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'Back in 2014, child/neo-natal psychiatrist, Emma Adams, travelled to Darwin and then on to Blaydin Detention Centre as a representative of ChilOut (Children Out of Immigration Detention). The trip was confronting for obvious and not so obvious reasons and Emma and her colleague both left feeling extremely distressed. She returned to her Canberra family—her doctor husband Rob and her three sons—and became consumed by the idea that she must help one of the boys she met at Blaydin. So followed eighteen months of lobbying to bring Abdul, an Afghanistani Hazara boy aged around fifteen, to come and live with them as part of their family.
'Three years later, Abdul is one of Emma's boys. He is doing his HSC, just like one of Emma's other sons, but the decision he makes about future study will revolve around what will give him the best chance of winning a coveted temporary protection visa. Emma is one of only a handful of Australians, including Julian Burnside, who managed to foster a child from a detention centre.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Emma Adams, Unbreakable Threads : The True Story of an Australian Mother, a Refugee Boy and What It Really Means to Be a Family
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Queensland Review , June vol. 28 no. 1 2021; (p. 73-75)
— Review of Unbreakable Threads 2018 single work autobiography 'Asylum seeker and immigration policies have been major political issues over the last 20 years in Australian society. This topic has risen to particular prominence in Queensland since the rise of Pauline Hanson and the One Nation Party, who have warned about and argued against immigration in all its forms – first concerned about Asian immigration in the late 1990s but pivoting towards the Middle East in more recent years. Australia has seen a considerable rise in asylum claims and arrivals by boat, linked to the coalition invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s and the Syrian Civil War more recently. General xenophobia and a tendency to conflate Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan with terrorism have resulted in support for Australia’s harsh and dubiously legal asylum policies.' (Introduction) -
Books of Resistance : The Writers Pushing for a Revolution in Australia's Refugee Policies
2018
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 13 September 2018;'Australia’s government tries to stop stories from being told but a new wave of authors are rallying against injustice.'
-
Emma Adams, Unbreakable Threads : The True Story of an Australian Mother, a Refugee Boy and What It Really Means to Be a Family
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Queensland Review , June vol. 28 no. 1 2021; (p. 73-75)
— Review of Unbreakable Threads 2018 single work autobiography 'Asylum seeker and immigration policies have been major political issues over the last 20 years in Australian society. This topic has risen to particular prominence in Queensland since the rise of Pauline Hanson and the One Nation Party, who have warned about and argued against immigration in all its forms – first concerned about Asian immigration in the late 1990s but pivoting towards the Middle East in more recent years. Australia has seen a considerable rise in asylum claims and arrivals by boat, linked to the coalition invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s and the Syrian Civil War more recently. General xenophobia and a tendency to conflate Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan with terrorism have resulted in support for Australia’s harsh and dubiously legal asylum policies.' (Introduction) -
Books of Resistance : The Writers Pushing for a Revolution in Australia's Refugee Policies
2018
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 13 September 2018;'Australia’s government tries to stop stories from being told but a new wave of authors are rallying against injustice.'
