Iraqi girl challenges Ruddock claim

By Craig Skehan, Sydney Morning Herald, May 6 2002.

An Iraqi girl is challenging a claim by the Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, that she was not confined for nine days with her father and 22 other men following a clash between guards and inmates at Woomera detention centre.

The girl said yesterday that as a result of her treatment in December 2000, she continued to suffer from trauma, and screamed out in her sleep.

Mr Ruddock told Parliament at the time that the then 11-year-old girl, since identified as Maysaa El-Helo, had "never been confined" as alleged.

Yesterday, Mr Ruddock told Channel 9: "I didn't check the files myself, but the advice that was given to me was that they had not been separately detained from other detainees in the general compound."

He asked why, if the matter was so serious, there had not been a complaint to either the Commonwealth Ombudsman or the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

However, it emerged that this was wrong, and complaints had been lodged with both organisations. Mr Ruddock's office was forced to issue a correction.

A spokeswoman for Mr Ruddock last night denied a claim that the girl and her father, Kadhem El-Helo, were not given food for three days.

She said it was possible the accommodation block in which Maysaa was kept did not have other women or girls.

However, the spokeswoman said the time involved was five days, not nine, and the section of the detention centre where they were sent following rioting had included women and children.

There are more than 500 children of asylum seekers detained in Australia and in detention centres run on Australia's behalf in the South Pacific.

Maysaa was six when her mother died in Iran. When she was 10 she arrived in Australia by boat with her father, who had been a jeweller in Iraq.

Both were eventually deemed to be genuine refugees and, with temporary protection visas, are living in Sydney.

"I want to let John Howard know how it feels like to stay in detention," Maysaa told Channel 9. "I want him really to understand how people would feel if their kids or he was there for that long 10 months."