The bridging visas leaving women and girls in dangerous limbo

The bridging visas leaving women and girls in dangerous limbo

Saba Vasefi outlines how Australia's Bridging visa system is preventing women and girls from accessing work, study, safety, and urgent mental health support.
bridging visas

Women and girls have endured some of the most egregious affronts to their fundamental rights and dignity in the corrosiveness of Australia’s offshore immigration detention regime.

However, effective protection from gender-related persecution, as well as support for those who have experienced it, is largely unavailable.

Some of the women and girls have faced rape, sexual predation and assault, abuse, and violence. In some cases, this has led to acute levels of mental health distress that were inadequately treated during five years of offshore detention on Nauru, before these women and children came to Australia by a court order, through a medevac program with decisions made by the Minister for Immigration.

Upon their arrival, they have been locked in a hotel or in onshore detention until the minister agrees to send them to the community on community detention visas which provide accommodation and medical treatment, but forbid them from work and study. Some within this population have been granted a Bridging visa E which makes them ineligible for government housing support, deprives them of the ability to study but allows them to work.

A group of almost 12,450 refugees live in the community on Bridging E visas as of 30 June 2020. Consequently, they face significant levelsof exclusion, given these bridging visas have the ultimate aim of enforcing the government’s political agenda ahead of refugees’ recovery needs. It especially results in further disempowerment for women and girls, and consolidates their lack of autonomy, segregation and destitution.

When a bridging visa expires, refugees need to apply for a new one. While waiting for this approval, refugees are left unlawful, stripped from access to Medicare and denied the right to work.

Sarah Dale, the principal solicitor and director of the Refugee Advice and Casework Services, says that while some are able to support themselves during this waiting period, it’s impossible for others to find and sustain work when Visas continuously expire, and they are left with gaps in between.

“There are tens of thousands of people on bridging visas in Australia, this includes women who fear sexual or gender-based violence and are left with little support,” she says.

Sarah adds that this lack of support is felt tenfold for people the Government classify as Transitory People, those who have been on Nauru or PNG. Their Bridging visas last up to six months, requiring regular reapplication and the consequently regular periods where they are ineligible for any Commonwealth support. People in this situation are immensely vulnerable.

“Many have been on these short-term Bridging visas for years, there is no end in sight for this state of limbo, only exacerbating people’s vulnerabilities,” says Sara.

“It beggars’ belief that as our country responds to a pandemic and the economic crisis that follows, that we continue to leave vulnerable people behind, unable to access funded support. It goes against our commitment to protect women and children in particular.”

In mid 2018, *Nooshin’s family was evacuated from Nauru after her teenage daughter made numerous suicide attempts. They initially lived together in Brisbane in community detention, before she separated due to family violence. She was granted a Bridging visa E almost a month ago.

Receiving this bridging visa meant that Nooshin had to leave her government housing within 3 weeks. She was unable to find a job or accommodation within this short time, and so had no option but to return, with her daughter to live with her abusive husband.

A mother’s most fundamental concern is the wellbeing of her children. In response to her unanswered pleas to receive urgent psychiatric support for her daughter, Nooshin told Women’s Agenda “I feel I’m drowning in the marsh. I’m a mother of two suicidal teenagers who are suffering from severe mental illness. I am not able to pay for their psychological bills. This has caused my daughter a range of serious physical and mental side-effects and due to this decline in her health, she has quit school.

“My daughter and I have been both sexually assaulted on Nauru. We never had a chance to take any legal action and seek justice. My attempt to escape from family violence was unsuccessful.

Nooshin says that all her attempts to overcome adversity have failed, and she describes all paths ahead as dead ends.

“My children are both self-harming. My son sleep-walks and on one occasion we found him in the cemetery at midnight. In my nightmares, my children are suiciding and I’m attending their funerals. As a mother this is a catastrophe for me to witness my children’s withered state whilst they are on a long waiting list to see a psychiatrist. They both need long term treatment and care.”

The schemes that control refugees require them to live in toxic environments that are detrimental to their mental and physical health. Their capacity for resilience is blocked by the prolonged stress and insecurity they endure. They are considered unworthy of being integrated into general society.

Resilience cannot be built in isolation and exclusion. To create a communal resilience that restores a sense of humanity and security requires an intersectional feminist perspective to be constituted into refugee policy that recognises the health and safety of refugee women and girls as an undeniable human right.

*The name has been changed. 

If you or someone you know if in immediate danger, call 000. If you need help and advice call 1800 Respect on 1800 737 732, Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

If you need help, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.

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