While Afghan migration to Australia can be traced back to the mid-1800s when around 3,000 Afghan cameleers worked in Central Australia on exploration and transportation endeavours, Hazara migration to Australia really commenced in the 1980s after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 (Fazal 2001). The Afghan cameleers had been almost exclusively Pashtuns whereas a sizeable proportion of Afghans who came to Australia (or remained in Australia) as refugees in the 1980s were Hazara (Fazal 2001; Koser & Marsden 2013). By 1996 there were 5,824 Afghanistan-born settlers in Australia, 4,555 of whom spoke Dari (Fazal 2001, 165).
The second period of Hazara migration to Australia was between 1999 and 2001, when around 12,000 maritime asylum seekers mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq arrived (Maley 2001, 365; Glazebrook 2004). This period coincided with the Taliban government in Afghanistan (1996 to 2001) and was a key factor in displacement generally, not just to Australia (Koser & Marsden 2013). The majority of Afghan maritime asylum seekers at this time were Hazaras, and in a similar vein to those included in this study, high refugee recognition rates of Hazaras were a feature of that flow (Maley 2001, 361). Consequently, there is a small diaspora population of Hazaras in Australia. During the 2011 Population Census, for example, just over 20,000 people reported their ancestry as ‘Afghan’, and 4,903 as ‘Hazara’ (noting that two responses per person were allowed) (DSS 2015). Of the 28,000 Afghanistan-born population recorded in the census, the languages reported were Dari (50.3%), Hazaraghi (20.7%), Persian excluding Dari (12.1%), Pashto (7.2%) and other (9.7%), which would indicate that many (and possibly a majority) of Afghanistan-born are likely to be Hazara.
Visa access issues
In terms of mobility through regulated pathways, the Henley Visa Index indicates that Afghans have the lowest visa access rates in the world; Afghanistan is ranked lowest out of 104 citizenships, with Pakistan ranked at 103 (Henley and Partners 2016). The visa options available to Hazaras—most of whom are Afghan or Pakistani citizens— being extremely limited (or non-existent), the ability to travel to most countries on visas
would also necessarily be highly restricted. This is reflected in official statistics on regular arrivals data to Australia. In program year 2011–12, for example, Afghans accounted for just 4,856 (or 0.0003%) of all arrivals to Australia, which totalled 14,597,168 (DIBP 2015). In contrast, Pakistanis accounted for 23,698 arrivals, and Iranians totalled 20,074 arrivals. To put this in context, these relatively small numbers of arrivals of citizens of the region are dissimilar, for example, to those of Indonesians (184,301), Malaysians (332,305) and those from the United Kingdom (900,280).
The composition of the Afghan arrivals for the 2011–12 program year highlight distinct characteristics and reflect Afghanistan’s very low ranking on the Henley visa index. Of the 4,856 Afghan arrivals in 2011–12, very few arrived on visitor visas (just 199, or 4.1%) compared with Afghan settler arrivals (1609, or 33.1%). Most settlers were on humanitarian visas (825, or 51.3%) compared to family visas (766, or 47.6%) or skilled migration visas (18, or 1.1%). It is possible to say, therefore, that it is very difficult to enter Australia as an Afghan as a visitor, which in addition to global visa access rankings is also related to Afghanistan’s very high non-return rate from Australia.7
Hazara maritime asylum seekers
Data on the 1999 to 2001 flow of maritime asylum seekers is limited. However, it is apparent that Hazaras made up a sizeable proportion of the total number of arrivals (Maley 2001). It is also apparent from the limited data available that there was not the same diversity of asylum seekers as was seen during the study period, as most asylum seekers in the earlier flow were from Afghanistan and Iraq (Maley 2001).
The next Chapter provides a detailed discussion of the demography of Hazara maritime asylum seekers who arrived in Australia during the study period, so I do not propose to repeat it here. It is useful, however, to provide a brief overview of the Hazara maritime asylum seeker population as it relates to the 2013 survey sample. The administrative data allows for a detailed examination of what Hazaras did, whereas the survey results allow for a better understanding how Hazara asylum seekers contemplated and thought about their migrations. Importantly, to better account for Hazara particularities (if any), the survey analysis has been conducted using a subset of survey respondents (n=899), based on the three key Hazara origin countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran) as well as people from other neighbouring countries (e.g. Iraq). Sri Lankan Tamils (n=100) and other minor ethnic groups from outside the region (n=9) have been excluded, including
because of the shorter distances and direct routes travelled, which is likely to have affected decision making processes and migration journeys.
TABLE 6.1 Survey respondents’ ethnicity—major groups from the region
Hazaras Pashtun Persian Kurdish Arab Total
Survey respondents (i) 413 (48.9%) 38 (4.5%) 195 (23.1%) 96 (11.4%) 103 (12.2%) 845 (100%) Maritime asylum seekers (ii) 12,114 (54.0%) 1,186 (5.3%) 5,129 (22.8%) 2,586 (11.5%) 1,437 (6.4%) 22,452 (100%) Sources: (i) Irregular maritime asylum seeker survey dataset (2013); (ii) Irregular maritime asylum seeker administrative dataset (2014).
Notes: Does not include missing data or all ethnic groups; the survey sub-sample (n=899) also includes, in addition to those in the table, 19 Tajiks, 13 Turks and 22 Azeris.
As can be seen in Table 6.1, the survey subsample generally reflects the underlying population of unauthorised maritime asylum seekers, which is due to the survey design as well as the application of weights (by citizenship, age and sex). In terms of the sex and age profiles of Hazara respondents, therefore, these are consistent with the underlying population. For example, 98% of Hazara respondents were male and two per cent female; just 2.9% (or 388) of all Hazara unauthorised maritime asylum seekers were female.
Table 6.2 also shows that the Hazara respondents included in the sample are consistent with the underlying population in relation to variables that were not subject to re- weighting. As shown in Table 6.2 the vast majority of Hazara survey respondents were born in Afghanistan and the majority migrated from Pakistan. This is consistent with the underlying population of Hazara unauthorised maritime asylum seekers as outlined in Table 7.2 and section 7.3 in Chapter 7.
TABLE 6.2 Hazara respondents’ countries of birth and long-term residence
Afghanistan Pakistan Iran Other
Country of
birth 91.3% 7.2% 1.5% 0.0%
Last country
of residence 36.9% 50.8% 10.3% 1.9%
Source: Irregular maritime asylum seeker survey dataset (2013).
Notes: n=413. Weighted. Questions 4 & 12. Last country of long-term residence is defined as the last country in which the respondent lived for at least 12 months prior to migrating to Australia. ‘Other’ includes Indonesia, Syria and the United Kingdom.
6.4 Conclusions
The displacement of Hazaras over time particularly to Pakistan and Iran, and the heavy reliance on close social links based on ethnic identity at the local level, has resulted in Hazaras developing particular survival strategies in a hostile environment. These strategies have involved splitting families and developing transnational networks linked by specific migration processes and practices as a means of surviving but also of prospering within heavily circumscribed limits. Within the context of the broader literatures on forced and irregular migration, which provide little room for migrant self- agency but seem overly preoccupied with the geopolitics and policy aspects of such migration, examining the extent and nature of agency of a group of people widely recognised as being subject to inter-generational discrimination, marginalisation and persecution, provides the opportunity to re-think how and why people engage in difficult and dangerous migration. The granularity of the administrative data, together with the 2013 survey results in which Hazaras made up over forty percent of the respondents (n=413), allows a greater focus to be placed on what Hazaras did and how they did it, rather than purely on the external factors causing migration. It offers the chance of a different but nevertheless important perspective to emerge that more squarely focuses on the migration patterns and processes of maritime asylum seekers.
Notes
1 While finally determined grant rates are not available by ethnicity, the administrative dataset indicates that almost all Afghan irregular maritime asylum seekers were Hazara (93%). Official data show that annual final grant rates of all irregular maritime asylum seekers between 2009 and 2013 ranged between 88 and 98.8%, with rates for Afghans ranging between 95.9 and 100% (DIBP 2013: 30). This is in contrast, for example, to annual final grant rates of asylum seekers who sought asylum after arriving regularly in Australia on a visitor, student or other visa, which were between 43.4% and 51.1% over the same period (2009 to 2013) (DIBP 2013: 19).
2 I recognise that the data analysed are those that have been provided by asylum seekers to authorities. To some extent, some information such as age, citizenship and ethnicity may be based on fraudulent documents or misinformation for the purposes of attaining a protection visa, however, the extent of misinformation is likely to be insignificant. Ethnicity, at least for some groups such as Hazara, would prove hard to falsify compared with others, including because of distinctive physiology and/or ethno-linguistic traits. It is difficult to assess whether a person from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh is Rohingya or Bengali, for example, given their similar appearances and linguistic similarities (Jahan 2014; Parnini 2013). The distinctive appearance and dialect of Hazaras, while not singular in totality nor incapable of copying, would prove much more difficult to falsify, including because of a sizeable Hazara community in Australia available to act as interpreters.
3 For the purposes of this analysis, the region includes origin countries in West and South Asia, including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Turkey.
4 The OECD’s Social Institutions and Gender Index involves an assessment of countries’ legal and other normative institutions. Discriminatory social institutions are defined as the formal and informal laws, attitudes and practices that restrict women’s and girls’ access to rights, justice and empowerment opportunities.
5 The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and UNHCR conduct annual re‐registration of refugees under the Amayesh scheme, whereby refugees are issued with Amayesh cards. Under the Amayesh scheme refugees are able to access basic services. Amayesh cards make it possible to receive a work permit in some circumstances.
6 There have also been sensitive suggestions made by analysts that regional powers, such as India, fuel sectarian violence in Baluchistan as a means of continued destabilisation of Pakistan (Fair 2009; Sumbal 2013). While these assertions remain unfounded (and difficult to substantiate), the influence of other, more powerful States in the more fragile and unstable Afghanistan and Pakistan are more difficult to refute.
7 In the Australian context, the lack of visa access for Afghan citizens is consistent with and compounded by official non-return rates, which are based on the extent to which citizenship groups comply with visitor visa departure requirements (DIAC 2013). The non-return rates for Afghanistan for program years 2010-11 and 2011-12 were among the highest of all citizenships in the world, along with Eritrea and Liberia. Afghanistan’s non-return rate was 19.02 in 2011-12 compared to the global average of 0.79 per hundred visitors. Pakistan’s was relatively high at 4.44 (DIAC 2013). Non-return rates are used by visa officers in assessing applications. In this context, the ability of Afghan (Hazara) passport holders to secure visas is extremely low, especially if a family group were proposing to travel as the chances of them not returning would be perceived to be even higher. Similar restrictions would also apply to Pakistani Hazara, noting that Pakistan’s non-return rate was not as high as Afghanistan’s but much higher than the global average.
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