Stories that motivate ChilOut
Nothing speaks louder than the stories of the children themselves. These examples, and many more like them, of harm suffered by children in our immigration detention centres are why ChilOut formed and why we continue to gather support. The story of Shayan Badraie was featured on Four Corners on ABC TV in August 2001. An outraged group of parents and citizens responded to this documentary by forming ChilOut.
Note: On 2 March 2006, the Department of Immigration reached an out of court settlement with Shayan Badraie. Shayan Badraie was seeking damages from the department on the grounds he was psychologically harmed by witnessing suicide attempts and violence at the Woomera and Villawood detention centres between 2000 and 2002. On the same day his family was granted permanent residency.
Afnan, Thurgan, Nashwan, Human
More refugee stories can be read on The Better Way. Read about The Alhelo Family.
Shayan Badraie
Shayan's picture (right), which he drew as a 6 year old, shows Shayan and his sister crying, with their parents. The van at bottom right is the ambulance that would take Shayan to and from Westmead Children's Hospital, when he needed to be rehydrated because he would not eat or drink properly. Top left is a guard with a baton. Bottom left is a detainee bleeding where he has cut his wrist. All along the top is the razor wire that sits across the fences at Villawood.
Excerpted and edited from Chapter 8, Section 8.7 of HREOC Report.
In March 2000 Shayan, aged five, arrived in Australia by boat with his parents and was taken to Woomera detention centre. There he witnessed hunger strikes, fires and riots, in which tear gas and water cannons were used. In November of the same year Shayan saw an adult detainee slash his chest with a shard of glass and jump from a tree.
After these experiences Shayan suffered nightmares, anxiety and sleep disturbance. He would awake at night crying, sometimes gripping his chest and saying 'they are going to kill us'. Over and over he drew pictures of fences with himself and his family confined inside them. He withdrew socially and displayed aggressive behaviour. Shayan was diagnosed as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In March 2001, the family was transferred to Villawood. In April Shayan's father took him to the medical clinic, because he became distressed after witnessing a fight between detainees. Later, Shayan saw another suicide attempt. After this he would not leave his parents. He hid under a blanket, wet himself, would not eat, would only drink small amounts of milk, would not speak, and could not sleep.
In May 2001 Shayan was admitted to Westmead Hospital for the first time. He was assessed as being acutely traumatised and at risk of dehydration. Following his return to Villawood, he was readmitted to Westmead for a period of eight weeks, and then on six more occasions. He was seen 70 times by the Villawood detention centre medical service and ACM health staff. Westmead Hospital specialists wrote 13 letters outlining the gravity of Shayan's case and urging the Minister to remove him from the detention environment.
On 31 May 2001, a child psychiatrist wrote to the Minister drawing a clear link between Shayan's illness and his experiences in detention:
Shayan is a seven year-old boy [who] has been diagnosed with acute [and] chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of traumatic experiences in his fourteen months in Woomera and Villawood Detention Centres …
We are concerned about the risks of discharging Shayan back to Villawood Detention Centre. From the point of view of his psychological treatment, he should not be re-exposed to the emotionally traumatic environment that precipitated his acute deterioration.
On 23 August 2001 Shayan was transferred into foster care detention in the community, without his parents or sister.
On 9 August 2002 the entire family were recognised as refugees, and now live together in the Australian community on temporary protection visas.
Amina
This is the story of a girl called Amina. For two years, she has lived in the Nauru detention camp with her brothers, aged nine and 16, and her sisters, aged seven and 11.
Excerpted from Nauru: the cage where life gets lost, by Suzy Freeman-Greene, The Age December 27, 2003.
Amina is 14. She has never been to a cinema, she says, but she has watched her grandmother die at sea. I'll let her explain:
"I have a very kind mum that I love her so much, more than this world," Amina writes.
"And I had a lovely grandmother but we lost her when our ship was fire-caught in a big ocean, I don't know the name of that ocean. She was buried in Christmas Island".
"I'm from Afghanistan and I and my family had a lot of problems in my country. The Taliban or Pashtun people used to kill the young boys and men, they used to take our things etc - we are the Hazara, and they used to take the young girls and violate them. So my father, Musa, sold all of things we had and he chose this way because we had heard that Australia's government and the people of Australia are very kind…"
"Now we are in Nauru. You know I hate Nauru, due to here is a jail. I'm in a cage. I have been here near two years, this is not fair. I'm not worried about myself I'm worried about my family. My mother is always ill, sick, she's always in bed, my father, too. You know, my life has been lots of sorrow, always, always, and now we come to this way to be peace and safe but they tell us to go back, anyway, now I feel like a crazy.
Amina likes to draw pictures. In one, a weeping bird asks for help. Around its ankle is a huge ball and chain. In another, hands reach out imploring, "please help me, release". Beside them, Amina has drawn her broken heart, sobbing.
Faezeh, Feaz and Ansar
Excerpted from Love and Suffering: A former detainee's story about growing up in detention, Amnesty Newsletter Feb 2004.
"After three years in Port Hedland detention centre in north-west Western Australia, and four months in Villawood detention centre in Sydney, my family and I were released and granted permanent visas three days before Christmas. This is our story.
I left Iran because of some religious problems and some family problems and…. arrived in Australia when I was 19 years old. Since August 2000, I lived in detention centres with my mother, sister Fairmah (17), and my brothers Feaz (14) and Ansar (9). My brothers are intellectually disabled. They are very loving and affectionate but can be hard to look after sometimes.
Seventy-three of us, the people who arrived on the same boat, were kept in isolation for seven months. There were fifteen children living in the same compound. We were allowed outside about half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. There wasn't much for the children to do, no toys or anything to play with.
My brothers were prescribed some sedatives to try to calm them down. For Feaz, the older one, they increased the dose until all he did was sleep all the time. When they ran out of those tablets they gave them some other very strong tablets and soon my brothers got sick. Feaz was dizzy all the time, he collapsed and vomited but the medical officers said it was the flu so nothing was really done until August last year when a doctor recommended we move to Villawood because the boys needed to go to hospital. My mother and us kids moved to Villawood and my brothers went to the Children's hospital where they said the tablets had caused liver problems. My brothers are still having tests to see if there is any long-term damage.
Three days before Christmas last year, the officers came and told us to get packed. We didn't know what was going to happen. We were taken to another part of the detention centre and at 5pm we were given a letter from Minister Vanstone that said we were granted permanent visas and we were immediately released. We had to leave straight away and were not allowed to go back to say goodbye to the others. When I get enough identification papers, I will be allowed to go back to visit."
Ghazal (no. 390)
Excerpted from Baby Ghazal's got a new name: No. 390, by Chris Goddard, The Age, April 13, 2004.
An eight-month-old girl is closely watched by guards. Her parents' crime is to have asked for freedom. This journey, taking her first child home, was one that she had long imagined, but now dreaded. Ghazal had been born two weeks early by caesarean, small but healthy. Ghazal's mother remembers the journey home after five days in hospital. The nearby hills reminded her of the country she was raised in, although the soil around Shiraz was never as red.
The steel gates opened to admit Ghazal, her mother, the two guards and their driver to the Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre. She carried Ghazal, Baxter No. 390, into their room in Blue One compound. The gates and doors closed behind them.
Ghazal's parents … are health workers from Iran. Ghazal is now eight months old, born in Australia, but not Australian. Her parent's journey here is no less symbolic. They arrived on Ashmore Reef on Christmas day 2000. Three years later, they have moved from one detention centre, Curtin, to another. And they now have a daughter…
I have seen something that I should never have seen. I have been to see an eight-month-old girl, small for her age, smiling at her parents, soon to be walking, her every move watched by guards. I have seen an infant behind grey wires and electric fences, in a high-security prison on the edge of Australia's dead heart. I have seen her parents found guilty, without trial, of wanting freedom. I have seen parents so proud of their first-born, but so close to despair. I have seen an infant given a number. I have seen a baby girl kept in a cage.
I drive hundreds of kilometres to my own home. I drive through towns and small settlements desperate for health workers, through places established by refugees, places where they want more families, more children. I drive for most of the night, eating the fruit that we could not leave for Ghazal and her parents, desperately wanting this journey to end.
Dr Chris Goddard is interim director of Monash University's national research centre for the prevention of child abuse.
Afnan, Thurgan, Nashwan, Human
Dianne Hiles recalls: I met six year old Afnan on my very first visit to Villawood in August 2001. She was there then with her three brothers, still separated from their parents who were remanded in WA prisons on charges relating to the Port Hedland riots earlier that year. Human and Nashwan were then in their mid teens and caring for her and eleven year old Thurgan. For a while the older boys had also been placed in juvenile detention and these two little souls were left to fend for themselves, first in Port Hedland, and later transferred to the completely strange surrounds of Villawood where they knew no-one.
The play "In Our Name" gets across how Afnan, a tiny child who would not understand why her mother was not with her, at night went from bed to bed of different mother figures seeking comfort or, alternatively, cried herself to sleep.
When I first heard this story, the thought of what that beautiful, vulnerable little girl must have gone through, alone and confused for all those nights, four months without her mother, tore me apart.
This is what the beleaguered family looked like in October 2001, after Mrs Al Abbadi was reunited with them. Because we couldn’t take photographs, we sketched Afnan, Thurgan and Mrs Al Abbadi.
Excerpted from Chapter 14, Section 14.6.2, HREOC Report.
On the 20 December 20 1999, the Al Abaddi family from Iraq arrived at Christmas Island. They were transferred firstly to Curtin Detention Centre and then, in May 2000, to Port Hedland. The children, Afnan, Thurgan, Nashwan, and Human were then aged 4, 9, 13 and 15.
In December 2000 Nashwan, then 14, was hospitalised in Perth. After this, it was recommended the family be transferred to a detention centre where appropriate psychiatric services were available.
In May 2001 the parents were remanded in separate WA prisons on charges relating to the Port Hedland riots earlier that year. The two older boys were sent to juvenile prison, but released later without conviction or punishment. Meanwhile Afnan and Thurgan were kept at Port Hedland without their parents or any other relatives to look after them. They could call their brothers and make a monthly call to their parents, as per policy.
In July 2001 the children were transferred to Villawood, where they were reunited with their brothers. Their parents remained in prison. The children were designated 'unaccompanied minors' and Afnan was supervised by a nurse and detention centre officer for daily care needs, such as being taken to school and made ready for bed. Initially, another detained family took care of the children but this family was deported soon after the children's arrival. Afnan had to spend evenings by herself in the female dorm, as her brothers had separate accommodation. Other detainees [said that] the child would cry for her mother at night and did not want to sleep in her own bed. She became increasingly aggressive. The two oldest children suffered depression, and … both at least once cut their wrists in an attempt at suicide.
In September 2001 their mother was reunited with her children, and in April 2002 their father was also transferred to Villawood. On February 10, 2003, after more than fours years in detention the family left Australia.
Snapshot of self-harm, Children at Woomera,
14 June 2002. Excerpted from Chapter 9, HREOC Report.
1-year-old girl: 'Parents on hunger strike 22/5, [baby] being fed by a 10-year-old cousin, child asked for help to feed [her]. Father stated God would look after the child or the child may have to go without. Mother tired. Father suicidal. Tier 1'. 19/5 FAYS recommended 'that an urgent referral be made for Psychiatric Assessment of both mother and father, in terms of the capacity of either of them to provide safe and nurturing parenting'. Length of detention: 14 months.
5-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy: 'mother stated she is going on a hunger strike 28/5, and the children will not be fed. Statement related to whether or not the family are provided with a visa. Tier 2'.
9-year-old girl: 'admitted to hospital after drinking a bottle of shampoo 29/5. Has witnessed self-harming by adults. Is providing the primary caregiver role for her five younger siblings. Father not interested and mother accepts the self-harm attempts by her daughter, sees her as the spokesperson for the family. Tier 2'. Length of detention: 10 months.
11-year-old boy: 'had superficial cuts to his left forearm 27/5, mother stating he cut himself with a razor. Mother had cut herself on 26/5. Tier 2'. '[He] was in the play area where he tied a sheet around his neck and then held a razor to his throat telling officers not to come nearer or he will slash. He also requested his father be cured by tonight or you will see something the compound has never seen before (father starving himself)'. Length of detention: 14 months.
13-year-old boy: 'attempted to hang himself 17/5, tied a bed sheet around his neck to some playground equipment. Kicked a chair away from himself when officer asked him what was wrong. Tier 2'. Length of detention: 14 months.
Same 13-year-old boy and 11-year-old sister: 'Both are serious suicide risks. Parents depressed and unable to care for them. Tier 2'. Length of detention: 14 months.
14-year-old girl: 'stated she is on hunger strike in protest for not receiving a visa, 29/5. Tier 2'. Length of detention: 10 months.
17-year-old unaccompanied boy: 'disclosed he had been sexually assaulted but would not name perpetrator. Later overdosed on hidden medication'. '[He] thinks of suicide all the time and has tried many times including trying to electrocute and hang himself. Feels hopeless, tired with life. General practice intake'.
A report conducted by DHS in August 2002 noted an increase in the prevalence of self-harm amongst children over the preceding months:
Reports of self-harm, threats of suicide and suicidal ideation amongst the children have been reasonably regular throughout this year but have escalated during recent months. Such reports are generated by the centre itself, after a critical incident, or by CAMHS [Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services] counsellors who have identified significant suicidal risks with specific children. Some children have had one incident of self-harming but there are a number of children where such behaviour has become regular.
Since January 2002 a total of 50 reports of self-harm have been raised on 22 children, ranging in age from 7 years to 17 years. These incidents included hanging attempts; self-harm by cutting arms or ingesting shampoo; and persistent depression and/or suicidal thoughts. The most frequent incidents occurred with children who are 10 and 12 years of age. Children aged 14 years are the next highest sub-category represented in this group.
60% of these reports related to children aged 12 years or less.