New EU directive prioritises migration control over fighting violence against women, says campaigner

On 24 April, the European Parliament voted to adopt a new directive aimed at fighting violence against women.

Irish lawmakers had greenlit Ireland’s opt-in to the directive when it was still a proposal in June 2022.

When it passed last month, Fine Gael MEP Francis Fitzgerald – who helped prepare the proposal – said on X that it was a historic day for the women of Europe.

But the proposal’s passage came after a political deal which erased a clause that would have banned police from sharing data with immigration officials about the immigration statuses of victims from outside the European Union.

Instead, the directive has a vaguer, non-binding mention that member states should ensure that women who aren’t citizens of an EU country “are not discouraged from reporting and are treated in a non-discriminatory manner as regards their residence status”.

The directive exemplifies the European Union’s obsession with migration control even if it harms vulnerable undocumented women, says Louise Bonneau, advocacy officer for the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM).

“Who would report violence and abuse if they risked being locked up and deported instead of getting support and protection?” she said.

Fitzgerald, the Fine Gael MEP, said the European Parliament and the European Council discussed at length how to protect undocumented women who were reporting offences.

But, she said, legal teams pointed out that including extra cushions for undocumented people clashes with the Returns Directive, the law for the Schengen area which lays out rules around deportations and refoulements.

The Returns Directive says EU member states “shall issue a return decision to any third-country national staying illegally on their territory”, Fitzgerald said. “Therefore this is a binding obligation.”

But the European Parliament pushed as much as they could, said Fitzgerald. That got them the paragraph telling member states not to discourage women who aren’t EU citizens from reporting, and to ensure no discrimination based on their residency status, she said.

What’s your status?

Neil Bruton, campaigns manager for Migrants Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI), said undocumented victims of violence deserve to turn to the Gardaí without fear of being outed as paperless and risking inquiries into their immigration statuses.

“MRCI has called for many years for a firewall between An Garda Síochána and immigration authorities,” he said.

That An Garda Síochána had investigated the immigration statuses of people who had reported crime first appeared in the PhD thesis of David McInerney, a long-serving sergeant in the Gardaí’s diversity unit.

McInerney retired last year. His thesis, which he turned into a book published in June 2020, mentions how minoritised people who had turned to the Gardaí for help would face an initial investigation into their immigration statuses.

Last year, Superintendent Seán Fallon, current supervisor of the Gardaí’s diversity unit, said he doesn’t know if that happened.

Gardaí should look into the statuses of those convicted of crimes but not victims, he said. “I think there should be a difference.”

Migrant women experiencing domestic violence have said that fear of deportation stops them from turning to the Gardaí for help. They can also experience discrimination in accessing support services.

The Department of Justice has an immigration scheme for victims of domestic violence whose status is tied to an abuser, laying out a route for them to get their own independent permissions.

But it doesn’t seem to include people whose immigration permissions have lapsed. “You are not eligible under these guidelines if you are unlawfully resident in Ireland,” says its Irish Immigration website.

Guidelines issued in January 2024 also say that people must have some form of legal status as a dependent of an abuser to apply.

But then they also say that people should always report abuse. And they won’t be deported if they do, it says.

Clashes and clashes

One route forward may have been to amend the Returns Directive so that it didn’t clash with any clause in the new directive that protected data shared by undocumented women reporting domestic violence.

But while the Returns Directive applies to countries within the Schengen area, the new directive aimed at fighting violence against women applies to all member states, said Fitzgerald, the Fine Gael MEP.

So, “due to the differing areas that each of the above pieces of legislation applies to, it was not possible to amend the Returns Directive during this process”, she said.

Ireland is not part of the Schengen area and has not opted into the Return Directive.

But Fitzgerald said that because the new directive on violence against women applies to all member states, it wasn’t possible for different countries to have differing provisions within it.

That said, the directive on violence against women is the baseline, she said, “therefore it  is the imperative of each EU Member State to incorporate a higher standard, provided that they meet their legal responsibilities under all relevant pieces of EU legislation”.

Bonneau, the advocacy officer for PICUM, says EU member states can and should strike a balance between the goals of the Return Directive and basic human rights.

“This omission is more than a missed opportunity; it silences members of our communities,” she said.

She says the lack of protective measures for undocumented women in the new law clashes with the EU’s own Victims’ Rights Directive, and with its General Data Protection Regulation.

“Both of which provide for rights and safeguards that apply to everyone without discrimination,” she said.

Bruton, the campaigns manager for MRCI, says that without explicit protective measures, undocumented people continue to be fearful of turning to the Gardaí to report violence.

“People will continue to be left in horrific situations,” he said.

Nasrin Khandoker, a researcher who has co-written a recent study exploring the impact of gender-based violence on migrant women for the University of Galway, said their research revealed overwhelming evidence that immigration status narrows migrant women’s access to justice.

“It is absolutely crucial to make the residence status of the victims completely irrelevant and for it to be treated as protected data,” she said.