Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I had the honour of hosting three women poets from refugee backgrounds in Parliament House to share their writing. The event was made possible by Red Room Poetry's Writing in Resistance Program founded by academic and journalist Dr Saba Vasefi, to foreground the voices of women and girls marginalised by this country's racist and violent asylum regime. The three poets provided me with some words they want me to put on record.

Setayesh was three years old when her family arrived in Australia. Setayesh spent two years incarcerated in an offshore detention facility. She says:

Taekwondo means a lot to me. It gives me passion in life but with the visa problems there is a lot of challenges that come with it. I always have to work twice as hard as my peers just for the smallest things. All I'm asking for is a travel document just to compete oversees to help me reach the Olympics at the end of the day. I will be competing under the Australia flag. Whenever the topic of childhood gets brought up, all my friends get all happy but I freeze. Not only does my body mentally shut down, but mentally my childhood was very traumatic and at one point I didn't even know my name; I was known as a number.

Today at 14, Setayesh is one of Australia's most promising young talents in taekwondo, but the cruel immigration system is crushing her dreams.

Aida completed her HSC in 2023 and hopes to go to university study industrial relations and political science but she does not have the right to higher education in this country. Aida says:

I was never really released from that detention centre. I am still there in my mind. The rough conditions that I was put through as a child still apply to me now as an 18 year old adult. The only difference is that those torturous conditions and barriers have evolved. I now do not have study rights on my bridging E visa…. After all that I've been through and have been made to go through by the government. It pains to even have to ask to be given the bare minimum at least.watching every friend I have had move on with their educational pathway whether that is university or tafe. But I now ask for the right to study, a basic human right .So that I can even have the chance at a better life rather than the one that is forced upon me by the government and its outdated dreadful policies.

Finally, this is from Hodan, who says:

I arrived in Australia in 2013. Then Australian immigration officers deported me to Nauru by force. Then I couldn't handle the situation. That I faced in nauru, Because how horrible it was. Then I suffered and got PTSD. I had a motorbike accident. Which caused injuries to me. Then they transferred to Australia for medical treatment. And they didn't give me enough treatment in Australia. And they had to deport me back to Nauru again in the middle of the night and handcuffed me like a criminal. That puts pressure on my brain. And lost my feelings and control. And then put fire on myself. Burn 75% of my body. Hence I am a fully disabled person now. And I have no basic rights at all. Australia made me disabled person. And denied my rights as human beings. I am really so broken. And have tremendously traumatised. Now I need to get NDIS access. Without them I can't survive. And do stuff independently. Second, I seriously need to see my mother as she has never seen my injuries. Please. I need travel documents. To see my mother. If you truly believe in humanity, help me.

These are all the words of these three courageous young women. These three young women are all survivors of this country's brutal, punitive, offshore detention system—one that locks up people, puts them in a state of limbo and uncertainty and separates them from their families and loved ones. Labor and the Liberals should be ashamed of their disgraceful cruelty. These women deserve much better.