Australia Slammed Over Refugee Children In Mandatory Detention

By Josh Butler Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 2015 (IPS) - The Australian Human Rights Commission has savaged its government’s treatment of refugee children held in detention, calling holding centres “dangerous” and “distressing.”

Australia’s controversial policy of mandatory detention for refugees arriving by boat has again come under the spotlight with the release of the ‘Forgotten Children’ report.

More than 1100 children were interviewed in 11 detention centres, both on the mainland and in Australian-operated offshore facilities on Nauru and Christmas Island.

The commission found children in immigration detention had “significantly higher rates of mental health disorders compared with children in the Australian community,” and that children on Nauru “are suffering from extreme levels of physical, emotional, psychological and developmental distress.”

“It is troubling that members of the Government and Parliament and Departmental officials are either uninformed about, or ignore, the human rights treaties to which Australia is a party,” commission president Professor Gillian Triggs wrote in the report’s foreword.

The report states 800 children were held in immigration detention at the time of publication, with 167 babies born in detention in the last two years.

The report was handed to the Australian government in November 2014, but only tabled in parliament by the government on February 11.

“34 per cent of children detained in Australia and Christmas Island have a mental health disorder of such severity they require psychiatric support,” Triggs said

“Children are self-harming in detention at very high rates – over a 15 month period from 2013-2014, there were 128 incidents of self-harm amongst children.”

The commission found 33 sexual assaults between January 2013 and March 2014, with “the majority involving children.”

A 16-year-old boy on Nauru was allegedly sexually assaulted by a cleaner, in view of security staff, while an 8-year-old boy was allegedly sexually assaulted by adult detainees in view of a staff member. There were also 27 incidents of children engaging in hunger strikes.

A paediatrician told the AHRC that “almost all the children on Christmas Island are sick.” Aside from tacit abuse, the report slammed detention facilities as inappropriate and dangerous.

“Families on Christmas Island live in converted shipping containers and the majority of these rooms are 2.5 x 3 metres,” the report states.

The AHRC said children on Christmas Island were denied education for over a year, one of numerous breaches of the Convention On The Rights Of The Child. Centres were not equipped with enough basic materials, such as paper and books, to teach classes.

One child told investigators of the unhygienic conditions on Nauru. “Disease got worse in the camp and still expanding. Sometimes because of the smell, our camp it’s like a sewer… Around the toilets are mountain of toilet paper and pee and poo and water up to your ankle,” the child said.

Children were also reportedly denied appropriate clothes, underwear, footwear and bed sheets. Even children eventually released from detention still felt lingering effects. Parents reported recently-released children suffering from constant crying, anxiety, mental illness, poor sleep, nightmares, and self harm.

The AHRC has called for all children and families in detention in Australia and Nauru to be released, and for amendments to Australia’s Migration Act to ensure families are only detained for necessary health and security checks.

Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said the AHRC “ought to be ashamed of itself,” and when asked if he felt any guilt over the findings, replied “none whatsoever.”