400+ foreign refugee
children fall through "cracks" - go missing
in Ireland! No call for an investigation!
"The health
services and the Garda are indifferent to missing
non-national children!".
Report by Emma Browne, Hilary Curley and Colin
Murphy for Village Magazine
The scandal of missing children
Village Magazine Dublin
The scandal of missing children
Contributed by Emma Browne Hilary Curley Colin
Murphy Friday, 28 January 2005
Forty eight children went missing from the Eastern
HSE region (formerly the East Coast Area Health Board
(ECAHB)) last year, and of these 40 are still
missing. The Director of Childcare in the Eastern
Region, Marian Quinn, told us on 13 January she was
unable to tell say how many of the children were
still missing. She referred us to the Garda for this
information. We were later informed by the Eastern
region that 40 were still missing. They are the body
with statutory responsibility for the care and
welfare of these children. In 2004, 174 unaccompanied
minor asylum seekers came into the care of the ECAHB.
Marian Quinn says that normally about half are
reunited with family members in Ireland. The
remaining half stay in Dublin and a majority of them
are placed in hostels. If the child is under 12 the
health board tries to place the children in foster
care. But the arrangement is such that a 13 year old
child is frequently placed in a hostel that does not
have full time health board staff. In Dublin there
are 10 such hostels. Each child is allocated to the
care of a social worker and a project worker. The
children meet their project worker at least once a
week, according to the board. But for the remainder
of the week, aside from this encounter with the
project worker, the children are in the care of the
private hostel staff. The board says that they have
"provided basic child protection training to the
staff of each of the contracted hostels". The
details of this training were not available to us
prior to going to press. These private hostels do not
come within the remit of the Social Services
Inspectorate, which has responsibility for overseeing
the conditions of institutions in which Irish
children are accommodated. Neither do these private
hostels have to comply with the standards prescribed
for the residences of Irish children. The Social
Services Inspectorate Report, 2003 recommended that
these hostels, "should comply with inspection
requirements and should be inspected and registered
as are all other children's residential
centres". However that has not happened. Only 17
unaccompanied non-national children came into
Southern Health Board (SHB), now the Southern region
of the HSE, in 2004. However, two of these children
went missing, and are still missing. In the Southern
region, unaccompanied non-national children are
placed in emergency hostel accommodation and then
later placed in supported accommodation, with
families in the community. Birgette Mintern, a
principal social worker in charge of separated
children seeking asylum in the Southern region said
that the children do "very well in these
situations" and they "integrate well"
into the local community. The
two children that went missing were a Bangladeshi boy
and a Moldovan boy.
Comment:
Both of these children
almost certainly could not speak english - so how
could the abductors get access to the inside of
the hostels? Maybe the abductors worked in the
hostels!
Neither are on the Garda missing children website.
They both went missing from emergency accommodation.
The Bangladeshi went missing after three weeks in
care and the Moldovan was in care for a matter of
days. Birgette Mintern said that when children do go
missing this occurs usually within a short space of
time of them coming into the care of the health
board. In the Southern region the children normally
spend six to eight weeks in emergency accommodation.
Then they are placed in more permanent settled
accommodation until they are relocated to families.
Birgette Mintern said that the cases of the two
missing children are now in the hands of the Garda
National Immigration Bureau (GNIB). She said she
would have "no problem" with these children
being listed on the missing persons website, if the
Garda felt it was necessary. In the last five years
3,000 unaccompanied children seeking asylum have come
to the attention of the authorities in Ireland. A
majority of these go into the care of the Eastern
region, a small number are in the care of the
Southern region. Pauline Conroy, who has worked on
research on separated children seeking asylum in
Ireland says that it was an "unexpected
situation", nobody anticipated the volume of
such children arriving in Ireland. Grace Kelly of the
ISPCC said she wasn't surprised that the system is
inadequate and that these children go missing in our
care. She said that "our childcare system can't
cope already with Irish children". Marian Quinn
from the Eastern region said there are alwaysissues
about more resources and they "are currently in
negotiation with the Department of Health for
additional resources". Village - Ireland's
Current Affairs Website http://www.village.ie Powered
by Joomla! Generated: 28 August, 2007, 09:57 \par
There has been some improvement in the accommodation
for unaccompanied children in private hostels. Up
until 2001 they were being placed in hostels which
also catered for adult asylum seekers. In addition,
these hostels they stayed in were self-catering. Now
children are fully catered for in these hostels,
which do not cater for adults as well. However
Pauline Conroy says that "child protection
principles require a higher level of daily
supervision and care than currently prevails".
Another issue is the incomplete or missing records on
children in health board care units. A report in 2003
by Pauline Conroy, Trafficking in Unaccompanied
Minors in Ireland, states: "the absence of
records in accommodation where children are housed is
a core flaw in the protection of unaccompanied
children. As a consequence children who 'disappear'
from such accommodation... cannot be systematically
and promptly traced." Cabrini Gibbons of the
Irish Refugee Council feels that there appears to be
"no concern" and a "lack of
investigation" of cases concerning the children
who have already gone missing. Evidence Village
obtained from hostel sources reveals an inadequate
investigation by the Garda when children in the
hostels go missing. And also a lack of follow up on
the part of the health board to check with the Garda
about the outcome of the investigations. Sources who
had worked with children that went missing from these
hostels, told Village that the Garda on occasion had
not come to question children or staff after children
were reported missing. If they did come it was often
days or weeks later, and in one case was four months
after the reported disappearance. It seems that there
is no regular communication between the Garda, the
health services and hostels once the cases have been
referred to the Garda. Cabrini Gibbons said that
"much stronger inter-agency support and
communications" is needed when these children go
missing, between immigration official/authorities,
social workers and the health board. Marian Quinn
from the Eastern region said that she feels inter
agency support is "working well". However,
when Village asked Marian Quinn about the cases of
the outcome of the 48 children missing under the
ECAHB care on the 13 January, she could not give us
any figures. Even when an investigation is launched,
in the cases of these missing children, no publicity
is generated concerning their absences. There is a
professed concern about the privacy rights of these
children, which seems at odds with the massive
publicity generated in the case of Irish children who
go missing. The Garda said it was difficult to
release information to the public regarding children
in care. There is also the problem that these missing
children have no family advocates to promote their
cases and the health boards, who have effective
parental responsibility for them, do very little. The
Garda press office said that it is the responsibility
of the local superintendent to ask the Garda press
office to publicise the case. Over the last two
weeks, Village has sought further information on the
11 non national children listed on the Garda website
of missing children. However, the Garda were unable
to give us further information on these children.
They said they are still in the process of compiling
the information, as the information needed to be
gathered from the individual local superintendents in
charge of the cases. Village tried to contact the
relevant local superintendents, but we were referred
back to the Garda press office. Out of the 11
non-national missing children, five went missing from
accommodation in west Dublin, and four went missing
from a city centre hostel. From the west Dublin
accommodation a 16-year-old South African girl, Sive
Yanta, and three Moldovan boys, Serghei Tudorache and
Vasile Cichistu (both aged 15), and 13-year-old Ion
Ernu, all went missing last October; and a Russian
girl, Erna Isayeva (15) went missing last August. We
contacted the Russian embassy to ask if they had been
notified by the Garda about the missing girl, Erna
Isayeva. They had not heard about her and expressed
concern at not having been informed. They asked
Village to fax them her details. We also contacted
the Eastern European Information Centre in Dublin,
and they had no knowledge of her case and had not
been contacted by the Garda. The Russian newspaper in
Dublin, Gazetta also had no knowledge of her, or had
any contact from the Garda. Village - Ireland's
Current Affairs Website http://www.village.ie\par We
also contacted the South African embassy about Sive
Yanta. They had never been contacted by the Garda
about her case. The Chairperson of the South African
Club in Ireland, Dee Hulse, also said she was unaware
of her disappearance and was never contacted by the
Garda. The South African Centre for Missing and
Exploited Children, in Pretoria, South Africa said
they had never heard about her case. (There is no
Moldovan embassy or consulate in Ireland.) From the
city centre hostel, a 17-year-old Somali boy, Adbi
Ali, a 17-year-old Estonian boy,Valentin Vorobyov, a
17-year- old Georgian girl, Salome Samadashvili and
an 18-year-old Georgian, Ion Spinu all went missing
in 2004. Village contacted the Estonian embassy in
Ireland to enquire if they knew of Valentin Vorobyov.
They had not been informed that he was missing. They
said that it was not protocol that they be informed
of missing persons. However, following investigation
by the embassy, we were informed that Interpol had
not been informed about this boy's case either.
Within 24 hours the embassy discovered that his
passport had expired in March of 2004, and in May he
had made a new application for a passport, with an
address given in the United Kingdom. (Although the
date of birth given for the new passport is different
from the previous one, but the other details are the
same.) (There is no Somalia or Georgian consulate in
Ireland.) There were no "missing person"
posters placed or leaflets distributed in the city
centre area where these children went missing. All of
these children have gone missing since January 2004.
16-year-old Lisa Nwole, a Nigerian, went missing from
her home in Celbridge in October 2002. She is
described as a "Black African" on the
missing persons website, not Nigerian. Katie Ridge, a
Fine Gael councillor who lives in the same estate in
Celbridge, St Raphael's Manor, said she was not aware
of any leaflet drop or local information session with
the Garda subsequent to Lisa's disappearance. The
editor of the Nigerian Dublin newspaper, Street
Journal said he had not been informed by the Garda
about the girl's disappearance and offered to place
an article in his newspaper requesting information
from the public about her. The editor of Metro
Eireann, who is Nigerian, similarly had never been
asked for information or help by the Garda. The
Nigerian Embassy had not been informed of her
disappearance either, but was interested and asked us
to pass on any information if we got any. The
spokesperson said that in the normal course of
events, they would be informed, but usually by the
social workers and never by the Garda. Superintendent
Tom Neville in Naas said "there has been a full
investigation carried out" and that it was
ongoing, but declined to give details of that
investigation. Other Garda sources said that Lisa
Nwole's mobile phone records had been checked but had
drawn a blank. The remaining missing non-national is
a 17-year-old Eritrean girl, Tigsti Zeray, who went
missing from an address on the North Circular Road,
Dublin in 2004. It is likely that nine of these 11
children who are on the missing persons list went
missing from the Eastern region hostels. When asked
about the problems with supervision in these hostels,
Marian Quinn said that the only way to guarantee the
safety of these children was to lock them up;
"this is not an option desired by the health
board", she said. A major concern about these
missing children is their vulnerability once they do
go missing. Pauline Conroy said that "when they
go missing we could assume that they are probably
drifting into an underworld". They are
"very vulnerable and exposed to the risk of
being exploited for sex or labour". Cabrini
Gibbons said "there is a concern in Ireland
about trafficking and that some people might be using
these missing children for trafficking. And (there
is) some evidence that Ireland has been used as a
first destination in the trafficking cycle." She
added that we have a "lack of awareness and
knowledge about trafficking in Ireland".
Village - Ireland's Current Affairs Website http://www.village.ie
I wonder HOW the children
were transported into Ireland! I dont believe these
children came in in the backs of lorries - they must
have been brought in by adults! So how?
Maybe this is how!
Example:
Zoe’s ark: the dangers of ‘DIY
humanitarianism’
Comment: "Maybe NOT so
humanitarian!"
Zoe’s
ark: the dangers of ‘DIY humanitarianism’ |
spiked
Chad’s president, Deby Itno,
accused the aid workers of running a paedophile NGO,
or of planning to sell off the children’s organs
Western Aid workers suspected of
abducting african children for paedophile groups!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-490639/Aid-workers-accused-kidnapping-children.html
On 25 October, a group of European aid workers
were arrested in Abeche, eastern Chad. They were
accused of child abduction after attempting to fly
103 children out of the country. The aid workers
belonged to Zoe’s Ark, a French non-governmental
organisation (NGO) founded by Eric Breteau, a
charismatic French fireman (1).
The goal of the operation was to rescue the 103
children, understood to be orphans from Darfur, and
to take them to France where host families had been
found for them. The charity’s website stresses
above all the moral emergency it has identified in
Darfur and the need for the West to act. Its message
is clear: ‘A child dies every five minutes in
Darfur. In a year’s time, 800,000 will have
died. Act now.’ (2)
What distinguishes Zoe’s Ark from other
charitable organisations is its commitment to civil
disobedience. Few of those involved seem to have
known by how much the charity was intending to flout
the law (3). There is no doubt, however, that Breteau
made a virtue of his radicalism. Breteau argued that
the priority should be saving the children, not
respecting legal procedures. Once the children were
safe in France, a dialogue could be opened up with
the relevant authorities. ‘We start by taking
the children out’, he explained. ‘Even if
the discussions take four years, the children will be
in safety.’ (4) This provoked concern in France,
and Paris’ child protection squad interviewed
Breteau and his treasurer in August 2007.
When the crisis first broke out, it was difficult
to know exactly what had happened.
Chad’s president, Deby
Itno, accused the aid workers of running a paedophile
NGO, or of planning to sell off the children’s
organs.
Since then, a simpler story seems to have emerged,
of a few fanatical humanitarian activists carrying
their moral fervour further than most. One French
journalist, who had been covering the operation when
he was arrested along with those responsible for
carrying it out, has said that he was struck above
all by the state of mind of the aid workers:
‘They were sure they were doing good, and had a
mission to carry out.’
The reaction of the French authorities and of many
of the NGOs operating in Chad and Darfur has been to
distance themselves from the whole affair. Zoe’s
Ark is being cast as a maverick operation, and many
other aid organisations are lamenting the impact
their actions have had on the aid effort in the
region. One person working for the UN High Commission
for Refugees complained that in recent days the
situations in Adeche has soured: ‘People throw
stones at us in the street. It has been a real
setback.’ (5)
Such distancing is to be expected. But more
interestingly, many have seen Zoe’s Ark as a
sorry example of where humanitarian intervention has
ended up. Leading figures, such as Rony Brauman, the
co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières,
chose not to blame Breteau’s fanaticism.
Instead, Brauman targets his ire at the political
establishment. French foreign minister Bernard
Kouchner is to blame, apparently, having
irresponsibly labelled events in Darfur a genocide
and recommended some kind of humanitarian
intervention. Blame has also been laid at the door of
Bernard Henri-Lévy, a French public intellectual who
has also been active in drumming up support for
intervention. According to Brauman, Kouchner and
Henri-Lévy have been stoking up the moral fervour
without being willing to act themselves (6).
The message here is that humanitarian intervention
has been tarnished by its opportunistic alliance with
Western militarism. The charge is that individuals
such as Kouchner and Henri-Lévy have too often been
willing to compromise on the facts in order to prompt
Western governments into action. Darfur was therefore
erroneously labelled a genocide, and casualty figures
were grossly inflated by groups such as the Save
Darfur Coalition in the US and Urgence Darfour
in France. As a result, groups have sprung up -
outside of the more regulated world of mainstream
NGOS - and have taken such campaigns at their word.
Children are being massacred, the United Nations
Security Council is blocked by the Chinese and the
Russians. Ergo, we must get in there ourselves and do
what we can. This has been the philosophy of
Zoe’s Ark: do-it-yourself humanitarianism.
There is some irony here: Kouchner launched his
own political career by excoriating Western
governments and aid organisations for their
unwillingness to take sides in the Nigerian civil war
in the late 1960s. Today, it is Kouchner’s own
inaction as foreign minister - after being so vocal
in calling for intervention when he was still a
free-floating public figure - that has motivated
groups such as Zoe’s Ark to get involved.
Mainstream NGOs such as Médecins Sans Frontières
are cautious now because they feel the humanitarian
movement splintering, with mavericks on one side and
those willing to follow the agenda of Western
governments on the other. Such is the legacy of over
a decade of humanitarian wars (7).
However, Kouchner and other humanitarian warriors
also have a deeper role to play in this recent
crisis. In the actions of Zoe’s Ark, we can see
some of the basic tenets of humanitarian intervention
played out in detail, albeit as farce this time
rather than tragedy. Above all, there is the
presumption that moral emergencies should trump any
political or legal framework (8). This was the
sentiment behind Kouchner’s doctrine of the
‘right to intervene’: moral imperative
overrides the rights of sovereign states. A version
of this theory was offered by one of the Zoe’s
Ark aid workers interviewed by a French journalist.
Asked where she got her legitimacy to
‘deracinate’ the children, the aid worker
replied: ‘What legitimacy do they have to
assassinate a people?’ (9) Presumably referring
to the Sudanese government, her implication is clear:
my right as an indignant individual is equal to that
of a legally constituted government fighting a civil
war. The ensuing crisis has revealed the arrogance of
this claim.
The self-righteousness of the aid workers is
fuelled by assumptions that events on the ground in
Darfur are no more than the confluence of Arab
barbarism and African innocence. In Chad, this
presumption has been met with the reality of a
country that refuses to play the part of backdrop to
French moral outrage. In an interview, a lawyer for
the Chadian government spelt out what is at stake.
‘Chad is a republic’, he explained.
‘It has its institutions, these institutions
must be respected… Do you think there is no
justice in Chad?’
The notion that legal right should give way to
Western moral indignation has been challenged and
exposed as an arrogant assumption. This should be a
lesson not just for the naive and self-righteous aid
workers of Zoe’s Ark, but for all those wedded
to the tenets of humanitarian intervention.
Chris Bickerton is Stipendiary lecturer in
International Politics at Pembroke College, Oxford.
He is co-editor of Politics without Sovereignty: A
Critique of Contemporary International Relations
(UCL Press: 2007). (Buy this book from Amazon(UK).)
Previously on spiked
