A woman who alleges her two-year-old child was trafficked to Hungary has secured a protection order against a woman who brought her to Ireland as her partner.
Through a translator, the woman told the emergency domestic violence court at Dolphin House, Dublin, she was brought here from her native African country ostensibly as the gay partner of the other woman.
That woman had lied to her, saying they would pick up her (applicant’s) child who was trafficked to Hungary, she said.
She is now “in hiding” here from the other woman and cannot travel to Hungary to get her child because her residence permit was confiscated by that woman, she said. Her family has been abused and harassed by the woman “who keeps saying she owns me”.
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She has initiated a “police case” and was advised by gardaí to seek a protection order, she said.
Judge Gerard Furlong said he was granting a protection order “without hesitation”, telling the woman he hoped she would get her child back as soon as possible.
In another ex parte application (one side only represented) on Friday, a woman who attended court with two young children was granted a protection order against her husband.
There was “a long history of abuse” in their marriage, she said. Her husband has physically assaulted her, including slapping and punching her, and is “very controlling”, including taking her phone and leaving her without money, she said.
He threatened to share images of her online and “beat me very badly” recently in front of their children, leaving her “with bruises all over my body”, she alleged.
He feared their oldest child might say something at school the following day and took steps to ensure the children did not go to school, she said. She managed to escape from the house and gardaí helped find a safe place for her and the children.
In a different case, a tearful young woman said she left her partner after finding out he was hiding drugs in their baby’s pram and selling them when taking the child for a walk. When she discovered this, she tried to take the baby from the pram but he dragged her to the end of the road, telling her there were “no cameras here” and “choked me”.
She had agreed he could see the child on certain days but he failed to return the child last Wednesday, she said. When she asked gardaí to get the child back, they told her they could not do so without a protection order, she said.
Judge Furlong said the man is not entitled to keep the child and this was “tantamount to kidnapping”. He told the woman she was entitled to a protection order, she should return to the gardaí straightway, and he hoped she would get the child back later on Friday.
In a separate case, a woman was granted a protection order against her ex-husband, from whom she has been separated for several years. He has a drink problem, was physically and verbally abusive to her during their marriage and continued to be verbally abusive after they separated, she said.
They live separately but she leaves a key outside her home so her adult children and grandchildren can access it, she said. Her ex-husband has used that key to enter her home on occasions, including at 5am one morning recently when he verbally abused her for more than an hour, she said.
She received protection orders ex parte several times previously, dating from 2012, but never came back to court on the return dates, she said. “I’m a Traveller woman, my family put pressure on me to drop the case.”
She has retrieved her spare key and will return to court this time, she told the judge.
