World Refugee Day, held on June 20, recognises those who have fledtheir home countries. Leaving like this is rarely, if ever, a choice. It takes courage to reckon with the desperate unknown and terrible grief all refugees face. Today is a small moment to honour those for whom this is a reality, in a world that finds it far more convenient to ignore them.
This year alone has left us with a lifetime of haunting images from Ukraine, Gaza, Congo, Sudan and beyond. We in Australia are somewhere that, by pure luck, has not faced this plight. But instead of recognising this luck and letting it foster empathy, for some people our impulses are much more destructive.
Immigration policy again dominates headlines, a sad case of déjà vu wherein facts and reason are sacrificed to political point-scoring, a contest of cruelty. Behind the fearmongering and dogwhistles are women, children and men fleeing circumstances our politicians could scarcely bring themselves to imagine and certainly would not choose to endure.
If I sound tired, it’s because I am. I’ve had a long career at the coal face of Australia’s immigration detention system. I’ve met countless people trapped in that daunting, anonymous maze at our periphery.
For 20 years it has been legal to keep adults and children alike in indefinite immigration detention if they don’t have a valid visa. Australia’s detention facilities are harsh and isolated. The devastating and serious mental and physical impacts of being left in limbo, having committed no crime, with no sense of when you will be released, are well documented.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee has repeatedly found that Australia’s immigration detention policy violates international human rights law, but these decisions have been ignored by successive governments. Those locked up cannot challenge detention on the basis of fundamental human rights such as freedom from arbitrary detention. The structures don’t exist: we are the only Western democracy that fails to protect these rights in legislation.
There has been a recent glimmer of hope. Last year the High Court overturned Al-Kateb v Godwin, which underpinned Australia’s system of mandatory immigration detention. The Court found it unlawful to hold a person in immigration detention when there is no prospect of their removal from Australia in the foreseeable future.
It came far too late, but I want to recognise this as a watershed moment. My initial reaction was relief, but this dimmed into sadness at the human toll this policy has taken, the thousands of people forced to bear its terrible weight.
The human toll
I have been inside almost all of Australia’s detention centres in my work monitoring conditions and investigating countless complaints from asylum seekers. Here are some of the people I met, starting 20 years ago at the Baxter Immigration Centre in Port Augusta, South Australia.
I was providing migration support to a young Tamil refugee who had fled the civil war in Sri Lanka. After three years in detention with no end in sight, he was admitted into the emergency department, then to a psychiatric facility. I would take him snacks and curries and sit with him, not knowing what to say. I barely knew what to think. Watching this vibrant fisherman from Jaffna slowly deteriorate to the point of incoherence is a torment I will never forget.
In 2014 I, with former President of the Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs and colleagues, visited Christmas Island for the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. There I met a humble father who had fled with his five children from the Syrian Civil War, leaving his wife behind to care for her mother. His youngest boys, 8 and 9, were delighted by the textas I brought them.
When I spoke to him, all he asked was that his family be transferred to a room closer to the bathroom. He had pain from a hernia and the doctor advised him to limit his walking. His 8-year-old son had also commenced wetting the bed, sadly not uncommon for children I met in detention. This seemed such a reasonable request that I immediately raised it with Department officials. Two weeks later I was informed that the family had been roused at the crack of dawn and evicted to Nauru, where they would live in a squalid tent with great distances to walk for food and bathrooms. To my mind this was punitive. I could see no other reason for such a decision.
That trip, I also met three girls from Somalia who had come alone to Australia. After we met, one of the girls, Hani, bounced over with a bracelet she had woven with my name, presented with the brightest smile I had ever seen. It struck me that someone could give and smile after what she must have endured. Our team were pained to leave Hani and her friends and implored for their immediate release.
This story has a rare spot of happiness: they were released, and the next time I met Hani was at a protest in Sydney, and now frequently around Sydney! She is an accomplished poet, author and winner of a Human Rights Award, showing the myriad ways refugees contribute to the communities in which they settle.
As a country, let’s stay curious, look beyond the headlines and open our hearts to the stories of our refugee community. By listening, we learn; by understanding, we grow. Every story matters.
Image: Prabha Nandagopal.