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Zainab Alsweedy used to go by Abbie to hide her identity while studying law, but now proudly wears it while drawing on her forced migration experience in aiding asylum seekers to Australia.
She was named co-winner of South Australia's Young Lawyer of the Year on Saturday for her advocacy as a migration lawyer working on humanitarian cases, reuniting families separated for years on end.
Ms Alsweedy, 32, and her family escaped Iraq more than two decades ago with her father fearing reprisals against them during Saddam Hussein's tyrannical reign.
They jumped on a boat from Indonesia seeking asylum in Australia.
"The reason why we came by boat is because when you're a refugee you actually don't have time to launch an application and wait for it to be granted," she told AAP.
"We didn't have that luxury."
Ms Alsweedy's family spent about a year in the remote Woomera detention centre in the desert about 500 kilometres north of Adelaide, which had recently opened under the Howard government to deal with the influx of asylum seekers.
"There was a lot of uncertainty, we didn't know when we would leave, there was a lot of confusion because the authorities themselves didn't know what to do with us as we were the first batch of asylum seekers," she said.
That sense of dread and uncertainty in Woomera echoes through her career, when dealing with people trying to flee war zones took a toll on her mental health and family life.
Most of her caseload is comprised of Afghan refugees, in the wake of two years of the autocratic Taliban taking over the country prompting millions to escape.
"We were getting calls from people hiding in Afghanistan that contacted our law firm needing desperate help and I get where they're at because I've been there myself."
"But the Department of Immigration still requires all these assessments filled out and certified which is impossible to get police clearance for a character check in Afghanistan right now."
"These situations where I can't help are the ones that really trigger me."
But she also mentioned the reuniting of a young Afghan orphan with his sister in Australia as an example of a win that sustains her.
Ms Alsweedy is calling on the Australian government to increase the humanitarian intake beyond the recently announced expansion of 20,000 places annually.
After three years of practise, she is still a relative newcomer to what remains quite an exclusionary field.
Ms Alsweedy worked on building her family's culinary businesses throughout the state, and in the United Arab Emirates as a consultant before taking a chance and returning to law.
"To be standing in the legal profession among some of the best in South Australia is such a big deal for me," she said.
"This award is the symbolism of proving that my parents' sacrifice was worth it."