Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Emma Adams, Allen & Unwin, $32.99.
“Abdul is dignified, defiant even, but his poise is beginning to wear thin in this place. He needs surgery for a chronic shoulder injury sustained when he was hit by a car in Kabul. Like the others in detention with him, he faces an uncertain fate, and years in limbo. Most of the people in the centre have already had their spirits broken.”
The selflessness of one Australian mother is at the forefront of this amazing true story about a refugee boy and what it meant for him to be part of a family. It concerns Abdul, a 16-year-old unaccompanied boy in detention, and the steps taken to make him a part of the Adams family.
Emma Adams, a psychiatrist and mother of three, travels to Darwin as an observer of conditions for mothers and babies in the immigration detention centres. She had expected the trip to be confronting, but the extent of her concern even takes her by surprise.
Emma hadn’t expected to return to Canberra, consumed by the idea that she must help the lone Hazara boy from Afghanistan and include him in her family. At times, the odds seemed insurmountable, but their story is a beacon of optimism and humanity.
In this brutal and bureaucratic system, freedom was a hopeless dream – or so it seemed. This is also an important reflection about asylum seekers in Australia.
Adams, specialising in the wellbeing of mothers and babies, has worked in the Emergency Department at Canberra Hospital.
Emma and Abdul’s connection, and her fight to get him out and provide him with an Australian home, a family and a future is remarkable and truly inspirational.
