By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
Amid the politics and policy, there is one group of people who often is forgotten in the asylum seeker debate — the refugees themselves.
Last August, the Journal spoke to Kumar while he was in the midst of a three-year wait for permanent residency.
The Sri Lankan Tamil had not seen his wife and three-year-old daughter for that whole time, which included a 17-month stint in the Christmas Island and Weipa detention centres.
His great wish was to be able to support and resettle his stricken family with him.
Although he borrowed from friends to help them, they lacked a steady income back home.
The good news is that permanent residency has since been granted. Unfortunately, the protracted wait meant his wife abandoned him for another man in India.
She does not pick up his calls, and it’s been many weeks since he’s spoken to daughter Sythanya.
“The 18 months in long-term detention is the reason. I don’t blame my wife for not waiting. She found a new life and that was reasonable,” he tearfully recounts. “For a long time I could do nothing to support them.”
Kumar is forlornly trying legal avenues in India to regain contact with his daughter.
Yet he is much luckier than some. Other Tamil friends he met on Christmas Island remain locked up in detention.
He visits them, as well as meeting them on their weekend outings from their Broadmeadows cells.
Kumar has also been a determined helper at Springvale Community Aid and Advice Bureau, settling about 400 Tamil asylum seekers a month in Greater Dandenong.
He says he feels their suffering. He knows many at risk of self-harm.
“Truly I’m one of them. I’ve been in detention too.
“Normally their most closest bond is with their families. Men with a wife and daughter are always thinking about them, yet they can’t do anything for them.”
But he says it is hard to practically help them. They live on meagre benefits, are prevented from working under the ‘no advantage’ rule and lack the basics such as pots, pans and bedding.
He says Sri Lanka remains unsafe for Tamils, who are still being systematically abused, raped and kidnapped.
“They can’t go back. They’re scared and don’t know what’s going to happen — if they can stay here or they have to go.”
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