Abstracts
Abstract
Refugees and asylum seekers on temporary visas typically experience interacting issues related to employment, financial precarity, and poor health and well-being. This research aimed to explore whether these issues were exacerbated by the social impacts of COVID-19. Interviews were conducted both prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic with 15 refugees and asylum seekers living in South Australia on temporary visas. While this research found that COVID-19 did lead to a range of negative health and other outcomes such as employment challenges, a key finding was the reiteration of temporary visas as a primary pathway through which refugees and asylum seekers experience heightened precarity and the associated pervasive negative health and well-being outcomes. The findings emphasize the importance of immigration and welfare policy.
Keywords:
- temporary visas,
- mental health,
- refugee,
- asylum seeker,
- COVID-19
Résumé
Les réfugiés et demandeurs d’asile détenant un visa temporaire font généralement face à des problèmes interdépendants en ce qui concerne l’emploi, la précarité financière et la fragilité de la santé et du bien-être. Cette recherche visait à explorer dans quelle mesure ces problèmes ont été exacerbés par les impacts sociaux de la COVID-19. Des entrevues ont été menées avant et pendant la pandémie de COVID-19 avec 15 réfugiés et demandeurs d’asile vivant en Australie du Sud et détenant des visas temporaires. Bien que cette recherche ait montré que la COVID-19 a mené à une variété de conséquences négatives sur la santé ainsi que dans d’autres domaines tels que les défis liés à l’emploi, l’une des constatations clés était la réaffirmation des visas temporaires comme principale voie par laquelle les réfugiés et les demandeurs d’asile font l’expérience d’une précarité accrue et de ses effets négatifs sur la santé et le bien-être. Les résultats soulignent l’importance des politiques d’immigration et de sécurité sociale.
Appendices
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