CAPSA Newsletter: October 2024

Dear CAPSA Community,

October 10 is World Mental Health Day.

Our mental health, as individuals and communities, is impacted by our context – including our experiences and relationships.  

As we hear news of conflict, displacement and grief across the world, let us be mindful that for people experiencing bombardment, fear, trauma, displacement, uncertainty, bereavement, and disempowerment, mental health is often significantly impacted. These experiences can continue to affect people for many years afterwards – even when somewhere ‘safe.’

Let us also be mindful of the impacts of hearing these stories on our mental health and wellbeing as viewers – and on those around us who may find these events triggering or distressing due to their personal experiences or because family and friends are directly impacted.

‘I don’t think your journey ends once you become a naturalised citizen… my journey as a refugee is ongoing.‘  Danijel Malbasa – lawyer, advocate and refugee.  

A year on from the events in Israel which propelled military action and the subsequent human toll and displacement of thousands of people across Palestine and Israel, fighting is spreading to Lebanon, prompting further mass movements of people – many Syrian refugees amongst these with limited options. For people throughout the region – and for family and friends overseas – the traumatic impacts of the humanitarian crisis are significant and continuing.

The Australian Government is facilitating flights from Lebanon for those amongst the 15,000 Australian citizens in country requiring assistance – and the first humanitarian visas to Palestinian families fleeing Gaza have been issued. The temporary three-year visas being offered allow recipients to work, study and access social services and Medicare. Amidst this response there have been calls for an emergency framework for a more streamlined, equitable, and effective response to humanitarian crises abroad — including a new emergency visa.

Australia has responded to previous humanitarian crises in various ways with different visa options in each case – this proposal by UNSW scholars offers an approach to what will be an ongoing need for sanctuary amidst conflict contexts in so many parts of the world – including the Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan.

For more than 80 days, groups of people seeking asylum directly impacted by the ‘Fast Track’ system – a system now abolished – have held vigil in front of Immigration offices across the country, requesting a fair process of review and resolution of their cases. The majority of the 8,000 impacted come from Sri Lanka or Iran and have been awaiting resolution for more than a decade – ‘living in limbo’. They are not eligible to apply for the Resolution of Status Visa.

Sanmati Verma from the Human Rights Law Centre highlighted the psychological effects of the lengthy ‘fast-track’ process on applicants: “The mental pressure on people, the pressure on their families and their children is absolutely inhuman and unspeakable.“

CAPSA’s National Week of Prayer and Action this year invited people to reflect and explore what ‘Journeying together with Refugees and People Seeking Asylum’ means for each of us, as advocates, neighbours, friends, colleagues, professionals. Thank you to those who joined us.   If you missed the webinar, the recording is available to watch here.

We invite you to continue ‘journeying together with refugees and people seeking asylum’, mindful this World Mental Health Day of the impacts of protracted protection and immigration processes on individuals and families.

In the remainder of this newsletter you’ll find other recent updates, a list of upcoming events and actions, and recommended reading, watching and listening. 

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us with your stories, thoughts, events or community actions via info@capsa.org.au.

In hope and solidarity,

The CAPSA team

CAPSA: National Week of Prayer and Action Webinar

· CAPSA’s National Week of Prayer and Action explored the theme ‘Journeying together with Refugees and People Seeking Asylum.’ 

LISTEN to the recording of the webinar here. Share with others who might also appreciate participating in the discussion.

· READ our Spotlight stories sharing what being companions on the journey means for those providing support to people seeking asylum or resettling in Australia. Hear from Sr Brigid Arthur of the Brigidine Asylum Seeker Project or Loloma Tonnochy, of the St Vincent de Paul Vincentian Refugee Assistance Program.

· ACT by providing support – through advocacy and letter writing to your local MP, through donating resources or funds to support local services providing housing/material aid or financial support, through your time volunteering or providing friendship, through your prayers and educating others on issues related to people seeking asylum in Australia.  

· RESPOND by emailing us your reflections or sharing stories of how you might accompany others on this journey.

110^th World Day of Migrants and Refugees – ‘Refugee Sunday’ 
God walks with His people.

· Message of Pope Francis: “… God not only walks with his people, but also within them, in the sense that he identifies himself with men and women on their journey through history, particularly with the least, the poor and the marginalized. In this we see an extension of the mystery of the Incarnation. …”

· The Australian Catholic Migrant & Refugee Office (ACMRO) provided reflections, prayers and resources for ‘Refugee Sunday’ which may be accessed here.

· Fr. Andy Hamilton SJ offered a reflection for Refugee Sunday, which can be read here.

· Threads of Faith and Resilience: Migrants Weave a Rich Tapestry in the Northern Territory. Honouring the richness of its multicultural landscape and recognizing the extraordinary journeys of migrants who now call this land home, the Diocese of Darwin spotlighted personal stories offering a glimpse into the lives of resilient individuals who have embraced their new home in Australia while holding on to the values and faith that shaped them. Watch the video here.

Other News and Updates

· A new policy brief, by Daniel Ghezelbash (Kaldor Centre Director) and Constantin Hruschka (Protestant University of Applied Sciences in Freiburg: ‘A fair and fast asylum process for Australia: Lessons from Switzerland’ explore avenues for improved processes in the Swiss asylum procedure reforms – which since 2019 have reduced start-to-finish times to less than nine months, while safeguarding fairness for applicants and securing wide-ranging political support.  

·UNHCR issued new legal guidance on penalisation of asylum-seekers for arriving in irregular ways, which is prohibited under Article 31 of the Refugee Convention, as long as the conditions of ‘directness’, ‘promptness’ and ‘good cause’ are met. UNHCR’s guidance for States provides interpretations of these terms, and also clarifies the issue of penalisation of refugees for people-smuggling.

·Kaldor Centre Policy Brief 15: Ensuring protection in humanitarian emergencies: A framework for Australia recommends a framework for humanitarian emergencies that would enable the Australian government to provide a streamlined, equitable, predictable and effective response to assist people facing a real risk of persecution, extreme danger or other serious harm to find safety and protection in Australia. Informed by Australia’s practices over time, as well as comparative practices internationally it stresses that it requires multi-sectoral engagement, planning and coordination, particularly in terms of facilitating arrivals and ensuring that people in Australia are properly supported.

·Immigration detention’s epidemic levels of self-harm (ABC News). Citing statistics from Home Affairs – from 2019-24 a total of 2,670 incidents of self-harm or threatened self-harm were recorded, an average of 1.54 reported incidents every day. To house a detainee in detention it cost the Australian government $428,542 per person, per year, over the 2020-21 financial year, compared to $54,798 in community detention.

·A Report about women in employment contexts reveals that migrant and refugee women’s experiences of sexual harassment in the workplace intersect with exploitative work conditions and/or racial discrimination. Another study, ‘Intersectionality at Work’, found women from culturally diverse communities, including refugee women, are the most disadvantaged when it comes to the gender pay gap and workplace equity.

A new Action Aid report titled Agents of Change: The Role of Palestine’s Women-Led Organisations in Crisis, highlights stories of women and girls significantly impacted by the continued attacks on Gaza and the West Bank.

Recommended 

Reading…

No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison

By Behrouz Boochani, Translated by Omid Tofighian

In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally and indefinitely detained on Manus Island. This book is the result. Written on a smuggled mobile phone and translated from Farsi, it is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through six years of incarceration and exile that – against all the odds – became an award-winning national bestseller.

You can purchase the book through this link here

Watching…

Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time (2017)

By Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani

A powerful documentary, shot in a detention centre where asylum seekers trying to reach Australian shores are indefinitely detained. Secretly shot on a mobile phone by Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani while detained on Manus, in Papua New Guinea, the film is a collaboration with Dutch-Iranian filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani.

Boochani recounts, via the testimonies of fellow inmates, the abuse and violence inflicted and the precarious state of limbo they find themselves in. Chauka, the name of the dreaded solitary confinement unit within the detention centre, was originally the name of a beautiful bird and symbol of the Manus Island.

By interweaving dialogue with two Manusian men and shots of daily life on the island, the film gives a much-needed voice to Manus inhabitants, understandably distressed by the situation. With marked restraint, the film exposes lives broken by shocking immigration policies.

Watch here: Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time (2017) — The Movie Database (TMDB) (themoviedb.org)

Listening…

7am Podcast: ‘They don’t want us here’: an asylum seeker’s shattered education dreams.

As a child refugee in India, Harini dreamt of making it to Australia to study medicine and become a doctor. She arrived in Australia in 2023 when she was 10 years old, leaving behind her two siblings and mother.

Harini did not realise her visa status made her different to her classmates until she received a university offer for a biomedical science degree that required her to pay international student fees. Hear how living in visa limbo has affected Harini and others in similar circumstances.

Listen to the podcast here.