Together in safety: A report on the Australian Government’s separation of families seeking safety.
Exposing Australia's cruel separation of refugee families
Last year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we all experienced being kept apart from our families. We missed out on holding newborn relatives, caring for loved ones who fell ill, and celebrating special days together. These were painful months. But for thousands of refugees in Australia, this has been their reality for years.
Right now, the Australian Government is using the ties that bind families together – the love a mother has for her child, a person has for their partner, a brother has for his sister – to try to prevent people from exercising their right to seek safety. When the Trump Administration was tearing apart families at US-Mexico border, they were met with widespread international condemnation. But for years, the Australian Government has escaped scrutiny for its own widespread and systematic policies that separate refugee families and keep them from reuniting.
Our new #FamiliesBelongTogether campaign calls on the Morrison Government to end this cruel policy. Add your name to the petition today.
Stories of families torn apart
Abdullah has waited over four years to be reunited
in Australia with his wife Fatema and their four children
Together in Safety Report
Our new major report, Together in Safety, exposes the Australian Government’s deliberate and systematic approach to keeping refugee families apart. Refugees are forced to make an unthinkable choice between their safety, their health and being with the ones they love.
Successive Federal Governments have used three main methods to tear families apart:
Separation by endless deprioritisation of certain family reunion applications, effectively denying permanent residents who arrived by boat the prospect of ever being approved for family reunion.
Separation by complete ban on family reunion for refugees who hold temporary protection visas.
Separation by offshore detention, including those sent offshore while family members remained in Australia, and those separated during a medical evacuation.
As a result, tens of thousands of people live each day apart from their closest family members.
Working with leading psychiatrists, international law barristers and legal organisations in other countries, Together in Safety finds that Australia's morally unjustifiable approach is:
deeply harmful to the health of the people kept from their families;
illegal, as a violation of Australia’s binding international legal obligations; and
unparalleled among comparable countries
Together in Safety reveals the devastating emotional and physical toll Australia’s separation policy has had on refugee families. The report includes first-hand testimony from families deliberately separated by the Australian Government. It also highlights the happy ending that could be open to all if the Government changed these laws. Dima, Hani and their child Mohammed tell their story after being separated for years by offshore detention and finally being resettled in Canada.
Our report calls for the Australian Government to immediately implement the following changes, to stop this unnecessary and cruel approach:
End discrimination against refugees based on when and how they arrived in Australia and ensure everyone has the same opportunity to reunite with family members.
End offshore processing to ensure families are never again deliberately torn apart between Australia and Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
Grant permanent status to refugees who are currently barred from family reunion altogether due to their temporary status.
Stop the endless deprioritisation of family reunion applications from people who arrived by boat, and drastically improve visa processing times.
Create a new humanitarian family reunion visa stream, to provide a fair, fast and accessible process that reflects an inclusive understanding of family.
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This report was co-authored by David Burke, Josephine Langbien and Scott Cosgriff who work in the Rights of Refugees & People Seeking Asylum team at the Human Rights Law Centre. You can learn more about the team's work here.