Children Out of Detention
13 May 2004
Press Release 11/2004
CHILDREN SUFFER UNTOLD ABUSE IN IMMIGRATION MINISTERS� CARE
CHILOUT'S RESPONSE TO HREOC REPORT
ChilOut welcomes the publication of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission�s report of its National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. Entitled A last resort?, the report is the first of its kind in the world, a systematic audit of child detainees� treatment by our government against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Under Australia�s Migration Act (1958), all people who arrive in Australia without the correct documents are to be detained until they are granted a visa or deported. There are no exceptions for babies and children and no minimum period of detention set. Hundreds of vulnerable children � including those with disabilities and those without parents - are locked up in remote desert camps for months and sometimes years before being granted refugee status. HREOC finds multiple breaches of the child detainees� human rights. It covers the period 1999 to the present.
"If the Immigration Minister had been held as accountable as any parent in Australia, these children would have been taken out of her hands long ago," said Dianne Hiles, spokesperson for ChilOut (Children Out of Detention).
�The Inquiry heard an overwhelming amount of evidence about the effects of detention on children," said Ms Hiles, �that would be impossible for any parent to ignore. The Immigration Department ignored report after report of harm done to already traumatised children. What the Minister has authorised, along with her predecessor, is human rights abuse.�
The report details the horrors detainee children experience - riots, fires, guard brutality, tear gas and water canons. �It doesn't take a psychiatrist to analyse an image like that, to find out what must be going on in a child's mind. No child should experience such things, not a refugee, not a citizen, not anyone,� Ms Hiles said.
The report paints a catastrophic picture of children as young as nine self-harming. They drink shampoo, go on hunger strike, cut themselves, hang themselves and sew their lips.
"People can no longer claim ignorance about what is going on behind the razor wire and electric fences. The remaining 150 children must be released immediately, with their families. And this must never happen again.� ChilOut is calling for the release of all children and families from detention, and the abolition of the law that has legalised child abuse.
CONTACT: Dianne Hiles, 0425 244 667 or Alanna Sherry, 0417 177 530.
ChilOut (Children Out Of Detention) is a group of parents and citizens opposed to the mandatory detention of children in Australian immigration detention centres.