‘A Daily Thing’

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Victoria Chihumura and her mother Blessing Moyo on RTÉ’s Late Late Show

Last Friday night.

Taken Down actress Blessing Moyo and her daughter Victoria Chihumura appeared on the Late Late Show during a 14-minute segment.

Blessing explained that, with the help of people smugglers, she left Zimbabwe after the election in 2008, without her children, and found herself in South Africa and then Ireland.

She lived in Direct Provision for seven and a half years.

Blessing’s two sons and daughter Victoria joined her in Ireland three years after Blessing left Zimbabwe and then the four of them lived in a room in Direct Provision for the next four and a half years.

Victoria is now studying Arts, Economics and Politics in the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) and she’s the ethnic minority officer at the college’s student union.

During the interview, they had the following exchange:

Ryan Tubridy: “Tell me about peculiar cars that would show up outside the Direct Provision centre.

Victoria Chihumura:I was about 15/16, walking from the centre into town, cause it’s only like a 20-minute walk. And this car was following me throughout, the whole way, harassing me, just saying ‘Oh, won’t you come here, I’ll give you €20 to do, like, sexual, disgusting stuff.

“I remember I tried to report it to the guards. I went up and I had the number plate number and I went up and they were like ‘There’s nothing we can do because you’re under 18’ – something like that.

“And when I was going back home, I was like ‘what if it turned out and actually ended really badly for me’ – would they have done something for me after that? Yeah. It’s traumatising.”

Ryan Tubridy: “Of course. And is this a common occurrence? That cars show up outside the direct provision centre, Blessing?”

Blessing: “Oh yeah.”

Tubridy: “Can you talk to me about that a little bit?”

Blessing: “Yeah, like, especially, my experience is, it’s a daily thing.”

Tubridy: “Is it?”

Blessing: “And like my worst experience was this guy who was like just standing there, calling women. And what was most disgusting about that is that it showed that this was a family man because this was a man who had a car with a baby seat at the back. So that meant it was a family man.”

Tubridy: “Looking for women from the Direct Provision centre?”

Blessing: “Exactly, and offering €20 for sex. And for me, it was very degrading for me…as an African woman, I’m not an object, I’m a person.”

Watch back in full here

Previously: “We Do It Out Of Desperation”

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5 thoughts on “‘A Daily Thing’

  1. anne

    Are the Gardai fupping useless or what? Can’t even give the pervert harassing a teenager a warning?

    Did you ever hear such nonsense..”because you’re under 18 we can’t help you.” Get raped & under 18, tough luck is it?

    These people are the most vulnerable in our society & you have filth bags out there preying on them.

    What are they given to exist? 2 to 3 euro a day is it? How many millions are these centres making? It’s all shameful stuff.

    1. newsjustin

      “Are the Gardai fupping useless or what?”

      In my experience, yes, they are a bit. With exceptions, of course.

  2. anne

    The Gardai just need to patrol outside these centres on a sporadic basis… they dont even have to put down the donut & coffee. That’d be enough to deter this daily harassment. Why can’t this be done?

    You had Maurice McCabe saying the Gardai in his area wouldn’t bother their barney going to calls.. is this endemic? What’s changed with all the tribunals?

  3. Not My Ireland

    This is not acceptable. But at least Tubridy has provided a widely-viewed platform to get the message out.

    The racist trolling on Twitter in response was disgusting. But if “they” would troll s mother running her daughters back in suppprt while appearing on the same show, the bar for trolling is at an all time moronic and vicious low.

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