Ngun Tin Tial with her adopted sons in Kuala Lumpur. Picture: John W. Ishi Source: The Australian
A SMALL family of Burmese refugees living in a dingy tenement on
the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur has slipped through the cracks of asylum
officialdom - mostly, it seems, because they won't abandon their adopted
sons in Burma.
Ngun Tin Tial has spent the past nine years looking for a better, safer life. She knows almost nothing about the boatloads of asylum-seekers arriving almost daily in Australian waters, but knows enough to think it is unfair that places that might have been taken by her family have gone to Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Sri Lankans who can afford illicit boat trips to Australia.
Her husband holds down an illegal, poorly paid job erecting signboards, and they have barely enough to make ends meet, let alone pay people-smugglers perhaps $32,000 for the whole family to get to Australia.
"This is not fair," she said. "Of course we don't have that sort of money." Even if a processing centre were opened in Indonesia, the family wouldn't have the means to get there: too far, too expensive. They can only wait and hope. "It's extremely hard and difficult for my family," Ngun Tin Tial added, her voice breaking. "It's so difficult I can't speak."
The family's plight seems unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Today The Weekend Australian reveals that Australia's entire offshore humanitarian program could be wiped out this financial year if asylum-seeker boats continued to arrive at their present rate.
In the first six months of this year, 6000 people have arrived by boat. If asylum-seekers continue to arrive at that rate for the next 12 months, the other component of the offshore humanitarian program, the special humanitarian program that covers people subjected to gross human rights abuses and the relatives of refugee families already in Australia, will be destroyed.
Ngun Tin Tial, 35, from Chin state in western Burma, has been stuck in a painful limbo for a long time. She and her husband fled the military in Burma in 2003 and by 2005 she was locked up in one of Malaysia's notorious immigration detention centres.
She was asked by a UNHCR official visiting the lock-up whether she had any relatives in Australia and she explained her husband's cousin lived in Melbourne. She and her husband were duly allocated to the Australian lists and by 2007 they were having their medical checks in the final stages of getting places in Australia.
An official casually asked whether she had any adopted children, the first time the question had arisen. She innocently said yes, she had, the sons of her eldest brother who had died of malaria in Burma. These boys were still in Burma, awaiting the day when Ngun Tin Tial and her husband, Za Thawng Lian, saved enough money to get them to Malaysia. She had lived without them for six years before the two teenagers finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur in 2009, ending a forced and painful separation.
Another brother of Ngun Tin Tial was a member of the Chin National Front, deemed subversive rebels by the Burmese government at the time, so she and her husband were always careful.
On a visit to their home village, two days' journey from their home in the capital of Chin state, they heard the Burmese military were after them. There was no chance to get back to the city to get the boys.
She and her husband fled to Kuala Lumpur, got some money together, and began to send it to Burma so the boys, then living in an orphanage for a short spell, could live with their grandparents.
The family will not return to Burma.
Even though the new government has made fundamental changes, Ngun Tin Tial fears ethnic minorities, such as the Christian Chin, still get a raw deal. Asked if he missed Burma, her adopted son, 17-year-old Samuel Tha Bik Lian, shook his head solemnly.
They are all together now in Kuala Lumpur, but it's a tough life. Refugees and asylum-seekers are not allowed to work, so Za Thawng Lian works on the sly.
"It's illegal, but as refugees we have to do that," she said.
Ngun Tin Tial has spent the past nine years looking for a better, safer life. She knows almost nothing about the boatloads of asylum-seekers arriving almost daily in Australian waters, but knows enough to think it is unfair that places that might have been taken by her family have gone to Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Sri Lankans who can afford illicit boat trips to Australia.
Her husband holds down an illegal, poorly paid job erecting signboards, and they have barely enough to make ends meet, let alone pay people-smugglers perhaps $32,000 for the whole family to get to Australia.
"This is not fair," she said. "Of course we don't have that sort of money." Even if a processing centre were opened in Indonesia, the family wouldn't have the means to get there: too far, too expensive. They can only wait and hope. "It's extremely hard and difficult for my family," Ngun Tin Tial added, her voice breaking. "It's so difficult I can't speak."
The family's plight seems unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Today The Weekend Australian reveals that Australia's entire offshore humanitarian program could be wiped out this financial year if asylum-seeker boats continued to arrive at their present rate.
In the first six months of this year, 6000 people have arrived by boat. If asylum-seekers continue to arrive at that rate for the next 12 months, the other component of the offshore humanitarian program, the special humanitarian program that covers people subjected to gross human rights abuses and the relatives of refugee families already in Australia, will be destroyed.
Ngun Tin Tial, 35, from Chin state in western Burma, has been stuck in a painful limbo for a long time. She and her husband fled the military in Burma in 2003 and by 2005 she was locked up in one of Malaysia's notorious immigration detention centres.
She was asked by a UNHCR official visiting the lock-up whether she had any relatives in Australia and she explained her husband's cousin lived in Melbourne. She and her husband were duly allocated to the Australian lists and by 2007 they were having their medical checks in the final stages of getting places in Australia.
An official casually asked whether she had any adopted children, the first time the question had arisen. She innocently said yes, she had, the sons of her eldest brother who had died of malaria in Burma. These boys were still in Burma, awaiting the day when Ngun Tin Tial and her husband, Za Thawng Lian, saved enough money to get them to Malaysia. She had lived without them for six years before the two teenagers finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur in 2009, ending a forced and painful separation.
Another brother of Ngun Tin Tial was a member of the Chin National Front, deemed subversive rebels by the Burmese government at the time, so she and her husband were always careful.
On a visit to their home village, two days' journey from their home in the capital of Chin state, they heard the Burmese military were after them. There was no chance to get back to the city to get the boys.
She and her husband fled to Kuala Lumpur, got some money together, and began to send it to Burma so the boys, then living in an orphanage for a short spell, could live with their grandparents.
The family will not return to Burma.
Even though the new government has made fundamental changes, Ngun Tin Tial fears ethnic minorities, such as the Christian Chin, still get a raw deal. Asked if he missed Burma, her adopted son, 17-year-old Samuel Tha Bik Lian, shook his head solemnly.
They are all together now in Kuala Lumpur, but it's a tough life. Refugees and asylum-seekers are not allowed to work, so Za Thawng Lian works on the sly.
"It's illegal, but as refugees we have to do that," she said.
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