Two months after an alleged assault on an asylum seeker, IPAS has left the accuser and accused to share shelter

This article includes details of sexual violence. If you or somebody you know might need help, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre’s national 24/7 hotline can be contacted at 1800 77 8888 and Samaritans’s suicide prevention helpline at 116 123.

On 28 March, staff at an asylum shelter reported an alleged sexual assault on a resident to staffers at the International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS).

The incident had happened two days earlier.

The centre manager wrote that on the morning of 26 March, the resident had turned up at the reception and reported it in “very bad translation”, show documents released to the man under the Freedom of Information Act.

On 28 March, the manager wrote to IPAS again. The resident had gone to a Garda station that day to file a complaint, he said.

An IPAS staff member asked co-workers if the alleged perpetrator could be moved urgently to a “single male centre”.

“A request will be made to our Resident Mobility Team for an urgent transfer,” another replied.

But two months later, no one has been transferred. On 22 May, the resident who says he was assaulted, said that the alleged perpetrator was still in the centre.

“I saw him today in the canteen, at breakfast time,” messaged the resident, who we are not naming because he is trans and vulnerable to transphobia in the centre where not everybody knows.

On Sunday, he said in another WhatsApp text that the guy was in the canteen again.

Bulelani Mfaco, a member of the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI), says that LGBTQI asylum seekers have for years been left to live in unsuitable communal settings that compound the traumas they carry.

And nothing changes, he said, “because there isn’t an interest on the part of the government to protect people”.

The government might use the current accommodation shortage to justify not making any transfers in this case, he said, but this issue predates its accommodation woes.

“We’ve had similar problems with women who experience abuse and have to share living spaces with their abuser in Direct Provision,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Children and Equality – which oversees IPAS’s operations – did not directly reply to a query asking why no one had been moved yet. They can’t comment on any alleged individual incident, they said.

But it has drawn up a domestic, sexual and gender-based violence policy, and also house rules and procedures for reception and accommodation centres that cover the steps it takes following any allegations of misconduct, the spokesperson said.

If someone believes that a crime has been committed, they should turn to the Gardaí, said the spokesperson. “And IPAS are committed to engaging with An Garda Síochána on any investigation.”

The incident

The man says he’d been good friends with the guy who allegedly assaulted him, often translating his emails.

They’d been at the same reception centre together, he said.

The day the alleged assault happened, he had told the guy in a phone call that he was tired, and the guy had suggested a massage, he says.

When he was in the canteen later having a late dinner, the man called to say that he was waiting outside his room, he said.

“I said, I have explained my boundaries before. You can’t come to my room. But you can come to the canteen,” he said.

When he went back to his room to sleep, the guy called him again after about 40 minutes to say that he was alone in his room and needed help, he says.

“I thought something bad had happened,” he said.

The guy asked him to lie down on the bed, saying he just wanted to give him a massage, he says.

He laid down on the ground instead, he says, told him it’d be easier there. “He was my friend. I was suspicious, but I was trusting too,” he said.

“When I laid down on the floor, he sat on me and started rubbing his genitalia on me,” he said.

He told him he wasn’t gay, he says. But when he tried to get up, the guy spread the bulk of his body on his, he says. “He said, ‘What’s wrong, my dear?’”

He hit the guy, shoved him off, and ran out of the room, he says.

Holding out

In November 2023, a caseworker at the Irish Refugee Council wrote a letter to IPAS asking them not to shuttle the trans man out of Dublin, show documents released under the FOI Act.

It mentions his need for medical treatment and mental-health problems. And, that his experiences of anti-LGBTQI persecution and sexual violence in his country of birth.

He’s been assessed for vulnerability by IPAS but doesn’t know the outcome yet, it says.

“But there is no doubt that he’s a vulnerable person,” the caseworker writes.

In Dublin, he attends counselling sessions, receives gender-affirming care, and goes to weekly support meetings, the letter says.

It cites the EU’s Reception Conditions directive to bolster the argument against a transfer for him. The clause that says people should not be transplanted unless it’s really needed.

“The accommodation must ensure that Mr. [….] can live in security, peace, dignity and has access to mental and gender-affirming healthcare,” it says.

Traumatised

Queer and trans asylum seekers carry painful traumas from their countries of birth, shows a 2023 study by researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital.

Researchers interviewed 66 LGBTQ+ asylum seekers from 24 countries and found that about 92 percent of them had endured physical violence.

Meanwhile, about 84 percent reported harassment and intimidation, and around 56 percent said they had experienced sexual assault.

In this case, the man said he was reluctant to go to the Gardaí, worrying that officers would question his gender because border guards in his country of birth touched his genitalia to figure out his sex.

He says he asked to see a woman garda at the station. She was nice, he says. But he’s still afraid of cops, he said.

The 2023 study points to the vulnerabilities of trans men in immigration detention centres.

“One study showed that “transgender individuals and gender nonconforming gay men, are more vulnerable to sexual violence in detention than heterosexual, gender conforming detainees”, it said.

Mfaco of MASI says something similar. Studies have shown over and over again that queer and trans asylum seekers are especially vulnerable to abuse in institutionalised settings, he says.

“Yet we have a government that insists on this institutionalisation of asylum seekers,” he said.

The man, meanwhile, says he is struggling. “I’m tired, I’m really tired. I’m tired of everything,” he said in a text message.