They’re just economic refugees… until they’re not.

I hear it a lot. “They’re all just a bunch of economic refugees”, because they fail to look emaciated, dressed in rags or physically broken. Despite being expected to look physically broken to be a “real” refugee”, they should never, EVER look mentally broken because, well then they would be mentally ill and that would be dangerous to our society now wouldn’t it?

How DARE they look fit, young, MALE and have the mental capacity to find loopholes in this life to get out of their shitty circumstances. How DARE they leave their country? “Why aren’t they staying to FIGHT and fix their own society?” - I hear it asked over and over by people who have never known more conflict than dealing with shitty in-laws or fighting with a neighbour over the noisy dog or the overhanging tree encroaching on the back fence.

I know a fit, young, male refugee from Afghanistan. He was in Calais. He recently made it to England by climbing in to a truck. He would be labelled a menace, by xenophobic Brits, by the truckies working the Calais/ London route, by anyone who expects him to fit the stereotype I have laid out here. He would be written off as an economic migrant for having clothes on his back, a mobile phone in his pocket, a sharp mind, a physically fit body and the will to survive. This is his story.

My friend - we will call him Omar to protect his identity - arrived in Calais from Afghanistan totally alone. No family, no friends with him. He comes from a big family. 4 brothers, 6 sisters, Mum and Dad. His sisters are married with families of their own. His three older brothers have previously been murdered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Why? Because the Taliban wanted to recruit them for their “army”. And they refused. “But why didn’t he stay and fight for his country?”….

So when my friend Omar came of age, ripe for recruitment, the Taliban came knocking again. Omar ran. He fled across borders, across countries, across oceans at the behest of his dear mum and dad who have tried everything to keep their sons from the very same evil our Western governments say we should annihilate. He left everything. His education, his friends, his sisters, his younger brother and his parents to get away. He made it all the way to Calais and then to England. There, he believed he would find safety. He is not yet an adult, not yet 18. Not even close. “But he’s just an economic migrant”…..

A few days after Omar had arrived to England he received a call from his 13 year old brother. A frantic, desperate, heart-wrenching, frightened call saying “our mother, our father are finished.” The Taliban had come looking for him again. When his parents told them he had left, the Taliban didn’t believe them. And they murdered Omar’s parents in cold blood. Now, his 13 year old brother is on the run, alone somewhere in Afghanistan, also trying to cross borders, not because he is an economic refugee, or emaciated, or poor or stupid or mentally ill, but because he wants to LIVE. “They’re not REAL refugees, they just want a better life”….. YES, Yes they DO.

My friend, not yet 18 has lost 3 older brothers, his mother and father and now sits in juvenile detention in a centre in the UK, totally alone. I listened to him sob down the phone to me as he told me of his parents murder. I have NEVER heard a young man cry like that. He couldn’t breathe. His sobs wracked his body, he apologised to me over and over and in amongst his pain, he asked after my family and begged me to stay safe. When he doesn’t hear from me for more than a day he panics. Try as I might to tell him Australia is safe, he lives in fear of losing everyone. “Dear sister” - he writes to me morning and night - “are you safe? How is your family? I am happy because you are my sister.”

I rang the centre he is staying in. Because he is a juvenile, the rules are he cannot have visitors. I understand the logic. But this young man sat in a room in a UK centre for unaccompanied minors for more than three days TOTALLY ALONE having been told his parent’s had been murdered before a social worker went to see him. No friends allowed to visit him, though I know people in the UK who would have gone to offer a shoulder to lean on. “Those bloody economic migrants, preying on our generosity, they are trying to change our culture, they’re not like us”…

Guess what? They are JUST like us. They love like us, they grieve like us, they feel loneliness like us, they want a meaningful, safe, fulfilling life like us. They are JUST like us. The only difference is we feel entitled to our life that we acquired through the sheer luck of our birth. Ask them their stories. They are all economic migrants… until they are NOT.