NIGERIAN WOMAN Pamela Izevbekhai yesterday insisted that she did have a daughter Elizabeth who died after being subjected to female genital mutilation.
In a brief statement yesterday, she said she “totally rejected” allegations that she manufactured the story in order to bolster her case against deportation.
“My daughter Elizabeth did die as I said,” said the Sligo-based mother who has been fighting a long running legal battle – now before the European Court of Human Rights – on the grounds that if the family is sent back to Nigeria her two younger daughters would be subjected to the procedure.
An affidavit claiming a document supporting her case was forged was published in several newspapers yesterday.
The affidavit came from Dr Joseph Unokanjo, an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Isloma hospital in Lagos, who said that no baby called Elizabeth Isevbekhai was delivered by him at the hospital, and no such baby died of injuries sustained during female genital mutilation (FGM).
Ms Izevbekhai sought asylum in Ireland in 2005 on the grounds that her two daughters, Naomi and Jemima, were in danger of being forced to undergo FGM by her husband’s family, stating that her first daughter, Elizabeth, had already died as a result of undergoing the procedure.
Her application was refused, and judicial review proceedings challenging the refusal were unsuccessful. Separate to her case in the European Court of Human Rights, she had sought subsidiary protection in Ireland under EU law. She was unsuccessful, and is now appealing that case to the Supreme Court.
The State is seeking to have her appeal struck out as an abuse of process, claiming a lack of candour on her part, citing the affidavit from Dr Unokanjo. This has also been lodged with the European Court of Human Rights.
In it, Dr Unokanjo states that he did not sign an affidavit purported to have been sworn by him on March 9th, 2006, did not issue a certificate of cause of death on July 17th, 1994 and that he believes these documents to be forgeries. However, this contradicts interviews with Dr Unokanjo on two Irish radio stations in 2005 and 2007. The first, conducted by RTÉ reporter Philip Boucher Hayes, was broadcast in 2005.
The doctor then said: “Baby Elizabeth Izevbekhai was delivered in this hospital on 11th February 1993, a product of full term supervised pregnancy . . . A year plus later baby Elizabeth was rushed back to the hospital on the evening of 15th July, 1994 with history of weakness and pallor which possibly resulted from profuse bleeding having undergone the traditional female genital circumcision. I thought to survive baby would include emergency blood transfusion [it] proved abortive, baby therefore died of circulatory collapse at about 5.30am on the 16th July, 1994 and that is actually what happened. The death was as a result of what circumcision did to her.”
Dr Unokanjo was also interviewed on Sligo-based radio station Ocean FM on January 19th, 2007 when he told its reporter, Sorcha Crowley: “The baby was born on the 11th February, 1993.
“A few months later, she was rushed down to the hospital with a history of weakness and pallor which possibly, I’m sure, resulted from profuse bleeding after the patient, baby Elizabeth, had undergone the procedure of female genital circumcision.
“Definitely as a doctor and from my clinic, all efforts to help the baby survive, which included emergency blood transfusion, proved unsuccessful. In the morning at 5.30am she died, and the death, I call tell you, was as a result of the female circumcision.”
Meanwhile the Nigerian ambassador to Ireland has denied that there is any female genital mutilation in her country.
In an interview with RTÉs Would You Believeprogramme a report estimating the rate of FGM at 32.6 per cent is put to the ambassador. She replies: "I can assure you that whoever wrote that report did not know what she was doing . . [she] thought it would be a way of attracting funds and that is the truth."
The US state department estimates that 19 per cent of Nigerian women have been subjected to FGM. A spokesman for the Let Them Stay organisation said yesterday’s reports raised more questions than they answered.