Rohingya Girl Gets Proactive About Having Her Asylum Claim Fast-Tracked

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A Rohingya child born stateless in a refugee camp in Indonesia's Aceh province to parents who fled Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh with no passport, no citizenship anywhere, is currently sitting in a UNHCR queue that barely moves.

Australia's taken a handful of Rohingya in over the past two decades. That could be about to change.

After hearing about the Iranian female soccer team being offered asylum in Australia, 14-year-old Noor Jahan decided to seize an opportunity as it passed by.

Noor noticed an English-language textbook on wrist-spinning at the Amnesty International offices at the Aceh camp. She asked to borrow it.

The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling By Peter Philpott is often seen as the preeminent book of it's genre.

With the help of instruction and clear drawings, Noor has told workers in the camp that her only real shot of getting out of there is being good at sport. Not just any sport, but Australia's only true national sport. And not just any discipline, but one most fabled in cricket.

"She is teaching herself the full wrist-spin gambit," said one aid worker.

"Noor can read and speak Bahasa, so translating the book isn't too hard for the locals here. She's already got a good leg break. We don't have cricket balls here so we'd got her using apples, oranges and stones about the same size and weight. Her slider is actually quite impressive. At the moment, Noor's working on her wrong'un, which anyone can really bowl but I think she's really trying to make it look like a stock leg break out of the hand. Hard to do,"

"But look, she's realistic about the mountain she has to climb. It's extremely hard to do and she understands that. Anyone can learn how to bowl legspin, right, but it's a God-given talent to be able to control the drift and dip. That's what sets spinners apart. Then there's also the batting but we can work on that later, plus down at seven or eight, you can just work it off your pads and rotate the strike to the stronger batter anyway,"

"But yeah, look the plan is to get good enough that Tony Burke has little choice but to roll out the red carpet. Other than that, who knows what's going to happen to her."

The Advocate reached out to the Minister but has yet to receive a reply.

More to come.