Towards a Researcher–Advocacy Model for Asylum Seekers: A Pilot Study Amongst East Timorese Living in Australia

During the 24-year Indonesian occupation of East Timor, widespread human rights abuses led to the flight of political dissidents to neighboring countries. We report a pilot study assessing a ‘Researcher– Advocacy’ model among East Timorese asylum seekers residing in Australia. The aim was to combine elements of advocacy, quantitative and qualitative research, and strategic assistance in a program of engagement with this marginalized group. Thirty-three consecutive asylum-seeker clients attending a newly formed clinic participated in the study, representing a quarter of the known population of asylum seekers from East Timor living in Sydney at the time. High levels of trauma including torture and other human rights abuses were recorded. Respondents also reported a wide range of resettlement and adaptational difficulties, particularly relating to their uncertain residency status. Eighty percent met criteria for one or more psychiatric disorder. The wider benefits of the study included the extension of services to a group that previously had shown a reluctance to seek assistance for traumatic stress, the engagement of the exile community as a whole, and building the capacity to respond both in Australia and in East Timor to the humanitarian emergency of 1999. Scientific limitations of the model included the labor-intensive nature of the program, the small and selective sample recruited and incomplete data collection.