Hundreds of Rohingya men and women from Myanmar have begun to learn the skills required to become white South African farmers, in the hope it will allow them access to Australia.
Many Rohingyas thought they already satisfied the requirements to meet refugee status. But recent developments have brought to light a new important criterion.
“It’s just one more hurdle we need to clear, unfortunately,” one Rohingya man said. “We’ve been through a lot. So retraining to become a white farmer is just another thing that we’ll have to contend with”.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he would be happy to reassess their applications once they had learned their new skill.
