Global Women's Voices: Share Personal Stories

Marie, Ireland

Submitted by: Elizabeth Arend

Marie came to Dublin to seek asylum from Bosnia in 2001. Once she arrived in the city, she contacted a few Bosnian “friends”, who
arranged housing and illegal identification so she could find employment.

Marie worked for an exhausting 16 hours a day in a restaurant and one night; one of her “friends” took her out for a drink, which turned out to be spiked with the “date rape drug” rohypnol. Marie soon discovered she was pregnant and didn’t know what to do—she barely spoke English and could not report the rape to the authorities since she was living in Ireland illegally.

As an illegal resident, she was unsure of her entitlement to medical services, and had no friend in whom she could trust. Terrified that the pregnancy would cause her to lose her job and her only means of financial support, she arrived at a local family planning clinic desperate for an abortion. She could barely afford rent in Dublin, let alone the
financial and emotional burden of raising a child.

She soon discovered that abortion was illegal and could not be provided in the family planning clinic, and she would need to go through an exhausting, humiliating and expensive process in order to travel to England if she were to undergo a legal abortion—without financial or emotional support in Ireland, Marie
didn’t have any other choice.

updated: 7/2/2004