NOTHING WILL KEEP US APART
The refugee couple fighting to stay together
On June 14, Mojgan Shamsalipoor is due to discover if she can stay in Australia with her adored husband, Milad Jafari, or if she will be forced to return to a country where she faces almost certain death. Sadly, seven years since they fell in love, the young couple have learned to live like each day together may be their last. As a result of Department of Immigration red tape, they exist in a legal limbo, unable to plan their future or travel overseas on holiday.
“We don’t lose hope, but it’s been too long,” sighs 25-year-old Shamsalipoor, who has been told she must return to her native Iran – the country she fled as a teenager after being beaten, raped and threatened with forced marriage – even though her husband is an Australian citizen.
Cruelly, her case is reviewed every six months – the next, on June 14, when her bridging visa expires. Under current regulations, she cannot stay in Australia because Australia does not recognise domestic violence as a valid reason for seeking asylum.
“It’s sexist and totally unfair,” says close friend and advocate Jessica Walker, 37, deputy principal of Brisbane’s Yeronga State High School, where the couple were students. “Unfortunately, Mojgan and Milad fall into two different immigration categories. He is viewed as a political asylum seeker, and was granted refugee status and citizenship as a result, while her story is more personal.
“There’s a lot of talk about helping victims of violence against women, yet Mojgan is denied any certainty over her future in
Australia, which seems pretty hypocritical. She is genuinely in fear for her life if she is forced to return to Iran.”
The star-crossed lovers’ plight has touched thousands of hearts, with former schoolmates, teachers, politicians and refugee campaigners rallying to back them via a change.org petition, with more than 160,000 signatures, and a determined community campaign.
To her supporters, Shamsalipoor has suffered enough and should be granted permission to settle in Brisbane, where she found sanctuary and love. It was 2012 when she met fellow Iranian Jafari, then a permanent resident of Australia, at a youth camp for asylum seekers and refugees. “Just a blink and I knew I loved her,” recalls her 24-year-old husband, who works as a retail manager. “My heart had been clipped … I had never felt like this about a girl.”
The couple married in October 2014 following a two-year courtship, but only two months later Shamsalipoor was seized from her husband’s side, told she had no case for asylum and imprisoned in immigration detention for almost two years.
Jafari called or visited every day until the outraged Yeronga school community helped to win her eventual release on a bridging visa in September 2016. And there the matter has rested ever since, with Shamsalipoor’s visa coming up for renewal every six months and former immigration minister Peter Dutton refusing to intervene on her behalf.
Unable to fulfil her dream of becoming a midwife – visa conditions forbid her from studying – charming, feisty, articulate Shamsalipoor is now working as a receptionist at Yeronga State High.
“She is such a valuable asset to the Brisbane community and yet she’s being prevented from reaching her full potential,” says Walker. “I don’t think the current Government will ever show compassion or common sense around this issue, so we are hoping for a change at the Federal election.”
For her part, Shamsalipoor sighs, “We are so grateful for everything Jessica and the community have done to help us, but it’s been seven years now … We just have to live day by day, and be happy together while we can.”
“After seven years we still have no certainty” —Shamsalipoor