THE WOMAN who claims her two young daughters are at risk of serious harm from female genital mutilation (FGM) in Nigeria has brought another legal challenge in a bid to prevent the family being deported.
During yesterday’s opening day, Mr Justice Brian McGovern said that FGM was barbaric but he did not agree that it could be regarded as torture.
Pamela Izevbekhai and her daughters, Naomi (7) and Jemima (6), have brought judicial review proceedings in the High Court challenging the refusal by the Minister for Justice to consider their claim for “subsidiary protection” here.
The family claim the Minister erred in law by refusing to grant them subsidiary protection on the basis of his finding that new material submitted by them, which was not before him in 2005 when he was considering whether to make deportation orders, was “similar in content” to the information submitted in 2005.
Mel Christle SC, for the family, said the information put before the Minister amounted to new material and the Minister ought to have entertained the family’s application. In failing to do so, the Minister acted irrationally, he argued.
Mr Christle said the material included a statement from Dr Fiona Hardy, an independent medical practitioner who had worked and lived in Nigeria for several years.
Dr Hardy’s extensive experience of the practice of FGM clearly showed Ms Izevbekhai’s two children were at risk of serious harm if they were returned, Mr Christle said.
This evidence was new in that it independently and fully corroborated the family’s claims about the risk to their lives from FGM. Ms Izevbekhai’s first daughter Elizabeth had died at 17 months from blood loss, which the attending doctor described as being possibly the result of female circumcision performed on the baby.
Mr Christle referred to a report by Amnesty International stating there were inadequate protections against FGM in Nigeria and there was a serious risk of harm. There were also e-mails from Irish journalists who had backed up the family’s claims.
The Minister for Justice is opposing the application on grounds the material put before the Minister was no different than that previously submitted.
Mr Christle said there was no federal law in Nigeria outlawing FGM and it was up to individual states there whether they outlawed the practice. While six states had done so, there was “no evidence” of any person ever being prosecuted for carrying out the practice.
Internal relocation was also not an option for his clients.
Mr Justice McGovern said he agreed FGM was “barbaric” and “inhumane” and there was evidence it has been carried out on an estimated 30 million Nigerian females but, because it was not carried out by the state, he disagreed with his colleague Mr Justice Liam McKechnie that it was torture.
Mr Christle said just because such a practice was not carried out by an organ of a state did not mean it was not torture. He said Ms Izevbekhai left Nigeria in January 2005 due to her husband’s family’s active practice of FGM.
Eoin McCullough SC, for the Minister, said Ms Izevbekhai had no substantial grounds for her judicial review. It was their case that no new material had been advanced and the Minister had not acted irrationally.
Mr McCullough said the applicants’ claims had already been objectively examined and rejected by the Refugee Appeals Commissioner, the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and High Court.