Khari
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Khari is in his 50s and lives with an amputated leg following a violent assault a decade ago. He also has trauma from being sexually abused in his 20s, just after he arrived in Australia as a college student.
‘Upon coming here, I suffered a lot of sexual abuse from this man who was a preacher,’ Khari told the Royal Commission.
‘I ended up finishing the college, went on to do my diploma. But after finishing the whole course … I was suddenly struck with depression. Because there's nothing I can do, verbalise what had happened to me. I didn't know how to handle it and who to tell … My life was on pause really.’
Khari began drinking and his marriage broke down.
‘I did everything I could to get my life together, by still following a path.’
In his 40s, he moved into public housing. One evening, some men who were living next door came into Khari’s home and attacked him.
‘And the violence that I received was horrific … I passed out … I had the amputation on my leg because it was affecting my kidney. Then I went to a rehab. And, so I need to get a wheelchair. So, the whole saga started …’
Khari faced discrimination everywhere he turned.
‘And what I realised being disabled, if I had found it hard as a black person, it was three times as hard in a wheelchair. The conversations, the insults and the lack of help was amazing.’
Khari struggled to find support.
‘There was no-one to help me … I'm going from this agency to that agency who have the same sort of mental view of a disabled African man in a wheelchair. What chances do I have?’
Centrelink took Khari through ‘countless interviews’.
‘And those interviews, they were trying to establish that I was disabled … They look at you, they say, “Well, have you got the papers?” So, I feel very diminished, like they don't even see me as a person. I have to have papers to say that I don't have a leg. Hello? And anything, just for agency delay …They delayed so much … ’
It took three years for Khari to get the Disability Support Pension.
Khari has found the lack of empathy ‘very, very hard’. He said no-one in the government departments he has dealt with has ever asked him ‘how are you? how's your leg? how are you feeling? what can we do?'
‘It's a process for money. Very impersonal, very distant. You don’t even feel it's a system that is there to take care of you, but for you to just be a number. For you not to say anything. For you to tick the boxes.’
Khari is ‘trying to move ahead’, but struggles with the injustice he has experienced.
‘When we've come to a country like Australia, you first realise that your voices can be heard. You also realise that justice can be achieved. But I have not found that in both cases. It has not been easy. It has been extremely hard. There are many days where I felt like I didn't want to get out of bed.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.