ChilOut is a not-for-profit community group. We seek to increase public awareness by providing accurate information and case stories showing what is happening to children inside our immigration detention centres (IDCs). We hold to account those responsible for the gap between what policy promises and delivers.

 

2001 - ChilOut formed. The suffering of 6 year old Shayan Badraie was aired on ABC's Four Corners. Very quickly ChilOut drew the support of many thousands of Australian parents and citizens who were against the detention of children. 

2005 - Our campaign was put on hold after amendments were made to the Migration Act. Following a HREOC report, children would now only be detained as a last resort. All children were released from secure detention facilities and the ChilOut Board, volunteers and supporters sighed a big happy sigh.

2008 - ALP Government releases its Key Immigration Detention Values statement. Essentially a great set of policy intentions, this stated that children (including foreign fishers) would not be held in IDCs and that for all people, detention in IDCs would be used 'as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time'. The reality however is that these values have never been put into place. 

It was also in 2008 that the Government opened the Christmas Island Detention Centre and began detaining children there. Despite the many names given to types of detention, ChilOut maintains that asylum seeker children there are in detention plain and simple. HREOC has clearly stated that asylum seeker children should not be held on Christmas Island.

 

2009 - now Although there has been no official change to 2005 amendments or the values statement, children are being detained as the first option and often for lengthy periods. Unaccompanied minors as young as 6 years old are being held in remote, completely inappropriate conditions and the known damage to children is wilfully continuing every day on Christmas Island and around Australia. So, here we are again, ChilOut is revived and we will campaign to ensure the rights of these children are upheld.

Who are these children?

They are aged zero to eighteen, they have fled war zones, watched family members killed or persecuted, or who have been subject to persecution and harm themselves. Many are alone, they are frightened, they are traumatised. They are incarcerated by Australia. We will endeavour to keep our home page as up to date as possible on the statistics of how many children are suffering in detention at any one time. 

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