Storyline: Six ordinary Australians sign up and agree to test out their opinions about refugees and asylum seekers first hand by embarking on a challenging 25 day journey in which they will travel by sea to countries without being told where they are going and will go to some of the countries with the highest populations of refugees and asylum seekers.
Episode recap:
At the beginning of the episode the six Australians were introduced and their opinions on refugees and asylum seekers were expressed. The participants were forced to get rid of their phones and their wallets for the 25 days in which they will be participating in the experiment. The 6 people were then split up into two groups of three and were both sent to different places.
Three of the participants were sent to Liverpool, New South Wales, a town that has become home for thousands of refugees and asylum seekers and met up with asylum seekers from Iraq.
One of the Australians asked the men why they came to Australia without the required paperwork. The Iraqi men told the three Australians that before they boarded the boat to flee Iraq they had to give their paperwork to the people smugglers, if they refused to do so they would have been killed.
Later in the program the Iraqi men and the 3 Australians with them went to the local swimming pool. The Iraqi men kill time at the pool whilst they wait to be processed. However, one of the Iraqi men has a fear of water, he can't swim. He has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the boat trip.
One of the Australians asks the Iraqi man why he got on a boat which would have to endure rough seas if he couldn’t swim. The Iraqi man said that he was told by the people smugglers that the trip would only take a few hours and that the boat was very nice. When he got on board he was shocked to see the condition of the boat. There were 60 people crammed together on the small boat. The Iraqi man was sick on the boat trip as were many others.
The three Australians with the Iraqi men took a tour of the Villawood Immigration Detention Facility. Most of the people there are on their third and final appeal to be accepted into Australia and to acquire refugee status. If they are not accepted they will be sent back to the country which they have fled and will most likely be killed. One man in the facility was 24 years old and thought that Australia was the land of freedom but when he arrived in Australia he was locked up in the detention facility.
The other three participants travelled to Albury-Wodonga on the New South Wales/Victoria border. The three people move into a house with an African family that fled from their homeland to Kenya due to war and lived in a UN camp for 9 years before acquiring visas to fly to Australia.
One of the participants is a self-confessed racist and especially hates Africans so the encounter came as a huge shock. The Africans told the Australians stories of local people coming in to the refugee camps at night and stealing their food at gun-point. Another issue raised was that the African woman whom the Australians were speaking to lost her baby at the camp before it was born because she didn't have any money.
The African man opened up to one of the Australians and told him that he is happy to be living in Australia and doesn’t want to go back to help out in his homeland because he has such bad memories and he spent a lot of time outside of his homeland due to the war.
Later, all six participants met up at a wharf in Darwin and embarked on a boat trip to an unknown location. They had to travel on the same type of boat with the same equipment and items, the only difference was that there were fewer people on the boat.
After a few hours on board one of the Australians felt sick and tempers flared, even though there were only 6 people on the boat as oppose to the 50-60 that asylum seekers and refugees face.
Early in the morning, the boat started letting water in and the Australians used buckets to get the water out. After three hours of bailing the boat kept on sinking. Most refugee boats have no communication so they can’t call a mayday.
The boat then started smoking and that really opened my eyes to what it must be like for asylum seekers and refugees travelling on these boats.
At the end of the episode after the Australians are rescued by the coastguard the host reveals that the boat on which the participants travelled on was actually a sea worthy yacht converted to look like an Indonesian fishing vessel.
Some of the facts:
- 28,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Australia by boat since 1976.
- 2,000 refugees arrived in Australia last year on boats.
Why this three-part series has come at the right time:
Australia is currently in a debate over a plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing. The plan has been criticised by the United Nations. In the past, asylum seekers arriving illegally by boat have accounted for a tiny part of the overall number of refugee applications in Australia but recently the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat has escalated significantly.
According to data from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, from July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009 only 16 percent of asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat without documents. However, from 2009 – 2010, 47 percent of asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat without documents.
The December 2010 incident, in which 27 asylum seekers drowned when their boat smashed into rocks on Christmas Island and riots at detention centres over inhumane conditions has left the Australian Government looking for answers.
Episode 2 is on SBS tonight from 8:30 - 9:30(EST) and episode 3 is on SBS Thursday night from 8:30 - 9:30(EST)
To watch online and for more information on the documentary visit:
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