TRANSCRIPT
A new report from the University of Melbourne reveals how the COVID-19 pandemic worsened people from migrant and refugee communities' access to justice services.
The report finds barriers such as isolation and stigma were worsened by the lockdowns, making access to legal support and services an even greater challenge for refugee and migrant communities.
Reports from the lockdown period found many living in Melbourne's community housing towers weren't always receiving basic supplies to the building; instead they received unclear messaging and increased police surveillance.
The report's author is Professor of socio-legal studies and head of Social and Political sciences at the University of Melbourne, Jennifer Balint.
Professor Balint says the snap lockdowns of Melbourne's community housing towers was one of the key failures they found.
"Really simple things like a failure to use interpreters well in that situation, which is really surprising still that that was not done well. The way in which communities were isolated from providers, the surveillance of communities at that time, the really differential treatment that was given, that community organisers and community leaders were not included and had to actually push their way in to the decision-making forum."
Trauma and fear around engaging with law enforcement authorities, especially during times of increased police presence, were also cited as a contributing factor to the barriers.
Professor Balint says the issues presented in the report were already a challenge for these communities and were simply exacerbated by the pandemic.
"These were really long-standing barriers that just became more visible, not necessarily more visible to those experiencing them, (but) to those who really were unaware. And in addition what was also really key finding was that when partnership and collaboration were followed things worked a lot better. So what was really interesting and very telling was that for a range of providers, they recognised that the way they'd been working with communities was not working, they needed to divest control, they needed to collaborate, they needed to value community expertise and they needed to centre that expertise."
The report also found conditions in detention were worsened during the pandemic lockdowns, with the notable case of the refugees and asylum seekers quarantined in Melbourne's Park Hotel detention facility.
The hotel was brought to public attention after an outbreak of COVID-19 swept through the residents, many of whom had underlying health conditions, were unvaccinated and were trapped in what some refugee advocates called a "COVID incubator".
Human rights Lawyer and Executive Director of the Refugee Legal Centre, David Manne, says the messaging at the time was that everyone was in this together.
He says the reality of that failed to extend to refugee and asylum seekers in the community.
"State and Federal governments in Australia were responding accordingly with the paradigm shifts in policy and that was underpinned by this sort of principle of shared responsibility, that we're all in it together, and yet there was this stark exception which I think caused huge additional suffering to people seeking asylum. And you know, that was just a clear-cut failure to meet the needs of people. And what resulted, and we saw this very, you know we saw this graphically, an inequitable response that excluded some of the most vulnerable people, putting not only them but our whole community at really grave risk."
The report also finds people in refugee and migrant communities facing family violence were more at-risk throughout the pandemic, often locked down with the perpetrators of their abuse.
Worsened by the inaccessibility of legal and support services, many in family violence situations were left feeling like there were no options but to stay.
Among the report's recommendations is the key idea that collaboration and partnership with communities is necessary to understand what barriers are up and what can be done to dismantle them.
Professor Balint says access to both social and legal support needs to be granted to everyone.
"Our second recommendation was really understanding that we can't understand the legal in isolation, that legal and social problems are interconnected, and how important it is to understand that justice is very much connected more broadly. That someone might come with a legal problem but it also can be connected to housing, to employment, to isolation, to senses of belonging. So really understanding that locating legal services within social context is really critical."
InTouch is a multicultural centre dealing with family violence based in Melbourne.
The organisation is an integrated service that offers end-to-end services for migrants and refugees facing family violence.
Principal lawyer from InTouch, Ajsela Siskovic, says their clients were living in fear, with some too afraid to ask for help for fear of losing their visa.
"Not all of our clients could reach us because they lived in fear and you have to understand our service, I think 40% of our clients are on temporary visas, so there is that other layer of fear that if I seek help or if I go somewhere, I might lose my visa. So that's the underlying sort of disadvantage or variant that our clients have is that sort of that visa abuse that you know they're on temporary visas, and then you add on to that the cultural and language disadvantage that they have during the lockdown was just really really difficult for our clients."
The CEO of InTouch, Rasha Abbas, says the system is complex even for those without a language barrier let alone recent migrants.
"Not only you have the language barrier, it's actually quite a complex landscape we have and it's actually not easy even for someone who speaks the language very well and is highly educated. So imagine you're recently migrated, living under those circumstances and have a language barrier: the complexity of the system is significant among other significant barriers."
