A World BEYOND War Australia symposium (in association with the Victorian Quaker Centre) Monday 15 June 2026 from 9:00am-1:00pm AEST (find the time in your time zone) This event will be livestreamed. Please register on this page for the Zoom link.

Between the two periods of Taliban rule (roughly 2001–2021), Afghanistan saw a dense landscape of civil society initiatives around peacebuilding, women’s rights, and gender equality, led by Afghan NGOs, informal community groups, and international partners.

Afghans who fled after August 2021 have become key actors in keeping Afghan peace, social justice and gender equality struggles alive from exile, combining direct support to people inside Afghanistan with advocacy, movement-building and institution-building abroad.

This symposium, organised by World BEYOND War Australia (the Australian chapter of the international World BEYOND War movement), will explore a number of themes related to Afghans promoting peace and social justice in new lands.

We have three impressive keynote speakers:

• Dr. Mujib Abid, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Initiative for Peacebuilding at the University of Melbourne, is an Afghan-Australian scholar of modern Afghan history, peace studies and political theory whose current work focuses on the Afghan diaspora in Australia.
• Efat Abulfazil, a peace advocate now living in Italy, has a long history of promoting mental health, gender equality, and nonviolence in communities affected by conflict and displacement. Efat is the founder of the Malika Soraa Foundation.
• Nemat Ahangosh, a peacebuilder, poet, and activist now living in the UK. Nemat is the founder of Stretch More, a UK registered charity dedicated to empowering disabled individuals in conflict zones and disaster-prone areas.

Everyone deserves to live in safety with their families, and to have a place to call home.

But around 700 people who have lived in the Australian community for years still don’t have the right to stay here permanently. They survived offshore detention in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, but under our migration laws, they are classified as ‘transitory persons’ and are not allowed to apply for any permanent visa.

They currently live here on insecure, short-term visas, but there is nothing transitory or temporary about the lives they have built.

They have raised children and families, found jobs and become part of our community. Many have close family members, including children and spouses, who are Australian citizens or permanent residents. The vast majority have already been recognised as refugees.

Australia is their home.

It is time for the Albanese Government to abandon these cruel policies from the past, and focus on real solutions for the future.

Everyone who was previously held in offshore detention in Nauru or Papua New Guinea should be immediately granted a permanent visa.

People stuck in visa limbo are speaking out, sharing their experiences and calling on the Albanese Government to act. And they are asking all of us to stand with them.

For over 13 years, the Human Rights Law Centre has supported people and families who have survived offshore detention through legal action, public advocacy and law reform. We are proud to stand with our clients as they fight to remain in the homes they have built in Australia. The Human Rights Law Centre is hosting this petition together with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and GetUp, to show the Albanese Government it is time to let people stay for good.