Hassan* “I am old now, and I am still not a citizen. It has been too long to wait. My time is finished now, I only care about my children. The future is about my children.” I was born in Myanmar. When I was young, my father was conscripted and was killed in combat. My mother was left to work on the farm where we grew rice. It wasn’t our farm—we weren’t allowed to own it. My parents rented it. I remember as a kid, it was not a good thing to say “I am Muslim. I am Rohingya.” People don’t like you. The government doesn’t like you. You don’t have any documents. No citizenship, no birth registration. No nothing. It was very hard to move around. To move between areas you would have to pay a bribe to the local official. If you didn’t want to do this, you couldn’t go. Detention was very hard on us. We were in detention for 16 months—first my wife and our two kids, then eventually, our baby as well. Christmas Island, Nauru, Brisbane, then Darwin. My wife was pregnant with our third child when we arrived. It felt like the government was punishing us, for political reasons. Not just me, all the people who arrived. My daughter had health problems while we were in detention on Christmas Island. I told the Immigration Department but nobody would listen to me. I was also worried about my wife’s health because she was pregnant. The day they came to take us to Nauru I begged the interpreter—“Please, tell them, my wife is pregnant, Please don’t send us there.” The officer didn’t listen. We didn’t understand English, we didn’t know what was happening to us, where we were being sent. It was very challenging. Every time the Bridging visa would expire, our Medicare card would expire. Sometimes every three months, sometimes every six months. This was especially hard for my wife who has diabetes. The Medicare card would expire and I’d have to go to the Centrelink office, sort out all this paperwork because my wife needed medical treatment. The constantly expiring visas made it hard for my wife to get medical treatment when she needed it. My youngest child has Australian citizenship because he was born here. But my two older children were born in Malaysia. They can’t get citizenship. This is particularly hard for my daughter. She has complex needs requiring support. Her teacher suggested we access support through NDIS. But without citizenship we can’t. And we can’t afford to pay for the support she needs. My mother and siblings are in a refugee camp. One is in Bangladesh, some are in Thailand. I’m desperate to visit my mother. She is getting very old now. But I’m not allowed to travel. I haven’t been able to contact her since I was in detention in 2014. I’m worried about her, I need to see her. Detention is very hard. I remember being in detention in Darwin, sitting there thinking, nearly going crazy. We didn’t know how long we would be there. Everyday, no news. I’d ask for an update from the Department and be told nothing. Waiting, waiting, so long waiting. My kids missed lots of their education while we were in detention. While we were detained in they weren’t able to go to school. There was another family in the detention centre—their children would go out to school each day. But my kids couldn��t—I didn’t understand the difference. I asked the Department officer “Please let my son and daughter go to school.” But they didn’t. I didn’t understand why. This made me feel so sad. Because when we were living in Malaysia they also couldn’t go to school. I wasn’t allowed to go to school when I was a kid in Myanmar either and now this was happening to my children. Eventually I was given a Bridging Visa. I was allowed to work and a kind man took me on as a mechanical volunteer. He helped me learn English. I now work as a machine operator. The Bridging visa was hard though, because it would expire all the time, every six months. So even though I could work, it was easier to volunteer at the mechanic. Understanding Statelessness in Australia | Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness 97