Transcript of speech by Nurse Moira-Jane
ChilOut Information Night, 3^rd June 2002.
Available also in PDF or MS Word format

Hello everyone. Im so glad to see you all here tonight. My name is Moira-Jane, Im 37 years old, married, mother of 3, reg nurse, etc. In 2000 I did 2 tours of the Woomera Immigration and Reception Processing Centre, 12 weeks in total in March/April and July/August. My last 2 days there were at the August 2000 riot.

In March 2000 it became necessary for me to consider working away from home for a short time. I had heard about these great contracts, 42 days and very generous pay. With a small amount of effort I had the information I needed and was preparing to leave for Woomera. I think it was around the 22nd. The night before I left we were watching 4corners, there was a doctor on there talking about how wrong the detention centres and the treatment within them was, there were also 2 Algerian men who were deported after being chemically and physically restrained. I must admit this program really made me wonder what I was getting into but I laughed it off and with a minor amount of trepidation left for Woomera.

I have many horror stories, too many to tell now, personally witnessed or told to me. The stories I want to share with you are some from the camp. The daily humiliations and indignities. The abuses of human rights and childrens rights, the flagrant breaching of the UNHCR minimum standards for detention.

I was met at the Roxby Downs airport by a prison guard, or detention officer as they prefer to be called, semantics really, they are prison guards. We travelled the 80kms to Woomera slowly and arrived at this hot, dusty, arid, miserable cage in the desert. It was surreal, like being transported to the scene of a mad max movie. The zoo, full of men, women and children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, beseeching the guards that; "please, we are human, we are not animals, why do you treat us like this?" "This is what it is like in our country, but they dont imprison children", "we thought we would be safe but we walked ourselves to jail" The desperation and hopelessness permeated the very air and the longest any of those people had been there at that stage was 5 months. Some of those same people and their children, are still there!

There were always people hovering along the perimeter of the fence, pleading with whoever went past. Waiting to see Mr. Tony from DIMA to beg he help them. Often the detainees would come to the nurses asking us to intervene with DIMA on their behalf, not really believing that there was nothing we could do. I discovered that they did have the right to request an interview at any time and got the appropriate request form from DIMA. I p/copied loads of them and put them in the medical centre so we could use them whenever we were asked. One day in July, myself and another RN filled out 2 of these forms. Donna for a mother who had already tried to hang herself and myself for a 19 year old man from Afghanistan. He had fled the Taliban after they discovered he was volunteering his labour in a Aid Agency Vaccination clinic. He fled after someone got word to him that his home had been ransacked and they were waiting for him. I put these forms in the DIMA pigeon hole. Later in the day I had to follow up something in the DIMA office, there I noticed both request forms in the bin. Why have you thrown these out? Oh, theyve been screened out at initial interview. Here they were, a mother and son, whose husbands cut up dead body had been delivered to her in a box and a 19yr old beardless youth. They couldnt speak any English, they had no legal representation and they had a line ruled through them in Darwin before they even made it to the detention centre and no one, no one was prepared to tell them anything. DIMA had known at that stage for 9 months that they had failed at initial interview and for that reason they saw no purpose in granting their request of an interview. What the hell is going on I wondered.

Ive seen and heard the guards laughing at the pain and suffering of the people imprisoned in Woomera. Singing to the Iraqis who have had a rejection; "Im leaving on a jet plane, goin back to see saddam hussein". Witnessed the guard making a detainee beg for soap. No English did this woman speak, she had learnt the word soap from someone. To the guard she said, "soap". The soap was proffered and withdrawn when she reached for it, again and again until she said please. I watched those poor women in their purdahs, cringe in shame as we forced them to abandon every cultural sensitivity they had and attend a mixed clinic, sit in a room with men and then have to ask for sanitary products. They would stuff them under their purdahs or jumpers and scurry heads down and shame emanating, to the purile little boxes we provided for them to sleep in.

When I was in Woomera the first time the numbers in the camp swelled to 1435 or 38, Some boats arrived from Xmas Is and Ashmore Reef and 2 new compounds were constructed. India and Sierra. In India were housed all the new arrivals. They were flown into Woomera in the dead of night, by chartered plane and landed at the Woomera airstrip. They were then herded onto the bus and into their pens for the night, after some basic physical processing was done.

Sierra was the punishment block. Maximum security, total intimidation. It appeared that the officers had carte blanche, total discretion over who and when was incarcerated in Sierra and for how long. Age was no barrier. I personally witnessed a 12 year old spread eagled against a wall, unable to move, under guard while the rest of them laughed. He was a cheeky kid. They called him a little cunt and told him if he didnt watch himself hed be going on a holiday to Sierra, his response landed him in maximum security, under guard, without his mothers knowledge and without his understanding. He was treated for abrasions to his neck from being dragged by the scruff, a complaint was filed but no further action taken by DIMA or ACM.

Sierra became dreaded. If you resisted a room search you went to Sierra. If you upset a guard by answering back or looking the wrong way, you went to Sierra. If a guard didn't like you, you went to Sierra. If your visa application was rejected, you went to Sierra. If you tried to kill yourself, you went to Sierra. If you upset anyone in Villawood, you would be flown, in secret, in the middle of the night, without knowledge of your destination, to Woomera. Once there, you would be incarcerated in Sierra. I once asked a man in this exact situation how Woomera compared to Villawood. His answer? Villawood is like a 5 star hotel compared to here.

As nurses we were eyed with suspicion by the guards, management and DIMA. A few of us would advocate strongly on our patients behalf. Unfortunately our health services manager was very much a company woman and we had no support what so ever. At one stage some of us had our names, addresses and telephone numbers translated into Arabic and Farsi so that we could give them to the people wed gotten to know and care about and support them on their release. We had to have them in Persian and Arabic so the guards couldnt understand what it was if they saw it. More than one nurse lost their contract for this reason. ACMs response to this was to completely ban all nurses from saying goodbye to anyone when they were given a visa. That was so hard. We were also told how our phones would be tapped and ASIO was watching us. God it was bizarre. The paranoia and suspicion were incredible.

During my first visit to Woomera I ate the same food as the refugees. After 2 weeks of chronic stomach pain I received a meal that I was able to scrape in one complete lump into the bin. It was the colour and consistency of pal dogshit. By that stage the smell of coleslaw was making me wretch, it was the daily staple along with rice. I just could not face another mouthful of any of it. That was after 2 weeks. Try 2 years.

The riot of August 2000 was a horror I never expected to see in my country. Water cannons and guards with body armour and guns, burning buildings, smoke and stones. The day after I watched the shell shocked families come wandering out of the rubble, their children skirting around the debris, the tears and apologies and the guards recriminations started. Another story altogether. I watched in disbelief as a loud roar shook the earth and sky and an airforce bomber flew low over the camp, practising manoeuvres, terrifying those war shattered people. I could have been anywhere except Australia.

.I spent most of my time there imagining. Imagine if it was my children. Imagine how bad it must have been to make that journey here. Imagine how much pain they must feel. Imagine being intimate with your husband to have a guard burst into your room at any time, and then imagine the further humiliation when he shares his story with anyone wholl listen. Imagine having such rotten teeth and being in agony and told youll have to wait at least another 2 months to see a dentist. Imagine that you can only have that tooth treated if you agree to its removal. Imagine morning sickness and a rigid, regimented feeding schedule when you and your children joined a queue (you cant jump this one, it really is there) to receive your allocation. Dont try not to eat, youll be punished. Dont try to get extra, especially milk, small children dont need that much. Imagine your kidneys are failing and the only way to save them or slow the process is to eat a low protein diet and you cant. Imagine all you have to wear is a pair of shorts, a tee shirt and a pair of thongs and its around 1deg C in the morning, and your thongs are being held together with wire and string that youve managed to scavenge off the army tents. Imagine you are 17 years old and all you want to do is go to school and instead you can do nothing at all. Imagine that you slowly watch your family disintegrate before your eyes. Imagine seeing someone lose their mind. Imagine watching someone hurt themselves because they wish they were dead. Imagine how bad it must be to leave everything and everyone you know, your language, your culture, your family, your friends. Imagine the only thing that sustains you is the thought of safety and haven and warmth and caring. Imagine that sustenance giving you the courage to cross oceans in dangerous, rickety leaky boats and instead when you arrive, you are treated as worse than an animal. Imagine why people who fled to save their lives and saw them as precious, are now trying to lose them. Imagine that you have NO RIGHTS. If you can imagine all that, then you can begin to have a small sense of what Woomera detention centre is like, and perhaps can feel just a little of the anguish that fills those cages.