Star Weekly is looking back at the best stories of last year and this is one of them.
October 10
A mother of three from St Albans is leading a march of 22 refugee women from Iran and Sri Lanka who are walking to Canberra in a fight for security.
The refugee women from Iran and Sri Lanka are walking the 640 kilometres from Melbourne to Canberra calling for permanent protection visas for 10,000 refugees who have been living in limbo in Australia for 10 years.
They set out from Melbourne on Friday, September 22, from the Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ office.
These refugees and asylum seekers were left out of the February 2023 announcement from the federal government that allowed for 19,000 refugees who arrived over a similar period to apply for permanent residency.
At the time, Minister Giles said it made “no sense“ to keep people who were working and paying taxes in limbo.
St Albans’ Geetha Ramachandran is one of the women leading the march.
“Like tens of thousands of other women, I grew up surrounded by the violence of the civil war in Sri Lanka,” she said.
“My parents were refugees, I am a refugee, my children are refugees. I am marching to bring this to an end – not just for me and my family, but for all people condemned to uncertainty.”
The women have garnered more than 3000 signatures through an online petition.
Samira Turkian Zadeh, an asylum seeker from Iran, said she sought refuge in Australia with her three young kids, ‘yearning’ for the safety she never knew back home.
“We are women, resilient and determined, marching to Canberra to claim our right to permanent visas. We deserve to live like everyone else, focusing on rebuilding our lives and offering our children who were born here the opportunities other children have,” she said.
The women are asking the federal government for permanent protection visas for all refugees left in limbo in Australia, work and study rights for all refugees and the abolishment of the fast track system.
