Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The debate is timely and is an important opportunity to review Ireland's response to the refugee crisis at national as well as EU level. I will focus my remarks on the plight and circumstances of women and children refugees, although other Deputies have referred to them in their contributions. As the Minister and everybody here are aware, women and children are at a particular risk in Europe. It is heartening to see several front-line organisations, such as the Immigrant Council of Ireland and Amnesty International, which other Deputies have referred to, provide us with information and analysis for our consideration and discernment as law-makers on the wide variety of issues regarding refugees, particularly women and children.

Figures from the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, tell us that women and children now make up the majority of those reaching Europe by sea. Some 55% of the 180,588 people who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe so far in 2016 are women and children. In the refugee camp at Idomeni on the Greek border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia there are 9,900 people, of whom 40% are children and 22% are women. These women are particularly vulnerable. There are forced to sleep in crowded conditions or outside, exposing themselves to risk. As a result, many women are sleeping in groups and in shifts as they try to look out for one another.

Why is there an increase in women making the journey now? After five years of war, many of these refugees have depleted their life savings and desperation is settling in. Early and forced marriage has increased dramatically due to the conditions of absolute poverty. Adult refugee women are advertising themselves as brides for sale as another devastating survival mechanism. In many of the neighbouring countries, as we know, Syrian refugees cannot access public services or work. Almost 700,000 Syrian children are not enrolled in any form of education. In Jordan alone, 115,000 children are not attending school and, in many instances, are compelled to work informally in dangerous conditions. An entire generation of Syrians will be uneducated. Of course Syrian women are worried for their families and their futures.

At a recent round table event in Dublin, organised by the Immigrant Council of Ireland and hosted by the European Parliament office in Dublin, a young Syrian woman living in Dublin talked about her fellow country women who have taken the risky decision to seek refuge in Europe. She spoke of how women feared for their lives and hardly slept a wink for the entire journey. She said many women who had never previously wore the hijab wore it on the journey, hoping it would shield them from sexual exploitation and violence. She also spoke of one whom she met travelling with nine children, of whom four were her own and five were her sister's. Her sister had made it to the EU and had refugee status but because she had not managed to get family reunification, having waited two years for the official response to her application, had asked her sister to bring her children on the treacherous journey. We must think carefully about why families have to take such risks.

These stories must be catalysts for us to increase the pace of family reunification applications. Deputy Clare Daly made some very helpful and constructive proposals or suggestions, which was great to hear. Even after fleeing the violence in Syria, violence is a common experience for refugees on the move. Unequal gender relations become magnified at times of crisis. Robbery, violence and rape are commonplace. Many women are forced to engage in survival sex with smugglers to get a place on a boat while others risk being trafficked for exploitation. Meanwhile, there is 100% impunity for sexual and other forms of gender-based crimes committed against refugee women. Not one smuggler, border guard or any other person has been prosecuted for such a crime. We have to stop this. Furthermore, this is why it is inhuman that we allow smuggling gangs to flourish instead of guaranteeing safe and legal routes to the EU for these women fleeing a ravaging war.

Not only do they risk violence en route, there are also health risks on the precarious journey. The UN estimates that at least 12% of the women making the journey to Europe are pregnant and yet they have no access to basic prenatal or postnatal care or any other reproductive health services along the refugee route. The security and safety of refugee women can be guaranteed only if safer and legal routes to the EU are made available. We need increased legal pathways, including greater use of resettlement programmes, family reunification, humanitarian visas and study visas for people fleeing conflict and persecution.

In her speech, the Minister outlined how Ireland is working with its commitments to take 4,000 refugees under the resettlement programme. We have also promised to take another 2,600 refugees under the relocation process as part of EU's burden-sharing arrangement under which it was agreed to relocate 160,000 people. The Minister referred to the "problematic" nature of this programme. As other Deputies have said, just ten or 11 people have arrived under this scheme so far. I understand the correct figure is ten, although it might be 11. Most of the 55,000 people who are stuck in increasingly difficult and dangerous conditions in Greece are eligible for relocation. There is no reason for delay. Some 25,000 Syrians went to Canada recently as part of a humanitarian transfer programme. It was all processed in 100 days. It is possible to bring women and children to safety. There is an ethical imperative for us to do everything in our power to discover how to increase the pace of change to ensure we do not leave these people at risk night after night. We need to step up our support to countries of first asylum. Greece and Italy cannot cope without collective resources from the EU. There is a need for burden-sharing. We must look to improve conditions for refugees in camps in countries neighbouring Syria and to help the millions of people who are displaced within Syria to create safer places for them. If we are to achieve this, we must provide the increased funding for the UNHCR that has been called for by many speakers in this debate.

Many Deputies have correctly challenged Europe's credibility as a promoter and guardian of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, which is at risk of failure if we continue to fail the thousands of people who are seeking refuge on our shores. We need collectively to ensure greater protection of women and children through the provision of safe reception centres with separate sleeping facilities and bathrooms for women and proper policing with staff who are trained in gender-based violence. We need to make sure refugees can access reproductive health services along the entire route. We must ensure women who are victims of violence based on their gender are able to access services. I want to conclude with the words of the poet Warsan Shire, which poignantly reflect the reality of the fate of women refugees:

i want to go home,

but home is the mouth of a shark

home is the barrel of the gun

and no one would leave home

unless home chased you to the shore.

The poem also reads:

you have to understand,

that no one puts their children in a boat

unless the water is safer than the land.

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