27
Mar
Injustices and the Art of Realpolitik
The latest instalment of Australia’s Pacific Solution has been an exercise in state-sanctioned cruelty. Hardly a week goes by without new revelations about the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and in Nauru. According to a group of legal experts, the “harrowing practices of the Australian state and corporations towards asylum seekers”... Read More
21
Mar
Public attitudes towards asylum seekers and refugees
Australian politicians have a long history of using dehumanising language to influence public opinion against people seeking asylum, particularly those arriving by boat (Clark 2013, Nicholson and Dodd 2012, Cox 2015, Bickers 2017). Often, polarising language is used to distinguish “queue jumping” asylum seekers from “genuine” refugees. The findings of an online survey of 6001... Read More
12
Mar
‘The end is nigh’: What should happen after Nauru and Manus close?
Australia’s offshore processing experiment, involving the detention of asylum seekers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG), has failed. Earlier last year, the Supreme Court of PNG ruled that detainees’ right to personal liberty had been violated, meaning the Manus Island centre is illegal and unconstitutional. The centre is to close, although a timeline for... Read More
9
Mar
Legal Update: Discrimination Law to Protect Refugees in the ACT
As a practicing lawyer, I heard refugees and asylum-seeker clients describe discrimination and harassment as common. They were often unaware that it was unlawful and not something they just needed to ‘put up with’, even though most of the treatment they described had a clear racial element, and as such ,fell within the Commonwealth Racial... Read More
5
Mar
How Can We Best Understand Public Reactions Towards Migrant Groups?
Ravini Abeywickrama (PhD candidate) Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne Consider the concept of migration from an evolutionary perspective, as detailed by social psychologists Cottrell and Neuberg (2005). Humans possess numerous benefits by co-existing in groups, such as sharing of limited economic resources. These interdependent lifestyles may nevertheless, be compromised by... Read More
10
Feb
Middle Eastern migrants aren’t ‘piling on to the dole queue’
Claims that Middle Eastern migrants are “piling on to the dole queue” are misleading. The data actually shows that, after an initial period of relatively high unemployment, labour force participation and employment rates amongst migrant communities eventually reach parity with the rest of the population. Recently released labour force data indicates that people born in... Read More
21
Jan
What is a refugee camp like?
What is a refugee camp like? What is a refugee camp like? How are children living and learning there? And how can we support them in coping with their war experiences? These questions led me to visiting Zaatari and Azraq, two camps for Syrian people in Jordan. Small cities Both camps are substantial in size... Read More
21
Jan
Seeking Asylum and Learning English
I was employed as an Adult Education teacher at the detention centre on Nauru for over a year. There I saw how gaining independence and empowerment through language education is absolutely critical to people detained in Australia’s immigration processing centres. It is vital that individuals, who have lost their freedom, and experienced trauma, torture and... Read More
21
Jan
Stuck In The Middle With Whom? What High School Is Like For Refugee-Background Students
THE PROJECT Moo Dar Eh was a cheeky, softly spoken and facially expressive 15-year-old Karen lass; born and raised in a Thai refugee camp. She had arrived in Australia just over a year prior, which was mostly spent in an intensive English language school. Moo Dar Eh had been recently exited to her local high... Read More
16
Nov
Australian picture books: Humanising and thoughtful depictions of displaced children
My Two Blankets by Irena Kobald & Freya Blackwood was selected for the ‘Read for Australia’ event on Friday 2 September 2016 where school students around the country read the same book as part of National Literacy and Numeracy Week. My Two Blankets tells the story of a young girl who is making a new... Read More