‘Ireland has a long, shameful history of hiding away people we don’t wish to acknowledge’

“It seems my life has been split in two, as different as lemons and mangoes. The first part was in our village back home, so far away…The second part of my life is in Ireland, as different a place from my home as you could find.”

On March 28th last, I arrived in the Eglinton Hotel Direct Provision Centre in Galway with mentors from Fighting Words to run a workshop for the children living there. All 30 children were invited to participate, and about half of them came along to the two-hour workshop. Ranging from five to 13 years of age, the children were a whirlwind of energy and enthusiasm. Excited to take part, they were full of creativity and imagination, eager to tell stories through their writing and drawings. It was fun and fulfilling to engage with them, but being forced to live in the Direct Provision system is no way for anyone to live, least of all children.

Direct Provision is Ireland’s reception system for asylum seekers, where people are accommodated in communal institutional centres or former hotels, mostly operated on a for-profit basis by private contractors. It has raised major human rights concerns and is known to exclude people from local communities, contribute to poor mental and physical health, and lead to social exclusion. In existence for 22 years, there are currently more than 2,000 children living in Direct Provision centres around Ireland.

I’ve always been interested in the rights of the child, perhaps from having worked with vulnerable children on the margins of society, including children with disabilities, early school leavers, young offenders, and homeless children. I’ve travelled around developing countries and seen all too many children without proper education, healthcare, clean water and food.

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Girls in particular are frequently victims of human rights abuses. I’ve been inspired to explore their experiences though my stories and writing. In my previous books, I’ve written about migration, homelessness, physical disability and child soldiers. My last book, A Dangerous Crossing, tells the story of a young Kurdish boy and his family who flee the Syrian civil war in search of safety.

My new book, Run For Your Life, tells the story of 14-year-old Azari who arrives in Ireland with her mother, seeking safety and refuge from violence in her home country. Azari’s home is a dangerous place for girls and women, denied access to education, personal choice and independence. Many girls don’t have the chance to escape the domestic violence, oppression and patriarchal customs that are part of their daily lives.

When she arrives in Ireland, Azari is denied the human rights the rest of us enjoy because she must live in a Direct Provision centre. In Ireland, we’re fortunate to have our human rights protected by law and to live freely in a peaceful country. Children have full access to education, healthcare, protection from violence. They are free to live independent lives, to speak openly, but this is not the case for children in Direct Provision.

Azari lives in poverty, in an isolated centre far from her local community. She can’t take part in after-school activities, can’t prepare her own food, can’t even choose when or what she wants to eat. She faces intimidation and racism, and while she is welcomed by many people, Azari and other asylum-seekers are treated with savage hostility by a group of locals.

Azari’s fictional story is based on the interrupted lives of thousands of people in Direct Provision – many of whom are traumatised by war, displacement and persecution. I wanted to portray something of the seismic shift all refugees face when they’re torn from everything familiar to them.

We’re seeing this trauma daily now, in the faces of Ukranian refugees arriving on our shores as they flee the barbaric war in their country. The welcome they are receiving, and the efforts the Irish government is making to provide them with education, housing and healthcare, shows that Ireland is capable of showing compassion and generosity to those seeking refuge and protection.

But not all asylum-seekers are treated equally. Those forced to live in Direct Provision face a second trauma by having to live in poverty, in isolated institutions apart from their local communities, with inadequate facilities, lack of privacy and little dignity. They wait in limbo for months, sometimes years, for a decision about their futures, trying to live a life with dignity in the most undignified of circumstances.

Research for Run For Your Life was challenging, mostly because it was difficult to meet people living in Direct Provision centres, and almost impossible to get inside one. When I wrote to one Direct Provision centre to ask about meeting with staff and/or residents so I could represent fairly the voices of people involved, management told me they couldn’t speak with me until a written proposal was approved by the Reception and Integration Agency.

In another centre, a colleague of mine volunteering with children was asked to cease her project: management didn’t want the children saying anything unflattering about the centre. She was angry that the children’s already tiny voices were being stifled further. Facing such challenges, my research was limited to hearing the stories of young people in Direct Provision at a conference for asylum-seekers organised by the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, an independent platform for asylum seekers to join together in unity and purpose. I also drew on Vukasin Nedeljkovic’s digital records of Direct Provision centres, which are a stark reminder of the isolation and hopelessness of these institutions.

It is important to acknowledge the existence of children living in Direct Provision and the lives they are forced to live. They are part of Irish society, yet in so many ways, hidden from us, isolated from their communities. Ireland has a long and shameful history of hiding away people we don’t wish to acknowledge, of keeping them apart from the rest of us, as if we might somehow be contaminated by them being among us. We’ve seen it with our Magdalene Laundries and the mother and baby homes. In time, children in Direct Provision will tell their own stories of growing up in these institutions, but until then, it is important to acknowledge them, which is what I want to do in Run For Your Life. Azari’s story shines a light on these children’s experiences. Words have the power to create empathy, to engender understanding, and ultimately to provoke action. Perhaps if we learn more about human rights and how these are denied so many people in Direct Provision, we will begin as a country to treat all refugees equally.

With the Irish Refugee Council and Fighting Words, I will be running another workshop with young asylum seekers in April. Run For Your Life was published by Little Island Books on April 7th