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Refugee women tell their stories of survival

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Aminata Conteh Biger arrived in Australia from Sierra Leone in 2000.()
Aminata Conteh Biger arrived in Australia from Sierra Leone in 2000.()
Since the end of World War Two, more than 800,000 refugees have settled in Australia, escaping fear and persecution. For Refugee Week, RN asked three women from three different generations to tell their stories.

Aminata Conteh Biger, Sierra Leone

Aminata Conteh Biger was kidnapped by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels when they invaded Freetown during Sierra Leone's civil war. She was 18 years old.

She was held for several months, and after her release the UNHCR made arrangements for her to flee the country. She arrived in Australia in 2000.

During the war when they kidnapped girls it was for sex slaves or as human shields. A lot of people got killed, friends got pregnant. I am really, really blessed to be alive and to be here and to be well. It feels unreal when I think about what I went through, and now I'm here.

There is nothing that I cannot do. Being a survivor of what I've been through, you can't tell me that I can't do anything. That makes me enjoy life every single day and not to waste it. Whatever has happened to me has not broken any part of me, it has made me be kinder to people and more in love with life.

Aminata following her release from the RUF Rebels in 1999.()

When you come from a country of war you don't really care where you are going, you know that you want to survive. When I came to Australia I felt safe but then I felt isolated because I was part of the first group of refugees that came to resettle.

Sadly, I wanted to go back, it was really that difficult. I believe a lot of refugees go through that.

What I would like to say to the Australian people is try to really know what refugees are, because they're brave people, they have come out from the most incredible time in their life and I think all they look for is a bit of kindness and a bit of empathy and a bit of a smile.

Ingrid Collins, Latvia

Vladislava Kozlovskis (bottom left), with her daughter Ingrid Collins and granddaughters Briana and Melita.()

Ingrid Collins' parents and siblings fled Latvia in the aftermath of WWII and the Soviet occupation. They spent four years in a refugee camp in Denmark before arriving in Australia in 1949. Ingrid was the youngest of nine and the only child in the family who was born in Australia.

My father died when I was eight, my siblings left home and married. I was at home, so I became my mother's translator ... I would be the one that would go with her to the doctor and translate.

I became a mediator between two cultures and two languages. I think my children would find that hard to understand; that our Australian culture at the time wasn't as open to refugees, experiences, new foods.

Vladislava and Albert Kozlovskis with their sons John and Imants.()

I always was amazed at my parents' determination, just sheer determination and strength to survive, what they had to endure during war time, how they had to survive to get away from it.

They arrived in a new country and they had to adjust to everything and they worked incredibly hard. I remember my father used to work during the day and he'd come home and then my mother would work cleaning offices at night ... They did work very hard to try to provide a good life for their children. We always had a roof over our head and food in the fridge.

My mother didn't have an education ... she said to me she would've loved to be a nurse or learnt agriculture but she never had those opportunities. I always found that was hard; we had all the opportunities and they didn't, but in spite of it they survived and made a success of their lives.

Amy Pham, Vietnam

Amy Pham and her mother Thu fled Vietnam in 1978, leaving the rest of their family, including Amy's younger sister, behind.()

In 1978, seven-year-old Amy Pham and her mother Thu left Vietnam on a crowded fishing boat destined for Malaysia. Thu made the heartbreaking decision to leave her younger daughter in Vietnam with her grandmother, fearing she wouldn't survive the journey. After three months in a Malaysian refugee camp, Amy and Thu arrived in Australia, while the rest of the family followed years later.

I still remember it like it was yesterday, it was scary, before we crossed the border we had to all cramp up underneath where the engine is, the bottom of the boat. We were sitting to knee-high in oil and I remembered that my mum said to me I can't make any sound whatsoever or else we'll be discovered and we'll be all put to prison or be killed.

Every time the boat comes across a wave I had to stop breathing and close my mouth because the oil would come up to my mouth. It was pretty scary, and I remember when they opened that lid for us and you could see the sunlight coming through it was quite amazing.

When Amy Pham first arrived in Australia from Vietnam as a seven year old, she was struck by how clean everything was.()

I felt really lonely growing up in Australia, mainly because my mum was a single mother. When we first came to Australia she had to work two shifts to support the two of us and also to send money back to Vietnam to support my sister and her family.

I remember every day my mum would leave for work at 6 am and wouldn't come back till 10 pm at night. Every time she was running late I would cry to sleep because I thought, 'Oh my god I'm going to be an orphan and we don't know anybody here.' We didn't have any relatives.

My mum worked so hard, she didn't have any friends or anything like that, so it was very lonely.

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Refugees, Immigration, Multiculturalism, World War 2, Unrest, Conflict and War