The exploitation of migrants is widespread in Australia. Our recent report for the Grattan Institute, Short-changed, found that as many as one in six migrant workers are paid less than the national minimum wage, which is meant to be the least a worker in Australia can be paid.
The reforms to tackle migrant worker exploitation are a big step in the right direction. But until we take exploitation more seriously, it isn’t going to stop.
Professor Sundram, who has conducted extensive research into asylum seeker and refugee mental health, said mental symptoms or mental disorders in refugees held by Australia in Nauru and those left in Papua New Guinea (PNG) continue to deteriorate.
He said Canberra wiping its hands of its responsibility for those still in PNG is not okay.
Muzafar Ali's first love is soccer, but photography comes a close second. His work, with the UN, took him to remote parts of his homeland, Afghanistan, where he marvelled at the beauty of the rugged landscape and the tenacity of its people. Muzafar made it his mission to capture these precious sights on camera, to give the world a window into an Afghanistan rarely seen. But after a few close calls, Muzafar was forced to flee from his beloved country. His journey to safety would eventually take him to Adelaide. As he set about making a new life with his family, Muzafar was surprised to learn about the long history of Afghan cameleers in Australia. He began a new journey of discovery to meet the descendents of these cameleers, and to share their story.
To read more about the school co-founded by Muzafar, see Cisarua Learning
View Muzafar’s photography here
'Muzafar Ali: from Afghanistan to Adelaide' on Radio National's Conversations with Sarah Kanowski
Kaldor Centre Senior Research Fellow Madeline Gleeson will today address United Nations human rights officials about the international treaty that aims to prevent the mistreatment of people deprived of their liberty in any setting, including in immigration detention centres.
The federal government has proposed law reform to stop workplaces breaching their responsibilities, which will be introduced to parliament when it next meets.
The proposed changes would make it a criminal offence to coerce someone into breaching their visa conditions, stop employers from hiring people on temporary visas where they have exploited migrants in the past, and increase penalties for employers who do the wrong thing.
Many migrant workers face a 'crisis of exploitation'. Will these reforms end it? SBS News
The first ones he mentions are hard truth stories. Freedom by Farhad Bandesh, the Kurdish artist who spent more than seven years in detention on Manus Island, was “very relevant. That’s a big Australian story of the last 20 years.” Bridie’s musical accompaniment is a hesitant, ominous pulse cut with spasms of pained guitar and chilling wails.
"We have a pandemic of suicidal thoughts in Afghanistan. The situation is the worst ever, and the world rarely thinks or talks about it," says psychologist Dr Amal.
"When you read the news, you read about the hunger crisis, but no-one talks about mental health. It's like people are being slowly poisoned. Day by day, they're losing hope."
Afghan women in mental health crisis over bleak future. By Yogita Limaye, BBC World News
Australian mothers and children held in a Syrian detention camp will take the Australian government to court in an attempt to compel the government to bring them home. The group members are all Australian citizens and argue they have a legal right to return to Australia.
People who force migrants into breaching their visa conditions could face jail time and businesses that exploit migrants would be barred from tapping more overseas workers under plans to overhaul the temporary visa system.
Jail terms and tougher policing to protect exploited migrants. By Shane Wright, The Age
Australian employers who exploit migrant workers will be banned from hiring other visa holders and will face new criminal penalties, as part of a government crackdown.
The Human Rights Law Centre welcomed the announcement as “a critical shift in the right direction”.
Refugee advocates are concerned about the slow implementation of a deal between Australia and New Zealand to resettle people detained by Canberra on Nauru for trying to enter Australia illegally by boat.
Refugee advocates concerned for Nauru refugees (Audio) Radio New Zealand
Samira Yama was sweating under a blue burqa as she stood in the long queue to cross the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan. It was October 2021, and for the first time in her life the 28-year-old Afghan fashion designer and feminist had been forced to cover her face and body.
Thirty-one of the 150 people meant to be resettled by 30 June have arrived so far, INZ has confirmed to RNZ. "The first year ends in July [June 30th], we won't have the 150 because we have just started the work. But we will have 450 in the three-year period," the head of INZ Alison McDonald said.
Refugees who were on Manus Island and are now in Australia can be resettled under the AUS/NZ Agreement. But the 84 who are still in PNG are not included in the AUS/NZ arrangement, INZ said.
"It's been pretty traumatic for those individuals to be stuck there and now told that Australia has washed their hands of them," Graham Thom said.
It has been 25 years since Gay Htoo Paw fled his home in Myanmar but he now calls Australia the land of opportunity for education and work, one that is free of conflict.
The 54-year-old was the first Myanmar refugee to move to Albany 13 years ago on Western Australia's south coast, where more than 170 of his people now call home.
The Albanese government is scrapping a crucial visa program for Afghans who worked for Australia, including interpreters who supported Australian soldiers.
But a military lawyer helping Afghans escape the country insists he's now "quietly confident" for his clients, after the government allowed hundreds who had previously been rejected to reapply in the interim.
Harrowing accounts emerge from refugees who cross the border to escape fierce fighting in Sudan's West Darfur region.
The testimonies are hard to independently verify due to the blackout, but they are similar to those of refugees in other camps who described the indiscriminate killing of civilians, the ransacking of hospitals and the burning of entire neighbourhoods in different parts of Darfur.
Since international borders re-opened, asylum applications at the primary stage steadily grew from a low of around 618 in February 2022 to 1,786 in March 2023. While this was well below the peak in 2017-18 of around 2,500 per month, it would have been worrying the Albanese Government given the entry of the Coalition and Murdoch press into the public debate on asylum numbers.
Have we turned a corner on growth in asylum applications? By Abul Rizvi, Pearls and Irritations
The NZ government has scotched suggestions a deal bringing refugees from Australia to New Zealand is part of a tradeoff for policy changes on citizenship and 501 deportees.
RNZ revealed this week that most of the 450 refugees in a three-year agreement on former detention centre occupants are already living in Australia.
About 30 refugees are due to arrive next month.
Undeterred by the scale of challenges in her in-tray, the new head of Human Rights Watch, Tirana Hassan, says ‘We need to be standing with those people’
“I think it’s most important that Australia actually is not scared to hold China to account and we expect to see Australia being a really important leader at, for example, the UN human rights council and within the multilateral fora, where these issues are being discussed,” she says.
But for Australia to improve its credibility to speak up on the world stage, it has also been urged to address its own deficiencies.
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