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From
workshop 5: Multiculturalism after 30 years - Why Australia Failed the
Refugee Test. Now We The People conference, 23.8.03 University
of Technology, Sydney Maqsood
Alshams Australia is a lucky country, I too feel lucky to be here and acquainted with X and Y. They have sweet real names but I have to refer them as X and Y to protect their identity. They were released last year from the Curtin Detention Centre on a temporary protection visa. They arrived at Christmas Island in December 1999 and spent twenty months in a detention centre. They wish their names to remain anonymous, as they do not want to be exposed in the public debate. It is a well-known fact that the people who speak-out, criticising the perceived deficiency of the system, are classified as troublemakers, subjected to be black listed and losing any possibility to be granted with a permanent protection visa. X
is male and was 17-18 years old whilst in detention. He is now in Year
11 and missed two years of education whilst in detention. Y is female
and was only 14-15 years old whilst in detention. Their family are Christian
and left Iran for fear of persecution because of their faith. However
DIMA refused their initial application for refugee status. They appealed
to the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT). They were found to be refugees within
2 months of their appeal in the tribunal but remained in detention for
a further 5 months. There were a few nurses. Most of them are nice, only a few bad ones that would say, "you are queue jumpers, you don't deserve any more." Sometimes they said you could drink water. Maybe water can help but not for everything. After nine months of arriving to the camp there was a counsellor… Y says- "There were three children born while I was there. At nine months the baby was so sick and they would only give her water to drink. Water would not do anything but they didn't care. I was really sick so much that I couldn't even walk. But I had to go there and collect my medication. I had to get up and go to the centre they wouldn't come. I got a virus along with all the other kids with my brother and sister. Y says- "The food is bad, it gives you no energy and all the bad thinking makes you sick. Even if you were sick and couldn't move you had to line up for food. In a week we would eat two times chicken and that's all the good food we would eat. After three months they changed the kids food. Like under 14 they would give us fish and chips and when it was my birthday I turned 14 the lady said "why are you here you are now 14, you are not allowed to eat this food" I said Ok I'll take my ticket I'll eat over there. I'm not going to beg you please give me. They wouldn't care. You know I was a kid I needed kid's food. There were pregnant ladies who needed more and they had to eat really bad food. It was so hard and when you were hungry you had to wait for 7 hours after lunch for dinner and then you had to wait 3 hours for milk it was terrible we were so hungry." X says-" There was a small school with 1-2 teachers. Not for me but for the younger ones. There was just one group those 7, 8 and 9 years old to learn some English. But they said because I was too old I couldn't attend those classes, I was 17. After a few months they said they could get detainees to teach. They use to pay them 28 points each week. To give you an example of what 28 point is a little more than a packet of cigarettes. It is a small amount of money 28 points for one week teaching. "Y says- "At first there was one class and then after a few months there were about three classes. There were all kids of all levels some who didn't know the ABC and I had to sit there and I asked, 'Why do I have to stay here? I know all of this' and they said 'I don't care you can go if you don't like it.' We went to these classes for one and a half year. And then my mum started working in Welfare and pleaded with the manager of camp to let us go. And then three of us out of about fifty were allowed to go. We were there for a long time and they didn't want us to get angry and so they just wanted us to go somewhere so we get happier. It felt good but when we came back from school. All the kids wanted to know "what happened" but I felt really sad for them and I was embarrassed and I really wanted them to come with us. But they said they couldn't because they didn't speak English but they did speak English." Y says- "We had to live with another family and us and 4-5 single men and they wouldn't mind sleeping whenever they liked and they stayed up playing cards till 3-4 in the morning. Two of the detainees were sexually harassed. It was one girl and one boy and an adult man. The man was sent to jail". X says- "The man knew the victim's father and one night she went to a friend's and she saw a man always walking close by so she came back to her brother and she told us he came in and said. "Hey you got nice hair, can you buy you a rubber band" and that sort of stuff and touch her and he goes to her brother "go and get us some water" and she said " No, no I'll go" And started to cry and the man ran away and straight after that he went to her father and said, "Your daughter was crying I want to talk to her but she didn't stop crying" He lied. But then after that he had to go to prison for 2-3 years. They took the child victim to Broome to see a counsellor once, that was all." X says-"After a few months we asked to get a Minister in our camp to baptise us. And it wasn't until the Church Minister came to see the manager of detention said there were a few people who wanted to see you. He wouldn't have called the Church to bring a Minister. We weren't even allowed to get baptised. They said you have to get permission from Canberra. I think that's a bit silly." X
says- "First when we went there were 15 children then after that
there became more and more and they just had to play with anything they
wanted. Like breaking sticks and follow each other. There was a basketball
ground with broken rings and damaged fences and flat balls. There were
3 balls in the camp and we had to give the officers an ID card for a ball.
After 9 months they set up a recreation centre and I worked there organising
things for kids." X says-"I felt really bad. I never lived like that in my life nor did I expect to be treated like that. We were cleaning the floor in our room and the officers use to come in with their dirty boots all over where we were going to sleep. But they wouldn't care. They would knock on the door really loud while there were little babies sleeping. They should have been quiet, but they didn't care. The first day we didn't have shampoo to wash our hair with after 36 hours at sea. You had to wash with the same thing as our clothes. And then some of the nicer officers use to bring us shampoos and special soaps secretly." X says- "When my friend needed to go to the medical centre I use to go with her because she didn't speak very good English. And she said to the nurse "I don't like it here" and the nurses and officers use to say, "why do you say that? You like it here. We make money when you come here. You get food, you don't have to work, and you don't have to worry about anything at all". And that 'there' making money off 'you'. It was horrible when they use to say that. It seems they are building detention to protect jobs and make lots of money inside, not to protect people. It was embarrassing. We did have a problem and that's why we come to Australia. We were told by the nice officers to ignore those people. They said that because they were jealous. And I said you know they have their citizenship, they have everything in Australia. They can go for so much more than us. Y says- "At first month the people said it's going to be all right and people had a bit of hope. After 3 months we had a hunger strike and we lost our hope. They said we are all going to be here forever because they are not responding. There were 1200 people in detention without responding. They all fill put applications but there was still no reply. And no body left for 7 months. After 9 months they started processing visas. I think it was because there were more people arriving and they had to make room. Then after we were accepted we had to stay in the detention centre for 5 months. The judge accepted our case within about 2 months of applying to the refugee tribunal." X
says- "We lived in containers they didn't care if we were family
or not because there were 1200 in the camp and they said that this camp
could get 2000 people in there so we were all put together. The rooms
were 5 metres by 5 meters for four people. And I was so tall I couldn't
fit on the floor so sometimes the girls had to sleep on the ground. We
didn't even have blankets. We had to use towels on ourselves to make ourselves
warm because we had no clothes. After they gave us second hand clothes
and we had to line up in the sun for hours and we were told not to complain
that we were cue jumpers and didn't deserve even this". X says- "it was sad when you could see that everyone was being released and got his or her visa. Some Afghani families where at camp for 2 weeks and they just got there visa and just when. And we were there for 15 months and it was just horrible". X says- "I'd never tell my friends that I'm a refugee, never. Cause if you tell them that you have been in detention. They'll look at you in another way. If they think that you arrived by aeroplane. You just arrived. I'm just saying that I lie to my friends and its really hard. I say I arrived in Perth and that's it. They can't understand. I'll never say that to Australians. I think that they don't like us." Y says- "Refugees aren't given a chance, its just bad media but I think that a lot of Australians do understand and welcome us. The politicians say bad things and this reflects in the community. And so do the ACM officers in the detention camps. When I was in Perth there was a youth group and they people always said 'we love you and you are always welcome here'. It was really nice there." Dear reader, the psychological damage being inflicted upon these particular children and other children in detention centres needs serious investigation and new strategies need to be put in place to help rectify the problem immediately. Children in detention DO face extreme humiliation and their basic human rights ARE being violated. The children are not properly protected, nor given appropriate medical assistance, education, nutritional food or provided with acceptable living quarters. Their basic needs are not being met and the Australian government is failing to meet the laws, which govern the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which Australia is legally bound to. Every child in Australia has the right to survival and development and it is in the interest of the child and the rest of Australia that these basic needs are met before more violations occur. I must stress that this is the most urgent responsibility of all Australian people to save these children from arbitrary incarceration from remote refugee prisons… I urge all Australians- If you believe in Fair Go and Equal Rights, please do something about it… Whole world is watching…
Maqsood is the founder of the Australian Human Rights Newsletter, published fortnightly, which have over half a million readership via electronic medium worldwide. He is a motivated community educator, a tireless worker and strong believer of sustainable social change through education and information dissemination at all levels. Email:
publicaffairs@justrefugeeprograms.com.au
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