Australia is still abusing children�s human rights with impunity
Alanna Sherry, 13 May 2005.
A year ago today, Australia�s human rights watchdog, HREOC (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) released the much-anticipated report of its National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. Almost a thousand pages long, �A Last Resort?� is the nation�s most comprehensive and accurate account of what happens to children when they are locked up for being in Australia without a valid visa. At the time Tony Abbott tabled the report in Parliament on 13 May, successfully burying its findings in Budget week, there were 173 children in immigration detention.
�A last resort?� refers to the requirement under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - a treaty Australia promised to adhere to in 1990 - that no child be detained in Australia except as a last resort, after all other options have failed. Australia�s Migration Act, requiring all people without a valid visa to be detained (�mandatory detention�), with no exceptions, makes it impossible for Australia to comply with international law. Babies and children are detained as a first resort, not a last resort.
The HREOC Inquiry was the first of its kind in that it used its powers to obtain a huge volume of confidential evidence from the Department of Immigration and its detention services contractor. It also obtained written and oral testimony from detention centre staff and inmates. The Inquiry then made findings on children�s rights under international law, each one meticulously backed up by the Department�s own documents. HREOC made many findings of Australia breaching international law with respect to detained children. Australia�s mandatory detention system failed to ensure that detention was the last resort and for a short period only. Australia failed to make the best interests of the child a primary consideration: if children were not in detention centres in the first place, then they would not have been exposed to fires, riots, tear gas, water cannons and mass self-harm. Australia failed to treat children with respect and dignity, or help then recover from past torture and trauma.
Children�s mental health was the area where Australia fared the worst. The Inquiry fund that our government�s �failure to implement the repeated recommendations by mental health professionals that certain children be removed from the detention environment with their parents amounted to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of those children in detention.� Most detained children were long-term detainees and most had a diagnosed mental illness as a result. Most were from Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. Children as young as 9 cut themselves with razor blades, drank bottles of shampoo, went on hunger strike, sewed their lips up and hanged themselves from playground equipment and fences.
These findings were made in relation to children detained between 1999 and 2003. Over 90% were released on refugee visas and have started a new life in Australia. However the law has not changed and there are still 70 children languishing in detention, including a three year old girl who is banging her head against a wall, having been detained her entire life.
The Inquiry made three key recommendations:
1. Release all children in detention immediately, and no later than four weeks after the tabling of the Report. There was no need to amend the law, just for Minister Vanstone to authorise the children�s transfer to community detention, or release them on bridging visas for the remainder of their legal process. Better still, she could use her wide discretionary power and grant them permanent visas on compassionate grounds.
2. Pass new laws to outlaw the detention of children for immigration purposes. If any child was detained, then within 72 hours the government would have to satisfy a judge that the detention was necessary. A judge would also regularly review any detention of a child, guided by the principles that detention must be a last resort, for a short time and not split up families. Unaccompanied children would be given special protection and assistance.
3. Minimum standards for the treatment of child detainees should be in the legislation.
One year later, how are we faring? There are still 69 children under the age of 18 in detention � most behind the razor wire here in Sydney�s Villawood. Little Naomi Leong is just one of the toddlers there. No new laws have been passed to protect children�s human rights or set minimum standards of treatment. The private prison company that runs the detention centres, Global Solutions, may get a fine if it breaches its contract in a major way. Its activities, as is demonstrated by the current Palmer inquiry, are not open to public scrutiny.
Over the past year, some children and their families have been released from detention and Senator Vanstone is to be congratulated for that. In particular, she has released 64 of the 70 children that were in Nauru a year ago. The remaining Nauru children are all from Afghanistan and have been detained there since before the �Tampa election� of October 2001. The Prime Minister said in March this year that he had �no intention of altering the policy ... of offshore processing, of turning back boats, � and the policy of mandatory detention - that policy has worked extremely well.�
The only way to abolish this abhorrent policy is to tell your Prime Minister that you object. Over and over, until he gets the message loud and clear.