Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes: 30 May 2003
Consultations with Iraqi refugees in a town in rural Victoria, 30 May 2003
The meeting was convened by Omeima Sukkarieh, Community Liaison Officer, and Susanna Iuliano, Policy Research Officer, from HREOC. It was attended by 12 participants from the local Iraqi community, including the local Imam. Participants were Iraqi refugee men, the majority on Temporary Protection Visas. As the community is small, consultation participants requested that the name of their town not be referred to in this notes.
1. What are your experiences of discrimination and vilification?
General
All participants had experienced some form of discrimination in Australia which they related to a number of factors: fear of difference, fear of Islam, ignorance about refugees and the countries from which they flee. Given the composition of the group, immigration and refugee policies were an area of concern although focus of the discussion was on settlement and human rights issues. At the very beginning of the discussion about experiences of discrimination, one participant made an important comment that set the tone for the remainder of the discussion.
“Discrimination shouldn’t exist in Australia considering the majority are multicultural groups anyway. I don’t understand why it does, because the original people of this land, the Indigenous people, are Aborigines. Australians here are migrants and this isn’t their country either. They have lived here for a long time and that is acknowledged - but there shouldn’t be discrimination in Australia.”
At work
One participant explained
that many highly educated refugees are not using their qualifications
to their full potential because of discrimination coupled with the general
lack of trust in overseas qualifications. Discrimination in employment
was a major concern among participants.
TPV visa conditions allow refugees to work but not to claim Newstart Allowance
(the ‘dole’) or a range of other social security allowances.
This effectively means that refugees must take whatever work they can
get, regardless of their previous experiences or qualifications. The compulsion
to take any job, the lack of recognition of overseas qualifications among
Australian employers and lack of job security were all issues raised by
participants.
“Overseas qualifications, in all honesty, do not hold any value whatsoever in Australia. We come here educated with post graduate qualifications and when we apply for jobs they say our English is not good enough or we are under or over qualified. I am a qualified agriculturalist and engineer educated in Iraq with over 20 years experience and I cannot find good work here. Most of us become pickers and work on the farms…”
“I work in a factory and I have a PhD in engineering. I know that studying English or continuing studying anything may help me get a better job, but studying is not an option for me on a TPV. I have no option but to work, because without work, I cannot feed myself or my family…”
“If a person has a qualification from overseas and there is an Australian who holds the same or lesser qualification from studying in Australia, then yes they will employ him over me. They did this to a friend in Shepparton who had been working at a place for a while, but was replaced by an Australian who came and was looking for work...”
At school
“A lot of discrimination is happening in schools. You have kids saying ‘go home, go back to your own country’ and this is at school and they are just kids…”
One of the participants worked as a teacher’s aide at the local primary school. He relayed the story of young boys who following 11 September 2001, were treated badly by fellow students who teased them by calling them ‘Osama bin Laden’.
In the street or public transport
Several participants discussed instances of vilification and harassment on the street, usually involving women wearing the hijab. One participant spoke of open harassment and abuse of Muslim women in particular, while a second felt that people go out of their way to avoid and ignore Muslim women in hijab.
“There are many experiences of discrimination faced by our community. For example, a lot of the women while walking in the street have had bottles thrown at them in the centre of town during the day. Or they would have people abuse them very badly with obscene language - language that these women are not even familiar with and is highly offensive to say to them. Many people think and feel that a woman wearing the hijab is a moving bomb…”
“There is discrimination against our community, but I think mostly because people don’t know who we are and what we are. We are new and different - especially our women who wear the hijab. People haven’t seen that before so they react differently. They don’t approach the women, but avoid and ignore them…”
“Men of our community have had people yell out at them in the street calling them ‘Bin laden’. These days, if you are Muslim or Arab, you are ‘Osama bin Laden’…”
In the media
“Because of the media, we as a community and a religion are ‘muthlumeen’ – this Arabic word means unjustly treated and unfairly targeted. We came from a country where we were ‘muthlumeen’ to a country which treats us the same way. So if we can’t find peace in Australia, where are we going to find it?”
Participants were critical of the Australian media and felt that it unfairly links Islam with terrorism blaming all Muslims for the events of 11 September 2001. One participant refused to accept such blame:
“It’s as if all Muslims should pay the price for someone else’s actions. I’m not prepared to pay the price of any one else’s actions, especially someone whose actions we don’t agree with ... Islam is peace. Islam has nothing to do with terrorism and never will…”
Aside from portraying Muslims as terrorists, participants were concerned about the use of ethnic descriptors in the media. “Every time if there is a crime committed by a Greek for example, they will not say his ethnicity. If an Iraqi committed a crime, they will say he is an Iraqi. If it is a European they will say ‘a Victorian man’ or a ‘Sydney man’, but if it was an Arab they will say ‘Muslim man’ or ‘Middle-Eastern man’.”
One participant was specifically dissatisfied with the portrayal of Iraqis in the local press. He described the reporting of a car accident involving an Iraqi man who hit a curb in 2001. The story made the front page of the local paper and he felt that the picture and tone of the story mocked Iraqis and made them appear uneducated and unaware. There appears to be limited access to alternative or ethnic media.
Other
The federal government’s policies on refugees and asylum seekers were singled out for particular criticism. Participants felt that Australia’s migration and refugee laws and policies are racially discriminatory and that those responsible for implementing the laws and policies lack compassion.
“Where does the discrimination come from except first and foremost from the government, politicians and other departments? They are racist and their policies are discriminatory. Others will of course be the same as they are led by example. Whatever the government says, the people say and it goes on…”
“[The] immigration policies are racist and that’s where it starts for us…”
“Even if the laws were fair, the people who implement them aren’t compassionate and their treatment of people, especially refugees is inhumane to a large part…”
Participants made it clear throughout the consultation that specific instances of discrimination are always underpinned by a general sense of insecurity and uncertainty engendered by the Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) system.
“People live here because they have to and they need to feel some sense of security. Most of these men here haven’t seen their family, like me, for a number of years and they receive news that their mother or father has passed away in Iraq, and there is no sense of stability or settlement. Unfortunately most Iraqis in Australia feel like this….”
Most Iraqi refugees who participated in the consultation held TPVs. The TPV provides refugees with a three year temporary visa and only limited access to the kinds of settlement support available to other refugees with permanent protection. TPV holders are not eligible for many types of social security assistance and cannot sponsor their families to join them in Australia. The lack of stability and insecurity engendered by the TPV visa system clouded the lives of the Iraqi refugees who participated in the consultation. One participant asked directly, “Is this project going to focus on discrimination that exists as a result of people having a TPV? This is an important issue…” He went on to discuss the case of three young male Iraqi refugees on TPVs who had decided to work instead of study because of uncertainty about their future in Australia. “It is better they work and try and survive instead. If they study for a year or two, and while they are studying they are told by the government that their visas have expired and they should leave the country…their study has gone to waste.”
Following the consultation, several participants approached us for assistance in contacting family members who were in immigration detention in Nauru and also for information and assistance in tracing missing family members in Iraq. These requests for assistance point to a need for greater assistance for refugees living in rural areas from appropriate immigration and legal authorities in the region.
2. What is being done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
Informal local initiatives
Representatives from the local community association including the local Imam are acting as unofficial, unpaid community workers fielding questions and taking complaints about discrimination from members of the local Iraqi community. When an issue arose, meetings were held to work out ways to tackle the problem. For example, there was an issue of music lessons and mixed gender swimming lessons offered at the local primary school conflicting with Islamic practices. Community association representatives and the Imam liaised with the local school and worked out a solution whereby the Muslim children were able to go to the library during swimming and music lesson times. “That was no problem but it took a while to reach that point and make them understand why it is not acceptable.”Cross-cultural training
A member of an Islamic organisation in Melbourne was recently dispatched to the area to talk to the wider community about Islam. The cross cultural awareness session was held at the local centre where they regularly meet and use as a prayer room and was well attended. After the session, some attendees asked the local Imam, “Why don’t you talk to us more about Islam so we can learn?”
3. What more could be done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
Participants urged HREOC to apply pressure on government departments and schools to implement strategies that come out of the consultations. “It is very important that there is talk and action, not just talk.”
Promoting positive public awareness
Participants are keen to see more education programs that promote better awareness and understanding of all different ethnic and national groups in Australia, not just Muslims. These programs should be targeted to children in classrooms and to a broader audience through television programs. “When we watch television we cannot find programs about how people should deal with each other or how they do deal with each other. It is important to show the cultures of people living in Australia…”
One participant suggested that the creation of more multicultural aide positions in schools would help implement better multicultural programs. He had suggested this to representatives of the Victorian Education Department in a meeting two years ago to discuss this issue, but no action was taken. In relation to the content of multicultural education programs, another participant stressed that focusing on music, dancing and food in multi-cultural education programs was a waste of time. Rather, he felt that effective cross-cultural education should be based on broader human rights principles.
“The government should put human rights programs to educate kids about human rights and how to live with others in respect …They should explain to people that everyone is different, whether it is colour, religion, culture, educational differences, etc…This education should not just be at schools but everywhere (in banks, in councils) because people interact with each other all the time, young people and adults. They can start at a young age and slowly people’s attitudes can change over time, but I think it is hard to educate people who are 70 or 80 years old.”
Another participant felt that more targeted education was needed to help Australians understand why people become refugees and why they flee from countries like Iraq.
“If you educate people then they will understand more why we came to Australia - because of the wars and because of Saddam’s regime ... Some people think that we came here just to work and to take their positions, which is not true. If Iraq was good we would stay there…Iraq is good. It is a country rich in culture and wealth. We never needed anything there except for good leadership…Once people understand the reasons we came here it would be different for the community…I think they will respect us more.”
Challenging stereotypes
“There needs to be not only more education to these media people, but also some pressure on the media by government or anyone to write accurately and fairly in the paper and to at least make the people who write in the paper or talk on the news more responsible for the impacts on the community of what they do or say…”
Providing community support
Participants agreed that there is a need for more visits from representatives of community legal centres and migration lawyers who could come to talk to people in rural areas about their migration and refugee visa issues. “We need more support as a community.”
Strengthening relationships between communities
Participants agreed that building better relations with the wider community is an important step in overcoming prejudice and misconceptions about Arab and Muslim Australians. The local Imam was enthusiastic about building bridges: “I like building relations with the wider community and with people at schools, as well as others.” For the Imam, building better relationships between communities meant not being afraid to extend the hand of friendship to strangers.
4. Other issues and suggestions
An Iraqi refugee suggested that one of the most important things that Australians could do to help them was, “stand up in solidarity against the policies and treatment of refugees by John Howard and Philip Ruddock so they know that what they are doing to us is wrong….”
