Amina is just 6 years old. She is the size of a china doll with blackest of black hair and big, brown Asian eyes. She is an Hazara from Afghanistan, just like her dad, mum, 3 brothers and 2 sisters.

When Amina was just a baby her dad was forced to run from the hotel in Rawalipindi that the family had been in for a year and 3 months because life for Hazara Afghans in Pakistan was hellish, every day had to be spent hiding inside, no playing, no running, no laughing, just hiding. always hiding from the Pakistan backed Taliban.

Dad arrived in what he thought was Germany and discovered he was in hell, Port Hell that is, where he stayed for 8 months cut off from Amina and her brothers and sisters. No-one knows how that little child survived in Pakistan, hiding, always hiding, no dad, no way out of the hotel.

Amina arrived here in January 2001 with her brothers and sisters and mum thinking that her dad was dead, not remembering her dad, just remembering the hiding and the terror. The boat nearly sank, they believed they would drown on the way to Germany, this little doll and her brothers and sisters.

Woomera awaited them. And they waited, and waited, and waited - for two years they waited while DIMIA kept dad in Sydney and Amina in Woomera. We all met her brothers, terrified, brutalised, victimised little boys left to die in the desert. Arrested like hardened criminals, denied refuge from us. Woomera to wait and wait and wait.

We never met this tiny china doll, knee high to a grasshopper as we say in the bush. Just 3 years old when she was locked in Woomera, her little legs still bear testament to near starvation over her baby years.

One eye was nearly lost in Woomera, for Amina, this china doll, this faceless baby.

Samina was only 6 in Woomera, tiny, funny, beautiful bright Samina was only the age Amina is today. This lovely, faceless little beauty was dying and crying day and night in Woomera, wanting her dad, wanting out of hell. But we did not meet Samina, we just met her poor big brothers, broken out, articulate, funny and terrified brothers. Arrested like animals, incarcerated with the batons, the tear gas, trying to die in Woomera.

Nagina was only 9, the same age as Samina today. Nagina is finally gaining some weight but bears the scars of chronic hunger suffered for many years in Afghanistan, the fear and the hiding from the Taliban, the strange and terrible hotel in Pakistan without her dad.

Imagine we had met Amina, Samina and Nagina while we were busy treating their big brothers, only 12 and 14, like hardened murderers. Arrested like animals, away from their dad, by decree. Imagine we had seen Amina crying and afraid in Woomera when she was three.

Would we have cared for Amina, this child I love like life itself, would we have worried about Samina or Nagina, not understanding their terrible prison while dad was free?

The boys ask me "why Marilyn"? Are we monsters, are we creatures from the sky? What did we do? Why do Amina, Samina and Nagina have to cry like this?

Why did Amina lose her dad, lose her mum, lose her uncle, nearly lose her brothers? What did this china doll child ever do?

Amanda said "we cannot split up this family".

Dad in Sydney for 2 years while mum and children are in Woomera.

Dad with the family in Baxter for 5 months.

Mum and the girls in Woomera, dad in Baxter with the boys.

Mum in hospital in Adelaide, Dad and boys in Baxter, girls in Woomera alone.

Mum in hospital in Adelaide, children in house in Adelaide, dad in Baxter.

Mum in motel in Adelaide, children in house in Adelaide, dad in Baxter.

Mum with baby and children in house in Adelaide, dad in Baxter.

Not bad for not wanting to split up this family is it?

Amina is just 6. Amina is the size of a china doll. Amina spent 32 months in high security detention out in the desert without her dad. Now her dad is out in the desert and she is "free" apart from 24/7 guards taking her to parties and to school.

Who is Amina? Amina is the baby daughter of Ali and Roquia, Hazara Afghans from Takht in Oruzgan, Shahrestan. Does the government know this? Did they know that Ali was here months before Roquia did? Yes. Did they tell her? No.

$1.3 million detention in Woomera and Baxter, $750,000 in the motel. Amina is only 6.

Does anyone care about Amina except for me? Will anyone help Amina have her dad too? His visa was taken on false pretences.

In the federal court last time the government rested their case on the AGE report as a way of saying Ali was Pakistani.

Wouldn't it have been good if someone read it.

So who then is Ali Bakhtiyari? The results of the Age investigation suggest he is originally from Afghanistan and definitely from the Hazara ethnic group, the descendants of 13th century Mongol invader Genghis Khan. Hazaras are Shiite Muslims and account for 20 per cent of the nation's 25 million people.

Roquia is his cousin, therefore an Hazara Afghan. His children are his cousins, therefore Hazara Afghan.

Does anyone ever read?

Marilyn Shepherd is a reader of Axis of Logic from Australia.  She submitted this piece to us via e-mail.  We are thankful to her and others like her who remind us of the "little people", the children, mothers and fathers who not remembered even by us, when some men, their governments and corporations decide it is time to go to war men in other nations.