We welcome contributions to our newsletter from our readers.
Articles must be between 500 and 1000 words. Please send your article to <newsletter@affma.org.au>
The deadline for submission of articles is the 15th of the month.
Free services for eligible refugees, asylum seekers and humanitarian entrants to New South Wales, Australia
We welcome contributions to our newsletter from our readers.
Articles must be between 500 and 1000 words. Please send your article to <newsletter@affma.org.au>
The deadline for submission of articles is the 15th of the month.
Street Address: Association of Fee Free Migration Agents, Sydney, Inc.(AFFMA)
Level 1, 324a King Street, Newtown Railway Station, Newtown, NSW 2042
Postal Address: PO Box 610, Newtown NSW 2042
Phone: (02) 9519 4400
Fax: (02) 9519 4837
Website: http://www.
Email: info@affma.org.au
If you would like to make a donation, please email us at Fundraising@affma.org.au
All donations over $2 are tax deductible.
Fundraising Manager Wanted: AFFMA is seeking a volunteer to be in charge of all the fundraising aspects of the organisation. This would involve being in charge of AFFMA’s social media presence, as well as formulating new ideas for marketing AFFMA and raising additional funds. As we receive no government funding, this position is essential to the success of our organisation.
Newsletter Team Leader Wanted: This role involves liaising with our team of online newsletter contributors, editing all submitted contributions and thinking of themes and ideas for each edition of the newsletter. This work can be done entirely from home.
Raffle Ticket Sellers Wanted: As we receive no government funding, it is imperative that our raffle is a success. As such, we kindly ask all members of the public to volunteer as raffle ticket sellers. Tickets will be sold in booklets of 50 and 100. All ticket sellers will receive a 10% commission on their total amount of sales. Positions are open to those over the age of 15.
Board Members Wanted: We currently have seven board members. We need more committed and dedicated volunteers who would be willing to be involved in all aspects of the organisation. These positions are open to pro bono or commercial agents and members of the public who share AFFMA’s vision. For more details, please email BoardPresident@affma.org.au
If you are interested in the first three positions, please email info@affma.org.au
Do you have a vacancy you wish to advertise? AFFMA’s Members can advertise vacancies free of charge. Deadline for our next issue is 15 June 2015.
Last month’s newsletter discussed the looming execution of convicted drug smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan. In that newsletter, it was emphasised that capital punishment is a highly flawed mechanism in any criminal justice system, in that it is morally perverse and fails to fulfil any goals in relation to advancing the protection of society.
In this month’s edition, we express our devastation upon learning that Myuran and Andrew were both executed (along with six other death row prisoners) on Wednesday, April 29 just before3:30am AEST on Nusa Kambangan Island, Indonesia.
We here at AFFMA would like to reiterate our condemnation of these actions. The death penalty is archaic. If it is ever to be used, it should only be applied in the most exceptional of circumstances. In these circumstances, its application was both cruel and unnecessary.
Both Myuran and Andrew had demonstrably changed during their time in prison. Indeed, the two were taking an active role in helping their fellow inmates undergo the process of rehabilitation through a variety of programs the two had implemented.
This is not to condone the actions of drug smugglers. Indonesia’s drug problems are very much a reality. Thousands suffer each year as a result of their drug addiction, which is enabled by the actions of drug smugglers.
However these problems would be more effectively addressed if action were taken against the rampant corruption within the police force, as well as the Indonesian state as a whole. The use of the death penalty here is largely illusory. It leads the Indonesian public that their government is taking the most effective stance against drug smuggling and actively seeking to reduce Indonesia’s drug problems.
As one commentator pointed out, the execution is essentially an ’empty gesture’. It allows the Widodo government to draw greater public support from the Indonesian public without actually doing anything that would objectively justify that support.
Myuran and Andrew were both rehabilitated men who sought to do something positive with their lives. Describing their killing as ‘barbaric’ or ‘state sanctioned murder’ is very much appropriate in this case.
May they rest in peace. We express our condolences to the families of Andrew and Myuran.
The mass exodus of refugees from Syria poses a number of problems. Not only for the refugees themselves, but for the nations who need to find ways to accommodate this influx of desperate and impoverished people.
In some cases, governments (particularly in Europe) have effectively shut their borders, denying the validity of asylum claims. This further exacerbates the plight faced by refugees.
However, as the saying goes, one man’s plight is another man’s opportunity. Given the sheer state of desperation that these refugees face, people smugglers have profited by presenting themselves as an alternative avenue out of Syria.
The conduct of people smugglers varies in terms of the harm inflicted on refugees. In some cases, the people smugglers will follow through on their commitment in ensuring that those fleeing violence safely reach their destination. Yet this will only be in exchange for a substantial sum of money.
In this sense, the harm inflicted is largely financial. This is fundamentally immoral, in that people smugglers are capitalising upon this crisis by preventing these refugees from escaping dangerous regions without paying a steep price.
As noted by Minority Rights Group, “there is today a thriving multi-million dollar business, developed around the refugee crisis in Syria”. It must also be noted that the vessels provided by these smugglers are often old, dilapidated or otherwise faulty. This poses a significant danger to refugees, given that such vessels have the potential to sink as they journey through open seas.
In the most extreme cases, refugees who have been promised safe passage and employment opportunities upon arrival by these smugglers are effectively kidnapped and forced into slavery by these smugglers.
At that point the smugglers confiscate the identity documents and permits that would allow the refugee to return to Syria, ensuring that their choices are limited to submitting to the will of the traffickers or facing homelessness in a foreign land.
The Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star reports a number of instances where human trafficking and forced prostitution rings have been discovered by authorities. In some cases, this process involves the refugees marrying the smuggler – a process that the smugglers repeat each time they want to bring in a new addition to their illicit organisation.
It is therefore evident that people smuggling poses a serious threat to the safety and wellbeing to Syrian refugees; a threat that is shared by refugees around the world.
However, the only way to effectively stop refugees from resorting to people smugglers is by providing the means for them to legally immigrate or seek asylum. This is due to the fundamental fact that desperate people will attempt to survive by any means necessary. As such, policies that place strict limits on immigration will inevitably work in favour of people smugglers.
Ariza Arif
Syria, a nation in the Middle East with a landmass smaller than the state of Victoria, has become the site for one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the 21st century.
Since 2011, the country has been in a state of civil war between the al-Assad government and various rebel groups. In order to escape the violence, nearly 4 million people have fled Syria.
This represents a significant portion of Syria’s total population, which only numbers at approximately 23 million.
On 6 March 2011, in the southern city of Deraa, a group of teenagers graffitied anti-government slogans on a school wall. As a result, the teenagers were arrested and subsequently tortured.
Following this, demonstrators took to the streets to protest the cruel and inhumane treatment of the school children. Security forces responded by opening fire on the demonstrators, killing several of them. This sparked the eruption of pro-democracy protests among those who had already expressed discontent with President al-Assad’s ruling of Syria due to the failure of his long-promised economic and political reforms.
By July 2011, hundreds of thousands of Syrians were demanding the resignation of President Assad.
As the government continued to respond to these protests with brute force, the protesters began to use violence in order to defend themselves. This later escalated into the use of arms and weapons against security forces to keep them from entering their neighbourhoods and homes.
As the violence increased, Syria descended into a full civil war and by 2012 the fighting had reached the capital city Damascus.
At its outset, the conflict was predominantly a clash between those who supported President Assad, and those who demanded his immediate resignation. However, as the conflict has escalated, so too has the complexity over who is involved.
There is no clear single entity that represents the government’s opposition. Instead, there are currently 1,000 different opposition rebel groups and political parties containing over 100,000 fighters. What’s more, one cannot liken these factions by a shared desire to bring democracy to Syria.
For instance, the opposition includes extremist groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS). Clearly this group, which is actuated by the desire to create a transnational Islamic Caliphate in which sharia is brutally enforced, has no concern for democratic values such as free and fair elections, the active participation of ordinary people, the protection of human rights and the existence of the rule of law. This makes opposition towards the Assad government quite problematic, particularly for external actors, given that any loss of authority by Assad is a potential gain for these extremist groups.
In 22 August 2014, the United Nations reported that the death toll for the brutal Syrian conflict had reached 191,000. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 2014 was the worst of the four-year war, with 76,000 lives taken. Of the total, 17,790 were civilians, including 3,501 children.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, this war has led to one of the largest mass movements of people in recent history. Due to the devastating effects of the conflict, many Syrian civilians have been forced to leave their homes to seek safety in other countries.
Every day since the civil war began, thousands of Syrians take the dangerous journey across the borders to the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. With nearly 4 million refugees estimated to have fled Syria, and another 6 million (50% of them being children) having relocated within Syria, this is surely one of the great refugee crises of the modern era.
Sadly it does not appear as if the fighting will end any time soon; indeed, it seems to be escalating. In February 2015, the BBC stated that the death toll had increased to 200,000, with ‘no end in sight’ for the war.
In 2013 the US and the UK stopped sending all ‘non lethal supplies’ to the rebel groups as they felt that potentially volatile groups (such as ISIS) would intercept these supplies. Many countries around the world are continuing to supply aid and are in ongoing discussions to attempt to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Lauren Lamarque
Refugee exploitation is not limited to the actions of people smugglers, and often continues once these refugees have arrived at their destination. Many refugees (predominantly female) suffer sexual abuse at the hands of employers, landlords and even aid distributors in some cases.
Al Jazeera reported one instance of a woman who was asked not only to provide sexual favours to her employer, but to also seek out other Syrian girls in the area who would do the same for him and his friends.
In addition to such sexual abuse, many women are also forced into early marriages or prostitution. Some women do this voluntarily, engaging in what some have termed ‘survival sex’, as they would otherwise not have access to food or shelter.
An additional concern for these women is the need to provide for those within their care. In 2013, of the 205 Syrian women arrested in Lebanon for prostitution, the majority stated that they were engaging in such conduct for the sake of their children.
In other cases, young women are sold into these arrangements by their parents. In these cases, those sold often agree to the transaction due to their sense of obligation to their family. Such a sense of obligation can be considered a potentially destructive aspect of cultures that place significant value on family and familial duties, particularly when one considers that those being sold are often too young to develop their own views on that matter. In many cases, the girls sold are as young as 14.
Yet we cannot throw a blanket of condemnation over those parents who force their children into early marriages. Though it may appear disgraceful for a parent to sell their child in order to survive, many have done so out of a genuine belief that this is in the best interests of their child.
Al Aribiya reports that one woman encouraged her daughter to marry, out of a belief her new husband would protect her from abuse from others (such as an employer demanding sexual favours). However, as that report recognised, more often than not such marriages become abusive themselves.
What is truly disturbing is not only how widespread this practice is, but the blatant way in which these practices are promoted.
For instance, forced marriages were advertised on Facebook, as seen from the page ‘Syrian Refugees for Marriage’. Whilst this page was taken down in May 2014, its existence reflects a complete absence of shame on the part of those who spearhead such transactions.
This is just one of the many issues that relates to the refugees of the Syrian Civil War. Ideally, nations that house refugees would take greater efforts to ensure that such vulnerable people are provided with the support necessary to ensure their safety throughout their resettlement. If these minimum standards of support are not achieved, this issue will continue to worsen.
Emmanuel Kanellis