Crowds outside the Kabul airport (Image: AP/Shekib Rahmani)

Australia’s immigration policies, including a cruel direction intended to penalise asylum seekers who arrived by boat from reuniting with their families, has delivered a costly blow to the hope Afghan-Australians have of seeing some of their loved ones again. This is the story of just one child.

Somewhere in Kabul a 16-year-old Hazara boy is alone.

All of his immediate family — from the same ethnic Afghan minority group that has historically been targeted by the extremist Islamic Taliban fighters — were granted visas to resettle in Australia in 2017. But because the boy is an adopted child, his first visa application was rejected by the Immigration Department (now Home Affairs). The second attempt to secure him a visa to be reunited with his parents in Australia has surpassed 12 months.

Now the Taliban has reclaimed control of Afghanistan and thousands of civilians are scrambling to leave. Reuters reports that at least 20 people have died so far in the chaotic crowds leading to the Kabul airport. A two-year-old girl has been confirmed to have been one of seven trampled to death on Sunday. 

Boy marks teen years without his family

Speaking to The Mandarin about the Australian Hazara family’s fight for their teen son to be resettled in Australia, Lawyer Greg Rohan said the 16-year-old boy’s adopted father is an Australian permanent resident who applied to sponsor his wife and seven children using a partner visa in 2012. 

The application took five years to process because the man had travelled to Australia by boat and was subject to an Australian immigration policy known as Direction 80.

“Other applicants at the same time were waiting about a year for that visa,” Rohan said.

“Direction 80 is a disincentive to people who arrive by boat. It’s punitive and it singles out people who have now been recognised as refugees — it has been recognised that Australia owes them protection — but despite that recognition, and the fact that they are permanent residents of Australia, their applications go to the bottom of the pile.”

After five years, every family member — the Hazara man’s wife and six other children — were granted visas. But the eldest son, then 12, was refused. 

His mother wrestled over whether to leave him behind under the care of some aunts and cousins in Kabul. Ultimately the family decided it had a better chance of advancing a renewed application (this time under the child visa scheme) from Australia. 

“The decision was wrong to refuse him a visa but unfortunately, that’s what happened,” Rohan said. 

“It’s really difficult for the family. When they speak with their son, they’re just constantly reminded of the separation. His mother is racked with the guilt and grief of being separated from him.”

Last year members of the boy’s extended family also left Afghanistan when an opportunity became available to immigrate in October 2020. The adopted boy’s status again meant he could not go with them. 

Rohan says the 16-year-old has been alone in Kabul for 10 months. During that time there have been bombing attacks in the neighbourhood targeting Hazaras near where he lives.

“He’s a Hazara boy from a targeted minority that have been subject to persecution by the Taliban and by the local ISIL school affiliate,” he said. “His parents have been really worried about him and the situation. The attacks on Hazaras have escalated in the last few years.”

The Hazaras are an ethnic minority in Afghanistan who make up an estimated 9% of the population. They have been subject to repeated and violent targeting by the Taliban (including as recently as last month) and other ruling classes long before that.

With Kabul upended and armed Taliban fighters reported to be door-knocking from home to home in search of targets and their family members, the boy’s parents are desperate. 

A long year waiting

For over a year Rohan, on behalf of the boy’s parents, has been making representations to Australian immigration to have a new child application for the boy prioritised, taking into account his age, his membership of a targeted minority group and that he is alone in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. 

“There has already been an extensive delay,” Rohan said. “The family were waiting for visas for years before his was refused so they’ve already had to wait. 

“As the security situation got worse, we’ve been making representations to speed that up — unsuccessfully.”

Rohan is director of the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre (IARC) in Sydney, a community legal centre that provides free immigration and advice in New South Wales. 

“We do a broad range of immigration work but primarily focused on family and humanitarian categories of visas,” he said. 

The centre has a number of clients who are Australians and refugees with family members still living in Afghanistan. It also helps clients who are seeking asylum in Australia with their protection claim applications to the Immigration Department.

“We’ve been working with a number of clients who have been seeking, in some cases for many years, to be reunited with family that they had to leave behind,” he said. “The situation in Afghanistan, despite the international presence, has never been one where there’s a high level of security.”

All Rohan can do for the 16-year-old Hazara boy is continue to urge the Australian government to grant him a visa before it is too late. As the security situation worsens, the worry is that Afghanistan’s borders will close and the potential window for the reunification of the family shuts. 

“If he gets the visa, getting out of there is going to be a whole other challenge, not only because of the security situation and the borders, but the logistics of it,” he said. “Because we’re in the middle of a pandemic, flights are not easy to come by.”

The boy’s mother wants to fly back to Afghanistan to be with him, but obviously that is not a realistic option, Rohan says. 

“It’s been really tough for them and actually talking to him is really difficult for the entire family, but they have maintained contact,” he said.

Uncertainty the only sure thing in Afghanistan

Despite assurances from Taliban officials, people are worried about what the new order will mean for women, girls, human rights advocates and minority groups.

Already reports on the ground suggest that Taliban foot soldiers manning checkpoints along the road to the airport in Kabul have beaten and shot at civilians. Amnesty International claims the Taliban have cut mobile phone service in areas they have taken control of.

Security fears about the shaky situation at Kabul airport have led the US military to set up alternative routes to it, CNN reports. And foreign planes taking off have begun dispensing flares and chaff to trick heat-seeking missiles that may be fired at them from the ground.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday: “There are many women and children that we’ve been able to get out of Afghanistan in what has been some of the most extreme conditions our people have ever operated in, if not worst.”

Morrison said Australia was working with international partners to try to coordinate ways to get more civilians into the airport and out of Afghanistan. 

Meanwhile, somewhere in Kabul, a 16-year-old boy is still waiting to be reunited with his family in Australia.

An alternative version of this article first appeared in our sister publication, The Mandarin