Witnessing violence: Stories from a migration support worker

Abstract

In August 2019, academics, practitioners and advocates as well as individuals with lived experiences of confinement, came together at the University of Melbourne to reflect on the parallels between the spaces and practices of care and control in diverse sites of confinement. This research workshop sought to generate insights into places of confinement from varying perspectives. In the following dialogue between former migration support worker, Judge, and one of the editors of this Special Themed Collection of papers, Loughnan, the daily violence of Australia's immigration detention system is brought to light. Judge shares her stories of working in regional offshore processing centres. This provides important insights into the Australian government's border protection policies, described as one of the harshest in the world. Judge witnessed this first-hand when she was employed by the Australian Government to implement these policies and laws as a migration support worker. During this time, she was consistently faced with a tension between her role responsibility and her ethical obligations to others. The decisions she made to document these practices, to resist and then speak out have had a lasting impact on her: she says she is compelled to continue to document these stories, despite the severity of potential criminal repercussions for doing so under ‘gag orders’ on imposed on detention staff through laws enacted by the Australian Government.