Picture: Najeeba with her younger brother Mahdi.
By Graham Thom
"We had to push our way onto the boat, people were screaming and pushing each other out of the way. It was so crowded we had to sit with our knees squashed against our chests for 10 whole days. No one knew how to swim. At the end of the journey, the boat got a hole and people were fighting for life jackets. We didn’t get one. If the Australian Navy hadn’t reached us, we would have died."
This is what it's like to flee persecution in your country by boat. As ethnic Hazaras in Afghanistan, Najeeba and her family faced constant abuse, threats and violence. "Because we are Hazara," she explains, "people thought we were nothing, servants, animals. We knew the journey was very dangerous, but to stay was certain death."
Yet it's Afghans like Najeeba whose applications for asylum were frozen four months ago. And it's refugees like Najeeba that both major political parties intend to offload to some of the world’s poorest countries under a so-called 'regional solution'.
Tell the next Prime Minister of Australia: this isn’t who we are. We expect the next leader of our country to extend a fair go to asylum seekers.
The 'Pacific Solution' showed us beyond question that shipping asylum seekers off to remote places - far away from lawyers, the media and public scrutiny - severely harms already-traumatised people, costs a fortune, and solves no problems in the long term. We cannot accept a return to these dark days.
Since April, tens of thousands of us have delivered this powerful message in letters to our local MPs and at rallies all around Australia. And together we're making a real difference. In recent weeks we've seen the media debunking baseless myths and encouraging Australians to really think again about asylum seekers [1].
Our next Prime Minister needs to get the message. Right now our politicians are publicly debating this issue; but the real work will begin once the new government is in office. We're delivering a 20,000-strong petition to the new PM on the first day new parliament sits. Will your name be on it?
I hope that in her place, I would be as courageous as Najeeba - to risk death on a journey to an unknown future to save my family. And I hope that having survived, I could adjust to life in my new country. Najeeba told me how happy she is now to be in Australia:
"When I am outside, I don’t have to worry about being attacked or raped because I’m a girl," she says. "When my dad leaves the house, I don’t have to worry that it is the last time I will see him. Australia is the first country that gave me a name, an identity, peace and security."
What a remarkable thing to be able to do. This is who we are - let’s make sure our politicians never forget that, ever again.
Graham Thom
Refugee Campaign Coordinator
Amnesty International Australia
[1] On 30 July I appeared on Sunrise with Mel and Koche to discuss the facts about the tiny number of asylum seekers who arrive here by boat.
Add your name to the petition now
http://www.amnesty.org.au/action/action/23509/?&utm_source=refAug10ad&ut...
