The State is fostering a system of "institutionalised disbelief" towards the serious sexual abuse of asylum seekers, according to the co-ordinator of the Mayo Rape Crisis Centre.
Some 10 per cent of the Mayo Rape Crisis Centre's clients are asylum seekers, but not one has been granted refugee status in the past two years, the centre's co-ordinator Ruth MacNeely said.
Commenting before today's publication of the first national rape crisis centre statistics, Ms MacNeely said it would appear that sexual abuse and persecution was perceived here as an "occupational hazard if one is an African woman".
Ms MacNeely said she found it "stunning" that eight asylum seeking women with whom the Mayo Rape Crisis Centre had worked in the past year had their applications for refugee status rejected on grounds of credibility.
Many of these women found it deeply shaming to have to admit to experiencing sexual violence and rape was frequently judged in their home state as a form of adultery punishable by death, Ms MacNeely said.
There was little or no recognition by many officials here of the traumatic effect that disclosure had on these women.
The women were often expected to recount their experiences several times to "people who are completely cynical" and there was no recognition of language and other cultural barriers, she added.
Ms MacNeely said she accompanied one client to a series of interviews where the woman had to recount four times her experience of multiple rapes and her sister's death from female genital mutilation.
The interview procedure, which involved travel to Dublin, was intensely stressful and the client had experienced serious trauma as a result.
"Being raped, whether by military or civilian, is not viewed here as a reason to leave a country or to fear persecution," she said.
"Yet all of the women say they would rather die than have their daughters go back to the possibility of clitoridectomy [ female genital mutilation] or to live in a society where rape is an everyday occurrence."
Ms MacNeely said she welcomed the new Government initiative to accept residency applications from non-national parents of Irish-born children, but said that it had already been the subject of abuse.
The Nigerian embassy had been charging €400 for passports and there had been a substantial increase in moneylending to meet the costs of obtaining documentation, she said.
The centre was also seriously concerned about the welfare of Olive Ndayshime, the mother of two, living in Kiltimagh, Co Mayo, who was deported with her daughters to England last July.