After fleeing Sudan, the Rev’d Abraham Maluk made Australia his home. Here he puts a brave face on the fact that his family may never be able to join him.

The Revd Abraham Maluk, one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, said goodbye to his sister-in-law Rhoda in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya in 2005, before flying to Australia on a humanitarian visa. Abraham’s brother had died at the hands of Ugandan rebels the year before, and Abraham’s plan was to bring the widow and her two tiny boys to Australia where they could begin a new life. The Australian government’s reduction in humanitarian visas to be given to Sudanese refugees means that many families like Abraham’s feel they have little opportunity to begin new lives free of the violence and poverty that have resulted from the unrest in the troubled nation of their birth.

Refugee advocates and churches have criticised the Federal government’s justification for capping humanitarian visas to be issued to Sudanese refugees on the basis that they were not integrating well, claims which refugee advocates say were not only unfair but could be contributing to racism against the migrant group.

Archdeacon Graham Reynolds was recently appointed as Archdeacon to the Sudanese, and he works with newly arrived members of the Sudanese community in and around Box Hill.

“Kevin Andrews’ comments are very unsettling to some Sudanese who are working to bring out family members who are left behind in precarious refugee camps,” said Fr Reynolds.

“These aren’t queue jumpers or gang members – these are people who have sought a better life in Australia, sometimes after spending years on the run from violence.”
He describes one family’s ordeal of having another child while waiting to immigrate to Australia.

“They were forced to make a decision between going back to the end of the queue or leaving that child behind with an Aunt and hoping to be reunited in Australia soon.”

Fr Reynolds says that Sudanese with whom he speaks have noticed an increase in racist behaviour, such as staring and throwing rubbish, since the publicity surrounding the government’s decision and the resultant media commentary.
The environment of trauma, displacement and death from which many of the Sudanese have come, and the racism that they face when they get here in regards to housing and employment, are the real culprits in any failure to integrate, Fr Reynolds says.

“Part of it is our community’s fault. Sudanese can’t get rental housing. It’s not that they can’t afford it, it’s that somebody else always gets it, and in a sense we force them into ghettoes, which compounds the problem.” There are also limited areas where it is easy to find employment.

“Integration is a two way process,” says Dr Irene Donohoue Clyne, the Cross Cultural Ministry Co-ordinator for the Diocese of Melbourne, “requiring both refugees and residents to make adjustments. To expect refugees… to make all the adjustments is unreasonable.”

She considers the criticism of Sudanese refugees for failing to integrate a criticism of the many people who work with Sudanese settlers to find a productive place in Australian society. She says that the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne has for ten years worked in many ways to facilitate their settlement, including literacy and English programs, playgroups, skills training, and music and church camps for Sudanese youth.

“When Kevin Andrews claims that Sudanese have failed to adjust, or integrate, he is also blaming those people who have welcomed them into their homes, churches and communities,” says Dr Clyne.

Graham Reynolds says Sudanese settlers will continue in their self-reliant way to pull together and pray together, but in the meantime he encourages Anglicans in Melbourne to consider donating to the Jacob’s Ladder fund, which helps pay the costs of Sudanese refugees coming to Australia. Parishes can also offer financial support to one of the several parishes which have Sudanese clergy or significant numbers of Sudanese members in their congregations.

In the mean time, Abraham will continue to send money to Rhoda and her children Lueth and Maluk.

“They feel hopeless about what is happening to them because they have no one to return to in Sudan and they don’t have any other country where they have applied for a special Humanitarian visa,” Abraham says. “I encourage them by sending money and talking to them, and telling them that God will open the way for them to come to Australia. Life is very difficult for them, and without my support, they can not make it.”

Jane Still
from The Melbourne Anglican

Courtesy "The Age" and Joe Armao