Release Asian Trans Woman Detained in Villawood: Interview AMSWAG’s Damien Nguyen

A trans woman from Southeast Asia was stopped by immigration on arrival in Australia 12 weeks ago, after she was stopped and allegedly racially profiled by Australian Border Force officers, who determined on perusal of her phone content that she was attempting to enter to engage in sex work.

According to the Asian Migrant Sex Worker Advisory Group, this is not a one off. The ABF is regularly stopping Asian women, in particular, at the border on the assumption, which is initially made simply by appearance, that they are here to engage in sex work.

The woman who was initially detained in Naarm-Melbourne was transferred to Sydney’s Villawood after a month in detention down south, and she’s being housed in an isolated part of the detention centre with four other trans women.

AMSWAG, the Scarlet Alliance and Pride in Protest have been campaigning for the release of all four women in immigration detention, as they highlight that the latest arrival was denied hormone treatment for 8 weeks, while all of them have been subjected to the scrutiny of male guards 24/7.

Racial profiling

Operation Inglenook was launched in late 2022 by the ABF. It aims to identify exploitation of the temporary visa system and victims of sex trafficking and modern slavery, and it’s led to visa cancellations, detentions, deportations and raids on the workplaces of Asian migrant sex workers.

Over the 21 months to August this year, the operation had seen 154 migrant women turned back at the border. Seventy-eight were women younger than 29 years old. Eighty-seven were from Japan, with 18 from China, 16 from Taiwan, 12 from Thailand, 7 from Indonesia and 6 from South Korea.

AMSWAG sees Operation Inglenook as part of the broader “Rescue Industry”, which aims to “save” Asian women from sex trafficking and modern slavery, even though these women have decided to migrate and work in the sex industry overseas, and this increases the stigmatisation of their work.

Early success

AMSWAG and the Scarlet Alliance, along with over 40 other civil society groups have launched an email campaign demanding Home Affairs minister Tony Burke release the detained trans women, ensure trans women are treated with dignity in detention and that border turnbacks come to an end.

On Tuesday afternoon, just two weeks into the campaign, it was announced that one of the four trans women had been granted a protection visa and was to be returned safely to her community. And now AMSWAG is more determined than ever to see the other three women released.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to AMSWAG spokesperson Damien Nguyen the day prior to the release of one of the trans women in Villawood about the conditions those women have been subjected to and the government policy of turning back Asian women who might be sex workers.

A transgender woman from Southeast Asia was stopped at the border over 12 weeks ago, and she’s been held in Villawood Detention Centre ever since.

The assertion is she’s been racially profiled on arrival in this country, as ABF officers consider she was here to work as a sex worker.

And for the majority of her time in the detention centre she’s been denied essential healthcare, including hormone treatment.

So, Damien, could you tell us a little more about the plight of this woman, and why the Asian Migrant Sex Worker Advisory Group has teamed up with the Scarlet Alliance and Pride in Protest to support her?

AMSWAG is an advisory group under Scarlet Alliance. We are sex workers who are Asian migrants.

We are teaming up with Pride and Protest, the queer organisation that campaigns about sex worker rights, because this is an issue about trans rights, sex workers rights and the rights of migrants.

The story of the migrant that we are highlighting, they have been discriminated against in their own country, they’ve been discriminated against at work on the basis of their gender, and the fact that they are transitioning, and that they have been discriminated against by the Border Force upon arrival.

Other women have also been targeted in regard to this while in Australia working on a visa.

So, what has happened to this particular woman in Villawood? 

For this person, she was on a visa and while flying from her home country to Australia, at the border, the Australian Border Force, saw that she was trans and saw that she was on a visa and had two phones.

Upon those characteristics alone they demanded to search through her phone.

After harassing her, she then gave up her phone, in which they saw an escort advert and nude videos of her. So, based on these things they detained her at the border and then moved her to a detention facility in Melbourne, and before that moved her to a detention facility in NSW.

AMSWAG is concerned about the detained woman’s welfare, can you elaborate on why? 

The conditions in Villawood Detention Centre are horrific. At the moment, she only has a couple of hours a day with other people. The rest of the day she is by herself. There is constant surveillance.

Also, for the first eight weeks of her detention, she didn’t have access to hormones. It took her that long to get a low dose of hormones and I believe that is the current dose she is having, which is not adequate.

Upon flying into this country, Australian Border Force agents racially profiled this woman, detained her and searched her phone. This is part of a broader issue relating to Asian migrant sex workers that your group raised earlier this year as part of the Pride and Protest Provocations conference.

Can you elaborate upon what this issue involves, how it entails the charge of racial profiling and what the overall impact of the policy at the border is having?

We have a long history of immigration policies that are anti-sex work. That is the reality of where we are at. The most current rendition of that policy is Operation Inglenook.

According to an information request obtained at the end of August this year, 165 people have been denied immigration clearance into Australia as a result of Operation Inglenook.

An overwhelming majority of these people are women. Most of them are under 30 years old. This is what racial profiling is. It is being done through policies like this. It is a consistent thing across time.

So, how can the Border Force turn them back?

If Border Force finds reasonable evidence that you are a sex worker, or you could be a sex worker or you are planning to work as a sex worker in Australia, they can detain you and cancel your visa.

Usually, at the detention centre people are held for a week and then deported, unless you appeal.

But this woman is not the only trans woman currently being detained at Villawood. There are now four trans women held in the detention, including her, and I believe at times they have to share the male area.

AMSWAG has launched an email campaign calling on ministers Tony Burke, Mark Butler and Ged Kearney to release them.

Can you explain the issues these women are facing in the detention centre and what your group would like to see happen to them?

At the moment, these women are not being placed in the male or female area but in an isolated area.

That came with some recent developments because prior to this they were also isolated but for their activity time, the trans women would have to be a part of the men’s section.

But after campaigning for a while, they are now allowed to have their activities in the women’s section, but they are continuing to live in an isolated section.

Our demands for what will happen to them are clear. We want dignity and safety for transgender people in immigration detention.

This means we want to implement the best standards of health protocol for trans women in detention. This includes access to hormones and other medical care. That’s what we immediately want to happen.

But what we want to see further is a bigger campaign, with three other demands, which are ending profiling and turnbacks of all Asian women at the border and the ending of mandatory detention for people awaiting immigration outcomes.

So, that means all LGBTIQA+ asylum seekers should be supported and housed in the community while waiting for an immigration visa outcome. And we should end deportations of people seeking asylum.

Back to the Asian migrants being turned back at the border are they being turned away whilst they are on working visas or tourist visas?

It’s a mix of a lot of different visas. That is why it is so concerning. We have seen people turned back on tourist visas, on working visas and on international student visas.

So, why would the Border Force turn back a person who had a working visa if they were coming to work in Sydney where sex work is legal?

The reasoning that the Border Force would give is around sex trafficking, which AMSWAG fully opposes.

These are paternalistic racist arguments around Asian migrant sex workers being seen as victims of sex trafficking, which is not true.

The advocates for taking this tactic have traditionally been the rescue industry, as well as the police and the Department of Immigration when they’re demanding more funding.

And lastly, Damien, Home Affairs commissioned the independent Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia’s Visa System inquiry, which has made a number of recommendations in regard to migrant sex workers.

How does AMSWAG consider these developments? And what sort of reforms to the system is your organisation advocating for?

The Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia’s Visa System inquiry, which is also known as the Nixon review, has been fundamentally opposed by our organisation.

It was run by someone who was an ex-police officer, and it made a lot of racist recommendations, including the ongoing funding of Inglenook for another three years.

It also recommended a prohibition on temporary migrants working in the sex industry. There are a number of other problematic recommendations as well.

This inquiry didn’t engage with Asian migrants, the demographic that it seeks to rescue, so our demand is about labour rights because any of these issues that are being analysed lack the perspective of the Asian migrant workers who are in Australia.

As Asian migrant sex workers we are demanding better migration policy and better working conditions, and that means the legalisation of sex work and it also means the legalisation of migrant work.