps in Lesbos and elsewhere. Many efforts have been made to try to improve those camps and to make them more gender friendly. I heard, from UNICEF and others, some very sad stories of difficulties particularly for women and children leaving their little tents, or wherever they were sleeping, to use the latrines or bathrooms and being in danger of being raped on the way there. Babies were being kept in cages so that they would not be attacked. There have been some very serious stories coming out of those camps and we must be conscious of that. Some European member countries are running or are involved in some of these camps and they must be assisted as much as possible.

The area of mother and baby homes is not one in which we are involved. Therefore, I cannot make a comment on that. It is probably the area of another committee, such as a justice or health committee.

Deputy Brady raised the Defence Forces and why there are not more women in it. There is a working group to advise Mark Mellett, the head of the Defence Forces, on how to make the Defence Forces more gender friendly and to encourage more women to stay in it. For the members who are new to the Oireachtas, I remember that back in the 1980s there were very few women in the Irish Army and one of the reasons given at the time was because the army camps did not have any female toilets. That was given as, what seemed like, a genuine excuse as to why women were not able to come it. Of course, that was changed and corrected, and more women have joined the Army, but they account for only 7% of the total numbers. There are approximately 8,000 members of the Defence Forces and only 7% are women. Therefore, we need to improve that.

They are particularly useful in UN peacekeeping exercises where a lot of the issues are gender-based. Women will not exchange information with a whole panel of men, but they will if they get a chance to talk to women peacekeepers. This is, therefore, a crucial part of it. I ask Ms Synnott if there is anything else that she wanted to add. I clarify for the committee that members of the Defence Forces and An Garda Síochána cannot criticise or make comments on Government policy. I would not, therefore, expect Ms Synnott to be able to say what the Government should be doing. However, is there anything else that she wants to add on the human trafficking situation? I will then come back to the issue that the Chair raised about us losing our good reputation at UN level.

Ms Louise Synnott:

There have been developments in more recent times. Operation Quest investigated organised prostitution that was historically behind trafficking of women into this country for sexual and labour exploitation. The organised prostitution investigation unit was set up nationally under the Garda National Protective Services Bureau, GNPSB. It is working with the Department of Justice and with the new Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, looking at the definition of trafficking and the mechanisms for identifying people who have been trafficked, in collaboration with both State and non-State partners, as Mr. Dhala referenced earlier. An Garda Síochána is disappointed in the downgrading by the American authorities of Ireland and Ireland’s status in trafficking in human persons.

Ms Nora Owen:

I thank Ms Synnott. The issue is very much on the agenda and we will be keeping it on our agenda. Ms Hearns wanted to come in briefly on the issue of women in the peacekeeping forces. I will give her the floor. We are coming towards the end and I will say a few words then.

Ms Áine Hearns:

This is more about women in peace building, rather than in the peacekeeping forces. However, I am delighted that the Defence Forces does indeed have women peacekeepers. Our peacekeepers have been on the ground for over 60 years. They have a great reputation internationally, which is great to see. On the women in peace building, Deputy Brady mentioned the importance of getting women into peace processes. I know he has a particular interest in Mali. Indeed, as I said earlier on our role in the United Nations Security Council, this is one of the issues that we consistently feel like banging on the table about. Right across the thematic files, the country files and the peacekeeping mandates, we want to raise the role of women who are involved in peace processes.

We have had a peace process ourselves in Northern Ireland. We have seen how effective the women's coalition in Northern Ireland was. Because of this, we do lesson sharing across the globe to assist other women peacekeepers. For example, Ms Bronagh Hinds, who some of you will know from the coalition, has been working with Yemeni and Afghan women, building their capacity to participate at the table. This is key. We cannot have women at the table for the sake of having them sitting there. They need to be able to engage and have confidence to sit there. It should not be tokenistic. That is not what we want. A man can sit at a table and representing women's views if there is no woman to do it. However, we are putting effort and support into grassroots women peace builders. I mentioned we produced a report last year. Also, we are bringing women peace builders to the United Nations Security Council. At the Arria meeting in March, we had a young Yemeni woman peacebuilder. We also brought Ms Hinds along. It was key to see both the young woman peace builder and Ms Hinds, who has that experience, addressing the United Nations Security Council about the challenges and where to take it from.

I reassure the committee that we are promoting this issue widely, across all the themes on the United Nations Security Council. I mentioned the Generation Equality Forum. Coming out of that is the women, peace and security and humanitarian action compact, WPS-HA Compact. It will be launched on 2 July 2021 in Paris. We are now board members on the compact. We look at how we can promote women peace builders. We have been actively involved in the women's participation in peace building working group and what is coming out of that. I reassure the committee that this is on our radar. It will, however, take time. It needs quite a bit of support. Certainly, when any of the mandates come up from the United Nations Integrated Multidimensional Stabilization Mission in Mali, MINUSMA, on Mali, we are in there. We do not just talk the talk; we bring it to the attention of the United Nations Security Council and the people who can do something with it.

Ms Nora Owen:

I thank the members of the committee, both Deputies and Senators, for their extreme interest in our work and for the range of questions and comments they have raised with us. We are on top of some, and others are not quite on our agenda lest the committee thinks I was ignoring any of the questions that came up. In Ireland, gender equality is a core and fundamental value for us. Therefore, in our working group we try to get that message across all the areas of policy on which we work. We assist countries, as Dr. Kilroy has said, to make necessary changes in their own activities, policies, and in how they deal with their people in various ways. As Ms Hearns said, a woman sitting at a peace-making table has to have the skills and capacities to be heard and to make her point on behalf of both the men and women of her community and society.

Again, Ireland’s role in providing funding for education is crucial. We are really worried about the effect Covid-19 has had on what was quite an advancement in the education of particularly girl children and, more important, keeping girl children in school. For a long time, and all the time that I was working in development aid areas, girls were getting to school but were leaving at 12 and 13 years old. They did not continue their education. In more recent years, that was beginning to change. Girls were going on to do their final exams to become qualified members of their societies. Covid-19 has thrown that into disarray, as have some of the conflict areas.

We are honoured that the committee invited us to speak to it about the range of our work. I hope that over the coming years members will have learned something and will be ready in any Dáil debate to raise the issue of gender and the role of women in our society, and make sure that you can put it across all the Departments. This term “whole of government” has become an issue for all of us. That is why, as Ms Hearns said, we do not want a specific budget just for us. We would be afraid that if they ran short of money somewhere else, they might poach our budget. We constantly ask all Departments in our meetings to tell us what progress they have made.

I particularly thank our members who participated today: Mr. Egide Dhala, Dr. Walt Kilroy, Ms Deirdre Ní Néill – who was there behind us all the time ready to come in if she was needed - Mr. Shane O’Connor, in the same Department, Chief Superintendent Louise Synnott, Ms Áine Hearns and other members of our team who have helped us prepare. I hope members have learned more than they knew before they came into the committee. The committee has helped us by raising the issues that it has.

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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On behalf of the committee, I thank you for meeting with us and for dealing in such a comprehensive manner with many of our questions. Indeed, you will have seen our priorities. I also acknowledge the lodging earlier in the year of the first annual report of Ireland's third National Action Plan on UN Security Council Resolution 1325. No doubt we will have some future engagement.