Shortlisted entries from the "Human Writes" essay competition
December 2005
Children in detention, By Amanda Milos, 12, NSW.
My name is Amanda Milios and I am in Year 7. I had never thought about human rights until very recently when I read a newspaper article about a six year old girl who was taken out of school because her parents were not born in Australia. Janey Hwang was forced into a detention centre with her twelve year old brother Ian, for more than four months. This disturbed me because the two children had not done anything wrong and they just wanted to live a normal life. I was also disturbed because they are very young (12 and 6 years old) and in my opinion they should not be put in a detention centre.
Children in immigration detention By Jenny Taylor, 14, VIC.
“Now we are in Nauru. You know I hate Nauru, due to here is a jail. I am in a cage…” This is 14-year-old Amina, who voices the distress of dozens of powerless children held in immigration detention. Through no choice of their own, many offspring of asylum seekers reside in rank and overcrowded institutions where there is an atmosphere of misery and depression, and the threats of disease and malnutrition are real. The government tries to smother their voices and mask the statistics and they did not address this issue until too much pain and suffering had already been inflicted.
A Question of Decency
The most fundamental of all rights is an Asylum seeker's right to freedom, the right not to be penalised for illegal entry into Australia, and the right to seek protection in another country. Despite public misconceptions, an Asylum seeker is not an illegal. Under Australian and International Law, a person is entitled to make an application for refugee asylum in another country when they allege they are escaping persecution.
Information Night with Senator Andrew Bartlett
On Monday 3 May 2004, ChilOut hosted an information evening with guest speakers Senator Andrew Bartlett and two of his advisers, Marianne Dickie and Karen Lee. Senator Bartlett and Marianne Dickie spoke of their two visits to Nauru, and Karen Lee shared her experiences of visting the Port Augusta housing project and Baxter detention centre.
Don't return children to detention
It is unlikely that the seven-year-old child of a family facing a return to detention and possible deportation understands why she must be punished because her parents dared to seek asylum in this country. It is certain her baby brother, who lives separately with their mother under constant supervision in a motel unit - at ridiculous and unnecessary public cost - does not.
Baby Ghazal's got a new name: No. 390
Dr Chris Goddard writes: [...] "As part of my work, I have seen prisons and secure units. I have seen children dying of child abuse, with fractures too many to count. I have seen children torn apart by sexual abuse. I have seen things I had to see, that I will never forget, that I found impossible to understand.
This time 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."
The quality of our mercy
If someone came to your door desperate and in distress, you wouldn't turn them away. Yet that's what we have done to asylum seekers, argue Robert Manne and David Corlett.
[...] The ethics of proximity identify the difference between the kind of obligations we owe to the 14 million refugees in the world and to the 12,000 who tried to reach Australia in recent years. There is little we can do for most of the 14 million. There is a great deal we could have done - and can still do - for those who, simply through their arrival in Australia or even their thwarted attempts to get here, established a relationship with Australia and who now fall, through their proximity, within a field of ethical obligation that we cannot avoid.
The inhuman culture of despair among children in our detention centres
[...] In my eight months as a teacher at the Woomera detention centre I could see children start to go downhill by about six months. Usually they were more resilient than their parents, who would often show distressing signs after three months, following rejection of their cases for refugee status. In the end though, the detention syndrome prevailed. How could children not be affected when parents become depressed and dysfunctional and when witnessing acts of violence and self-harming?
Read Tom Mann's submissions to HREOC:
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/children_detention/statements/mann.html
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/children_detention/submissions/mann_supp_a.html
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/children_detention/submissions/mann_supp_b.html
By any measure, it's official child abuse
AS we write, there are about 100 children still held in Australia's detention centres. These children are subject to organised and ritualised abuse by the Australian Government. We use the term "organised abuse" to mean that those children are being abused by many perpetrators who are acting together in ways that they know can be extremely harmful. And we use the term "ritualised abuse" to mean that the children are subject to formal and repeated acts of abuse carried out under a belief system that the government uses to justify such cruelty.
Damaging children, in our name
There must be a day of reckoning for those behind the policy of detaining children, writes Marc Purcell, executive officer of the Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace.
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone claims she is at last moving to release children from detention centres (as reported in The Age on Saturday). Good. But why didn't this decision come years ago?
Love & Suffering – A former detainee's story about growing up in detention
Faezeh's family has struggled through religious troubles and family breakdown, survived leaking fishing boats and over three years in isolation in detention centres. Her mentally disabled brothers' stories are a sorry tale of the scandalous damage our detention system has inflicted on children. Now released from detention, Faezeh publishes her story for the first time.
Kids speak about their immigration detention experiences.
NSW Commission for Children and Young People spoke with ten children and young people about their experiences of living in Australian immigration detention centres.
"For just one hour in the morning we come out of the room to see the sky and one hour in the afternoon. And then the doors closed, locked in."
(Unaccompanied teenage boy).
The Australians that make us proud...The Sarwari's in Launceston
Everything the Sarwaris said Marion would find in Afghanistan was there, their village, their home, their family, and their loved ones. Their village is not named on any official maps, but Marion followed hand written maps and travelled for days through dangerous territory, past Taliban checkpoints. She travelled with an interpreter and two local guides, who took them across country that had no roads, travelling instead up through a dry river system.
"Country guides" for asylum policy in The Netherlands
When the Dutch psychiatrist Maarten Dormaar (63) set off last summer for the island of Nauru in the western Pacific Ocean, he thought he would be able to put his knowledge and experience to good use in lending assistance to hundreds of Afghan and Iraqi boat refugees staying there. He returned four months later a bitter man, after completing his contract with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). "As my Norwegian predecessor had already observed, you go there with the best intentions of helping refugees, but you quickly conclude that you are participating in a system that only makes people sicker".
Why Temporary Protection Visas are a State issue
Over the last eighteen months ChilOut members have worked for the release of detainees only to find that on their release detainees are given a Temporary Protection Visa (TPV). A TPV ensures that even though a person has proven themselves to be a genuine refugee, their stay is unlikely to ever be permanent and ultimately they are a second-class citizen with limited support from the Government and government funded services.
Why are there no flowers in Australia?
By Alexandra Pitsis, 2002.
"There are currently 582 children in immigration detention and most of these children are asylum seekers. Since 1994, they have been subject to mandatory and non-reviewable detention. Alexandra Pitsis looks at the issue of children in migration detention, the human cost of this policy and some of the attempts to redress this situation."
http://www.ccccnsw.org.au/resource/rattl061/story01/story01.html
The Trauma of Refugee Children
Sunday Program, May 5, 2002
It's an incredible statistic. Among the asylum seekers who have come to Australia in the past three years, two and a half thousand children have been locked up behind the razor wire of our isolated detention centres. These children have not been convicted of a crime, because they are unauthorised arrivals -- they are detained ... many for at least four months, some as long as two and a half years ... not only deprived of their freedom, but witnessing violence, stress and suicide attempts almost daily.
'Long Journey : Young lives'
An on-line documentary By Sohail Dahdal and David Goldie
Long Journey Young Lives provides an intimate insight into the experiences of child refugees. From the violence and danger of their homeland, to their perilous journey and detention in Australia, young refugees present an uninhibited account of their experiences.
Refugee policy: is there a way out of this mess?
by Chris Sidoti, National Spokesperson, Human Rights Council of Australia.
Presented at the Racial Respect Seminar, Canberra, 21 February 2002.
Download a copy: SidotiPaperFeb2002.pdf
The time has come to say enough is enough. Present policies cause gross violations of human rights. They shame us. They are undermining the moral authority of our national leaders and the ethical basis of our commonwealth. Were in a mess. All this and all so unnecessary. The time has come for fundamental change, turning away from the mess we are in and embracing values that all Australians say they hold dear: decency, compassion, hospitality and fairness.
"Here is not for Children"
11 year old Thyrgan, speaking about his time in Villawood. He has lived in refugee camps for a total of 9 years - so far. [...] Conditions for these children amount to imprisonment. They have done nothing wrong but they have fewer rights than young offenders.
Sea Change: Australia's New Approach to Asylum Seekers
(48 page report in PDF format)
by Jana Mason, U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) policy analyst for East Asia and the Pacific.
This report presents a comprehensive analysis of Australia's current policy on asylum seekers. It concludes with recommendations to both the Australian and Indonesian governments. Excerpt:
"At a minimum, Australia should adopt alternatives to detention that do not require the separation of families and that allow both adults and children to make productive use of their time pending a decision."
Founded in 1958, the U.S. Committee for Refugees is a non-governmental, non-profit agency dedicated to defending the rights of uprooted peoples worldwide. Visit the USCR Web site
Swedish Policy on Asylum Seekers
Sweden received almost 16,000 asylum seekers in 2000, which per capita is roughly double the intake of Australia. Considering that up to 80% of asylum seekers arrive in Sweden with fake passports or with no documentation at all, the potential for problems and public concern is substantial.
Yet despite these large numbers Sweden has been successful in building a functioning reception process that allows for a just and humane treatment of asylum seekers while they await a decision, addresses national security concerns and effectively removes failed refugee-claimants.
Alternative Detention Model
The alternative model provides a legislative and regulatory framework for a more flexible detention regime. Under this model restrictions of the current type on the liberty of Protection Visa applicants should be kept to a minimum, usually to less than 90 days. After the initial period in closed detention, most applicants would pass on to a more liberal regime; one that is most appropriate to the individuals circumstances.
Australia's Little Prisoners
by Barbara Rogalla
Published in Australian Childrens Rights News, Number 28, March 2001: 1-4
Children are locked up in Australia behind fences topped with razor wire and prevented from escaping by guards in khaki-brown uniforms. These children wear identity tags with a number and respond when addressed by that number. Those who are born here are incarcerated from the moment of birth.
Refugees: The Tampa Case
by Julian Burnside
Download a copy: JulianBurnsideTheTampaCase.pdf
The government's handling of the Tampa "crisis" was a triumph of electoral cynicism over humanitarian need. It exposed the difficulty Australians have in acknowledging the conflict of need and advantage. The refugee problem involves a choice between minor self-sacrifice and major betrayal of humanitarian standards.
Read extracts detailing conditions in detention.
"Melbourne QC Julian Burnside used to define himself as a mere gun-for-hire. He did the waterfront case for the wharfies and he was counsel assisting the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal in the cash-for-comment scandal. But on the boat people, he's put himself and his beliefs on the line. He appeared free of charge for the Tampa people in the federal court and the government is now chasing him for costs."