When I heard this week that Australia had granted humanitarian visas to the Iranian women’s football team, I felt two very different emotions at once. I felt proud and happy for them because I know how difficult life can be for women in Iran. They deserve safety and protection.
But at the same time, the news broke my heart. Because while some Iranian women are offered protection, others like me are still waiting – despite the war that is now raging in our country.
I arrived in Australia in 2013 with my husband and our one-year-old son. We fled Iran because it was not safe for us. Under the Iranian regime, human rights are ignored and women live under constant harassment and fear. Like many others, we came to Australia believing it was a country that respected freedom, safety and fairness.
But the Australian government sent my family to Nauru under the offshore processing policy. That decision changed the course of our lives. We were later medically evacuated back to Australia along with hundreds of others who were suffering in Nauru, but still we were told we could not stay here permanently even though we were refugees.
I have built my life in Australia working in aged care and have raised my family here, but for 13 years our lives have been defined by waiting. Waiting for answers. Waiting for stability. Waiting to know whether we will ever be allowed to truly belong in the country we now call home.
Many people who arrived in Australia around the same time as us have since received permanent visas and become Australian citizens. Their lives have moved forward, while around 750 people remain stuck in uncertainty, many of them Iranian families like mine. Under Australia’s migration laws, we are labelled “transitory” and prevented from applying for any permanent visa. But there is nothing transitory about the life I have built in Australia.
My youngest son was born here. On his 10th birthday, he became an Australian citizen. He proudly calls himself an “Aussie”. My oldest son was only a baby when we fled from Iran. He is now a teenager.
Both my children go to school here. They play sport and have a close circle of friends. Their dreams and futures are in Australia.
I work as an aged care worker, caring for elderly Australians who need compassion and support. My husband works as a landscaper, helping create and maintain the spaces where people live and raise their families. We both work hard because we want to contribute to the community that has given us safety.
But we are trapped in permanent limbo. We live with constant uncertainty about the future, not knowing whether we will one day be ripped from our home. We must apply for a short-term bridging visa every few months. Processing delays and administrative barriers mean there are periods where we cannot work or access healthcare.
Every year in this limbo, I lose another part of myself.
I have not seen my parents or my siblings in Iran for 13 years. Without a permanent visa, if I leave Australia, I will not be able to come back. Just this week, the Albanese government introduced new laws to make it even harder for my family to visit us in Australia. Now, even if they were granted a tourist visa, the government could decide to stop them from coming here simply because they are Iranian.
Iran’s female footballers faced an impossible choice, but we must not romanticise what they are going throughRead more
Since the war escalated in the Middle East, I have not been able to contact my family members in Iran. My sons keep asking me when they can finally meet their grandparents. I do not know what to tell them.
My family’s story is repeated across Australia. There are other refugee families with parents whose children are Australian citizens or people with spouses who have citizenship. The vast majority of us, including my family, have already been recognised as refugees. We have all built a home in Australia.
When the Albanese government offered safety and protection to the Iranian women’s football team earlier this week, I saw a glimpse of the Australia that I hoped to find when I fled from Iran. After 13 years, I hope the same protection will finally be given to my family and all the Iranian refugees who are still waiting.
- Fatemeh Lahmidi is an Iranian refugee living in Australia