A program that supports women who seek asylum in Australia has recently received support from the City of Parramatta through a community grant.
The Refugee Women at Risk program provides legal assistance to women who have experienced or fear they will experience sexual or gender-based violence, family or domestic violence.
Operating through Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS) Outreach services, the Parramatta-based clinic is hosted through the Jesuit Refugee Service and provides a “women’s safe space”.
RACS Supervising Senior Solicitor Alison Ryan said the program’s services are free to the women who really need them.
“It’s free services, so in order to get access to our services you need to have vulnerability in the sense that you can’t afford to pay for a lawyer or migration agent,” she said.
“The women we’re supporting in the Women at Risk program also have additional vulnerabilities in terms of mental health problems, language barriers when communicating with the Department of Home Affairs, and other risk factors where they wouldn’t be able to represent themselves.”
A recipient of a City of Parramatta $10,000 community grant, Ms Ryan said it was fantastic that the Refugee Women at Risk program is getting the support it needs and that it will make a big difference to the program.
“Because it’s from Parramatta Council, [the grant] is saying ‘we see these women’, often refugee women feel like that they’re navigating a really complex system and aren’t seen,” she said.
“That then flows through to the staff, who feel validated in their work and supported on a monetary level but also just institutionally.”
Ms Ryan said the Refugee Women at Risk program was originally created because there was a great need for further support for their clients.
“It was driven by the needs of our clients, we had a lot of clients coming who we recognised needed additional support and more specialised services,” she said.
“In looking at what we could do for that, we set up a team of female lawyers who specialised in that area that could provide that support.”
When it comes to Parramatta, Ms Ryan said there’s “definitely” a strong need for local women seeking asylum to get critical legal support.
“We’re based in Parramatta because our clients are located in this area, so it’s definitely a good place to be,” she said.
“We have a reasonable waitlist for our services, in the last year we assisted over a 100 individual women, with these cases they often take multiple appointments – I think there really is that demand for it.”
To find out more about RACS and the Refugee Women at Risk program go to racs.org.au.
Ellie Busby is a news reporter for Western Sydney Publishing Group. A graduate of the University of Hertfordshire and Western Sydney University, she is a journalism Major. Ellie has worked with Universal Media, The Cova Project and for a range of other organisations. In 2024, Ellie was named Young Writer of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.