ECCV calls for a Royal Commission into deportation

Media Release 30 May 2005

The Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV) has today called for a foolproof, transparent accountability process of inquiry to be set up for the wrongful deportation of Vivienne Alvarez Solon Young.

Australian Citizen Deported: Vivian Alvarez Solon 'removed' to the Philippines

Write to the Prime Minister: Bring Vivian Home!

Amanda Vanstone, the Minister for Immigration, is suggesting that it is Vivian who is responsible for delaying her return to Australia. Talk about blaming the victim!

STATEMENT FROM A COALITION OF COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS CONCERNING THE DEPORTATION OF VIVIAN ALVAREZ SOLON YOUNG

In a mad rush to deport Vivian Alvarez Solon Young, Immigration officers shunned a group of Filipino professionals in Brisbane from assisting her.

VIVIAN SOLON: The Face That Shamed Australia

SATURDAY, 11 JUNE 2005: The Victorian public gathered at the Trades Hall in Melbourne to call on Prime Minister John Howard and Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone to bring home Vivian Solon immediately and to commit to the rehabilitation package proposed by her lawyers.

Protesters March for Refugee Rights

GEORGE NEWHOUSE, one of Vivian Alvarez-Solon’s legal team, addressed the Sydney gathering for World Refugee Day on June 19th.

First, I want to make a confession. I am not a human rights lawyer, I'm an ordinary solicitor and I'm a father, but I was so shocked when I found out what our government did to Vivian Solon that I determined to fight her case, and if that fight is victorious and other people's lives are saved, or improved in the process then, so be it.

On hearing of Vivian's circumstances for the first time I was moved by the thought that her children had not heard a word from their mother in four years and that they could only imagine why she had vanished without a goodbye or a trace. Vivian's children are about the same ages as mine and I know from my own experience how it feels to have lost a parent at a very young age. My stomach turned at their anguish.

Negotiations Stall

MARCUS EINFELD QC is a former Federal and Supreme Court judge, the foundation president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission and, with George Newhouse and Harry Freedman, he is the third member of Vivian Alvarez Solon’s team of legal advisers. On June 27, he appeared on the ABC TV current affairs program LATELINE. TONY JONES began by asking: “WHY IS VIVIAN STILL IN MANILA TODAY?”

Royal Commission Now!

Kasama Editor, DEE HUNT spoke at the Refugee Action Collective protest rally outside the Department of Immigration, Brisbane offices on June 2nd.

Deporting citizens shows an immigration policy gone mad by Fr. Shay Cullen

When I arrived at the large blue gate of the compound of the missionaries of charity last Thursday, I found the media camped outside waiting to have an interview with Vivian.

I went in and found Vivian sitting in a green painted bamboo chair, parked nearby was her wheel chair.

Pagbabalik / Returning

Early this year Deborah Ruiz Wall was in the Philippines when the opportunity came up for an exhibition of her photographs. Deborah sent in the introduction she gave at the launch of the exhibition at The Oarhouse in Manila on the 2nd of May.

Women In Asia Conference

University of Technology, Sydney - September 26-28 2005

The University of Technology Sydney is hosting the eighth biennial Women in Asia Conference.

The Women in Asia Conferences have been held every two years since 1981 and are supported by the Women's Caucus of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. These are international conferences, with attendees from throughout Australia and particularly from the Asian regions, including those who are working on or in the region.

Throwaway Drink Pouches Turn to Gold by Fr. Shay Cullen

The foil fruit drink pouch is the latest way to deliver and sell drinks in the Philippines. They are fast replacing Coca Cola and Pepsi bottled drinks as the most popular school drink. But the foil pouches have a serious drawback as they are an environmental hazard. That is until the PREDA recycling project turned the hundreds of thousands of throwaway aluminium foil pouches into raw material for lucrative livelihood projects for abandoned mothers, survivors of sexual exploitation, youth rescued from prisons, students, and dozens of waste paper collectors and out of work sewers.

H. WILFRID WALKER’S TALES OF TRAVEL IN THE PHILIPPINES (PART THREE)

H. Wilfrid Walker was a naturalist who travelled in the Pacific collecting bird and insect specimens. He spent nearly 20 years abroad trekking to remote areas. In letters to his family in England, he described his travels and the native peoples he met on his journeys. We are reprinting the photographs and the two chapters in his book that tell of his journey in the Philippines sometime between 1901 and 1904, we think. This is the conclusion of a three-part series.

Trafficking in Women: Where to from here?

This Project Respect forum will bring together key experts on trafficking in Australia, and discuss future directions for counter-trafficking in Australia.