Earlier this year UnitingJustice, a unit of the Uniting Church’s National Assembly, and the SJF made submissions to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in response to its Humanitarian (refugee) Intake Programme. Uniting urged the Federal Government to become a role model in our region in protecting human rights by boosting the annual intake of refugees to 60,000 by 2020 and lead a genuinely multilateral and protection-focussed plan in responding to the issue.
Last month, the debate escalated sharply when The Guardian published the “Nauru Files”: over 2,000 leaked incident reports from the regional processing centre on Nauru, telling a harrowing story of deteriorating mental health and self-harm as well as routine neglect, abuse and torture. Disturbingly, though children only represent 20 per cent of the detained population, nearly half of the reports involved children.
Coming on top of many damning reports about conditions in the offshore camps, the Nauru Files have increased pressure on the government to find a better solution.
Alongside this is a collective call to end the cruel and callous way in which refugees and asylum seekers in the Australian community are being dealt with via the so-called “Fast Track Process”. Introduced by the government last year to more efficiently deal with the “legacy caseload” of boat arrivals from 2012 to 2014, this process has seen many already traumatised asylum seekers in the community have their applications and subsequent appeals denied – and some returned to detention.
In addition to advocating for a regional protection framework, increased humanitarian intake and the closure of offshore camps, the Give Hope team is running a practical support initiative for asylum seekers living in the community. The 9,000 people living on Bridging Visas in NSW must survive with minimal financial support and face prolonged periods of uncertainty as they undergo the complex visa application and appeal process. These hardships combined with existing trauma from their experiences can seriously affect these people’s emotional and psychological wellbeing.
Uniting has advocated successfully for improved access for asylum seekers to tertiary educational opportunities, and the Give Hope team have recently received over three thousand dollars’ worth of vouchers and gift cards to help people afford food and essential items during their anxious wait for visas.
