An Australian man who started a petition on Change.org to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to stop the deportation of his wife is just a few thousand names away from his goal of 35,000 signatures.
According to Robert Whitmore, his wife and mother of his 4-year-old Australian daughter is being ordered by Australian immigration authorities to return within 3-weeks to her native Ghana from where she fled out of fear of the grotesque practice of female genital mutilation.
And all due to a mistake on her visa application, according to Whitmore.
The deportation order leaves the them with two stark family splitting choices – either mum goes back to Africa on her own, leaving their daughter without a mother, or the daughter goes with mum back to Ghana where she too will face the prospect of genital mutilation as well as leaving her father and home behind.
“My world has been shattered – my wife and 4-year-old daughter, an Aussie citizen, have been given three weeks to leave the country. They’re being sent to Ghana and a tribe who still practice female genital mutilation,” Whitmore states on the petition page he set up, soliciting public support to the family’s cause.
“The Immigration Department has left us with a cruel decision – leave our baby girl without her mum. Or send her to Ghana, where she’ll face female circumcision,” he states.
“It’s not a decision any parents should have to make. So I am begging you – please sign to support help our family stay together and stop this cruel deportation.”
“Immigration Minister Peter Dutton can’t be this heartless to send a 4-year-old Aussie kid to face this horrific, dangerous practice.”
At the time of writing, the petition had gained almost 31,000 signatories with just over 4,000 need to reach the goal of 35,000.
Visit the petition page on Change.org