*Please note, this article discusses sensitive topics, including distress, self-immolation, and violence against women. If you or anyone you know needs help, contact Lifeline (24-hour Crisis Line) on 13 11 14. To access an interpreter, contact the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National) on 131 450.
The impacts of prolonged immigration detention on people’s mental and physical health are now widely known, thanks to the work of refugee advocates and people with lived experience. But what about those who have spent a significant time or a majority of their lives in Australia on precarious and uncertain visas? Young nursing student Puime Kaneshan is one of 9,000 asylum seekers who arrived in Australia between 2012 and 2013 and who has been denied any chance of permanent residency under Australia’s ‘fast track’ visa system.
While the ‘fast-track’ system was created in 2014 to speed-up visa determinations, it has removed the right to a hearing, diminished the United Nation’s definition of a refugee, and trapped thousands in visa limbo with no pathway to permanent residency. Puime’s story demonstrates the serious health implications of this system, which places people and families under enormous stress and uncertainty. Barred from returning to their countries of origin to see their families, along with other rights offered to permanent residents, these asylum seekers still don’t know how long they will be allowed to stay in Australia after living here for more than a decade.
Among them was 23-year-old Mano Yogalingam, a young father, activist and asylum seeker who tragically died of self-immolation after more than a decade of living with uncertainty and the constant threat of being separated from his family and loved ones. He had been living in Australia since he was 12 years old.
Mano was one of the many asylum seekers and refugees across Australia who have been fighting to end visa limbo, attending the weeklong protests since August calling for fairer pathways to permanent residency. At a protest, Rathy Barthlote, co-founder of Refugee Women Action for Visa Equality said: “We live in a state of constant uncertainty, a situation that is dangerous for many of us. We have been separated from our loved ones for more than a decade. Many of us are living with severe depression. Some of us have the right to work but we cannot move freely. We have no access to Medicare, and many of our children born in this country are denied the right to attend kinder or high school.”
We know that visa precarity in general has serious implications for women’s lives and their safety. For example, women who arrive in Australia on partner visas and are awaiting transition to permanent residency are often placed in a situation of dependency, where sponsoring partners have disproportionate opportunities to control decision making and employ coercive tactics to threaten, regulate, isolate, exploit and micromanage.
Acknowledging this reality, Recommendation 16 of the 2024 Rapid Review of evidence-based approaches to prevent gender-based violence called on the Federal Government to immediately audit how family violence perpetrators weaponise government systems, including the immigration system. The link between visa precarity and the ways in which it is used to undermine women’s safety and wellbeing are well documented in the literature: family violence can be facilitated and exacerbated by factors such as immigration policy, isolation and social exclusion. Therefore, in order to ensure the safety of migrant and refugee women and children, visa precarity must be prioritised and taken seriously.
With over 2.4 million people in Australia currently on temporary visas, urgent action is needed to address the enormous mental, physical and safety costs of visa limbo. We must guarantee that all migrants, refugees and asylum seekers have the right to security and safety.
This article was first published in edition #137 of The WRAP on September 2024.