Response to HREOC's report of its
National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention
Visit the HREOC Report home page.
Read the Report, "A last resort?".
Read the Summary.
Read the Major Findings and Recommendations.
- Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC)
- Government response
- What we can do
- Media reports
-
Media releases
- A Just Australia
- Amnesty International Australia
- Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
- ChilOut
- Project Safecom
- Refugee Council of Australia
- Rural Australians for Refugees
- Australian Catholic Bishops Conference
- Brotherhood of St. Laurence
- Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace
- National Council of Churches
- Uniting Church
- ALP - Stephen Smith MP, Shadow Minister for Immigration
- Australian Democrats - Senator Andrew Bartlett
- Greens - Senator Bob Brown
As members of parliament openly argued about whether human rights abuses have been committed in Iraq, the Attorney General, Phillip Ruddock, quietly and without comment tabled the HREOC report. The report reveals gross human rights abuses against children on Australian soil. These abuses are being perpetuated today against children in detention.
Recommendation 1 of the HREOC Inquiry is that:
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"Children in immigration detention centres and residential housing projects as at the date of the tabling of this report should be released with their parents, as soon as possible, but no later than four weeks after tabling."
We are now counting the days since the report was tabled on Thursday, 13 May 2004. The deadline is 10 June 2004. Read about how to join us in marking this deadline...
View latest numbers for children in detention on our home page. View detention statistics presented in the Senate on 12 May 2004 by Minister Vanstone.
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Visit the HREOC web site. Visit the home page of HREOC's National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention.
Read the Report, "A last resort?".
Read the Summary.
Read the Major Findings and Recommendations.
"While recognising the right of each country to protect its borders, I hope that A last resort? removes, once and for all, any doubts about the harmful effects of long term immigration detention on children. It warns governments, in Australia and around the world, that mandatory, indefinite and unreviewable detention of children is no answer to the global issue of refugee movements.
Even if there is no child in detention when this report is tabled in Parliament, it is now time for our elected parliamentary representatives to amend our immigration legislation to ensure that it complies with Australia's accepted human rights standards.
Let no child who arrives in Australia ever suffer under this system again."
Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM
Human Rights Commissioner
From the Preface to "A Last Resort?".
Read the transcripts from the inquiry.
Read the transcript of HREOC's questioning of ACM.
Read what ex-ACM staff had to say about treatment of detainee children.
Read the public submissions.
Read the Department of Immigration's submission.
Government response to the report
HREOC Inquiry into Children in Immigration Report Tabled
Joint media release with the Attorney-General the Hon. Philip Ruddock MP
[...] The government rejects the major findings and recommendations contained in this report. The government also rejects the Commission's view that Australia's system of immigration detention is inconsistent with our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Note: The Government has confirmed that this press release above IS its response to the
HREOC report - a more detailed response will not be forthcoming.
Cartoon reproduced with kind permission from Alan Moir whose work is published in the SMH.
Government committed to detention regime
Minister for Immigration, Amanda Vanstone, reaffirmed the Government's commitment to mandatory detention, as part of its strategy to control unauthorised immigration into Australia.
'To release all children from detention in Australia would be to send a message to people smugglers that if they carry children on dangerous boats, parents and children will be released into the community very quickly,' Senator Vanstone said.
Media releases
A Just Australia
Offer to assist early release of Children from Detention
Ruddock Must Resign or Stand Aside in Dealing
Human Rights Commission finds cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
151 is the figure that matters in Budget Week
Amnesty International Australia
Prime Minister Urged to Release All Children from Immigration Detention
View Release: MS Word
Rapid Response Action: Amnesty International urges PM to release all children in detention by June 10
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre joins call for all children out by June 10
ChilOut
CHILDREN SUFFER UNTOLD ABUSE IN IMMIGRATION MINISTERS’ CARE
ChilOut responds to HREOC's report of its National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention.
Project Safecom
HREOC "Child Abuse Report" tabled in silence and sneakiness
View Release: HTML
Refugee Council of Australia
CHILD FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT?
View Release: MS Word
Rural Australians for Refugees
RAR National - Urgent Action Bulletin!
View Release: HTML
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference
Catholic Bishops call for urgent response to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees
View Release: MS Word
Brotherhood of St. Laurence
WELFARE AGENCIES CALL FOR CHILDREN TO BE RELEASED: ‘WE HAVE A BETTER WAY’
View Release: MS Word
Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace
‘For God's sake, stop damaging detainee kids and set them free’
National Council of Churches
Churches Back Calls for Release of Abused Detainee Children
View Release: HTML
Uniting Church in Australia
UNITING CHURCH SAYS THE ABUSE MUST END NOW
View Release: MS Word
ALP
Stephen Smith MP, Shadow Minister for Immigration
HOWARD GOVERNMENT SLAMMED BY HREOC FOR CHILDREN IN DETENTION POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
View Release: MS Word
Howard Government Needs To Go Public On Backdoor Release Of Children In Detention 10 June 2004
Australian Democrats
Senator Andrew Bartlett, Leader of the Australian Democrats
HREOC: Mandatory Detention Causes Serious Harm to Children
Time's up on children in detention 10 June 2004
"There have been many reports and studies over the years that prove child detainees are being harmed by detention itself, as well as exposure to violence, riots and self-mutilation in the centres," Senator Bartlett said. "The Government justifies its abuse of children by saying it deters people smugglers. I dont believe this is true, but in any case, no policy that causes massive damage and suffering to innocent children is justifiable."
Greens
Senator Bob Brown, Leader of the Greens
Government's dismissal of HREOC's report "bloody-minded child neglect"
Government should close Nauru camp immediately 17 May 2004
Residential Housing Project 'golden cage'. 10 June 2004, Senator Kerry Nettle.
“I visited residents in Port Augusta Residential Housing Project and saw the prison-like conditions. One of the children described the Project as a ‘golden cage’ and pleaded for her freedom. “These women and children are treated like criminals - locked in a tiny compound, under 24 hour surveillance, patrolled by guards with no access to the community.
Media reports
All Saints bell tolls for children in detention
Port Augusta's All Saints church bell sounded at the extraordinary time of noon last Thursday. But the historic bell wasn't calling people to church as it usually is when it rings out across the city. It was ringing in solidarity with people all over Australia on the National Day of Shame for Children in Detention.
Children should be out of immigration detention says Australian Medical Association
Australian Medical Association (AMA) President, Dr Bill Glasson, said today that all children should be released from immigration detention in Australian facilities in keeping with the deadline set by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) when it released its National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention report in May. [...]“The AMA urges the Government to meet the HREOC deadline and look at better ways to look after the health of all asylum seeker detainees, children and adults,” Dr Glasson said.
Toowoomba joins child detention protest
Mark Copland, from the Social Justice Commission, says more locals are starting to speak out.
"I think there's a growing response, that in years to come children and our grandchildren [will] ask us 'what were you doing?'" he said. "That we'll be able to say that we took a stand and these kids weren't in detention in our name."
Green pushes human rights
"The Government is shamefully refusing to respect the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's call to release all children from detention by June 10," [ Greens Senate candidate, Dr John Kaye] said and congratulated the local branch of Rural Australians for Refugees for continuing to campaign against the Howard Government's refugee policies. [...] "Australians are no longer prepared to accept the Howard Government's disgraceful conduct of its detention centres.
Watchdog pleads for detaineesFour weeks ago, at the release of a landmark report, Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski called for all children to be freed from detention within a month. But since the release of "A Last Resort?" on May 13, the number of children in detention has fallen by just four to 76.
Govt stands firm on child detention
The federal government has reaffirmed its commitment to mandatory detention of child asylum seekers despite a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) deadline for their release expiring. [...]
"My report, I think, puts beyond any doubt that long-term detention creates mental health problems, so I would have thought by now that the children would have been out of detention," [Dr. Ozdowski] said.
See the Minister's statement - "Government committed to detention regime"
It's time to free child detainees, Howard told
Protesters at a rally in Sydney this afternoon have called on the Federal Government to release all children being held in Australia's immigration detention centres.
Church Bells toll for child detainees
"There's a principle at stake here which is that we should not punish innocent people to try and get political outcomes or any sort of policy outcomes at all. It's not the right thing to do, and we shouldn't expect that in this day and age in a democratic country like Australia that we have innocent people locked up to try and achieve policy outcomes for the government." [Alex Bhathal]
Government fails to meet deadline on children
"We know who they are, we know that they do not constitute any threat to Australia, we know their health status, and my report I think put beyond any doubt that long-term detention creates health problems, so I would have thought that by now the children would be out of detention." [HREOC Commissioner, Sev Ozdowski]
Fed Gov passes HREOC deadline for release of children in detention
SARAH CLARKE: Where can the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission go from here then?
SEV OZDOWSKI: Well, we can't do much more, because our responsibility was to report to the Parliament where the Act and practices of the Department of Immigration comply with International Convention on the Rights of the Child. And we report what we found. Now it's up to Federal Parliament to take the action. We recommended what we believe is reasonable, and I still do hope that changes will follow.
Detention kids 'secretly moved'
Opposition immigration spokesman Stephen Smith said the government had removed seven children from immigration detention centres since the HREOC report was released. Mr Smith said Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone should now publicly admit that holding children in immigration detention was wrong.
Govt removing detained kids: ALP
Deadline up but children still not free
THE deadline for the Howard Government to free all children from immigration detention will pass today - ignored. But the deadline, imposed by the Government's own human rights agency, will be met with a chorus of protest from the nation's churches. At least 162 children are expected to stand at Sydney Town Hall to symbolise those reportedly held in mainland and offshore detention centres, while pairs of children's shoes will be left outside Immigration Department headquarters in Melbourne. [...] "Some children who are still in detention have been there for three years or more," said Alannah Sherry of Chil-out, which organised today's event. "We are saying this policy has to go and from now on, we will get louder and louder and louder."
Deadline up but children remain
City bells to toll for detained children
Church bells will ring throughout Melbourne this afternoon, tolling for the 162 asylum seeker children who remain in mandatory detention. Churches throughout Melbourne will ring their bells for 10 minutes from 5.15pm, according to the director of the Melbourne Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office, Brenda Hubber. "We want to ring in change," Mrs Hubber said. Both the Catholic and Anglican cathedrals will be involved, plus St Francis in Lonsdale Street and the Collins Street Uniting Church. In Sydney, both cathedrals will participate.
Bombala Times - Anglican news and notes
When I was a kid, detention meant staying in after school - not staying in jail for three or four years. There are still 162 kids in Australian detention camps, imprisoned since 2000 and 2001; that's 162 too many, and 1000 days too long.
Tomorrow, 10th June, is the HREOC deadline for their release. At 5 pm that day I'll be joining churches throughout the land by ringing the church bell, and spending some time in prayer for them. I'll be glad of company.
Dr Louise Newmann talks on children in detention
Quite simply, [the HREOC] report says that arbitrary detention of child asylum seekers under the policy of mandatory detention is wrong. It is wrong and it must stop. To continue detention of children erodes core human values and diminishes us all. [...] This is no use of detention as a last resort, or for brief periods, nor for purposes of administration. It is systematic, arbitrary and inhumane abuse of children and, alarmingly, the Commonwealth attempts a justification of this as a necessary, if distasteful, process that sacrifices children for a ‘greater good’ – of so-called border protection.
Legislative Council challenged to condemn Federal Govt
The Australian Democrats have given notice of a motion in State Parliament to be debated later this month condemning the Federal Government over breaches of the “Convention of the Rights of the Child”. Democrats SA Refugee spokesperson Kate Reynolds MLC said she had issued the challenge to State MPs to put their personal views about the detention of children on the record.
Govt warned of mental illness legacy
The Human Rights Commissioner says the Federal Government must quickly get children out of immigration detention centres to avoid a legacy of mental health problems.
Refugee status for slash boy
HREOC - which heard evidence the boy cut himself with a razor and tried to hang himself with a sheet - has called for all children in detention to be released in four weeks.
Refugee status for suicidal boy's family
AFTER being held in detention for more than three years, a family of three - including a boy who attempted to kill himself and a father whose mental health has deteriorated since being locked up - have been accepted as refugees. The Iranian family arrived at Ashmore Reef, off the northwest coast of Western Australia, in April 2001. [...] The family, who were granted refugee status on Tuesday, were the last of the families mentioned in the report to remain in detention.
Refugee Schools Booklet “Propaganda”: ALP
Labor's immigration spokesman, Stephen Smith, says he has received complaints from school principals and parents in four states about the booklet, called "Australia says yes to refugees". [...] Mr Smith says he is not against providing information about services for refugees to primary schools, but the government booklet is providing only half the information. He said; "The material completely ignores the fact that we've had the recent HREOC report on children in detention. It ignores the fact that the government has, at the cost of 170 million dollars, outsourced detention arrangements to foreign countries like Nauru and Papua New Guinea, so the great contentious issues are completely ignored. Viewing it from the point of view of history, it would be like the last half dozen years never existed. "
Time to share our country's riches
Many people, including the churches, are calling for an end to mandatory detention of children. Children, we believe, deserve better, whatever their parents have done or not done. While the Government is right to be trying to discourage people smugglers from putting innocent children at peril on our seas, this must be done without harming those children already here.
Behind all this there is the bigger question of our attitude to the mass movement of people: a movement' that included all our ancestors and many of our friends and neighbours. Christ's timeless question, on which he said our salvation could depend, was, 'When I was a stranger, did you welcome me?'
Interview with Senator Amanda Vanstone on Seven Sunrise
Mark Riley: You don't like children being in detention, do you?
Senator Vanstone: I don't think anybody does. Nobody does. I wish that people who were coming here would come here lawfully, come by plane or by safe boat and not come with people smugglers, who are just terrible people.
Horrors behind the wire in Australia's detention camps
[...] A new report from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission opens a horrifying door into life behind the wire, particularly for children. It tells of violence and despair, cruelty, the destruction of families, self-mutilation and suicide, and the infliction of severe, long-term psychological damage.
Protesters get cold shoulder from Vanstone
About 25 members of Albury-Wodonga branch of Rural Australians For Refugees waved posters in Hovell St as Senator Vanstone arrived by car but she dashed straight into the centre. [...] Fr Boyd said the point of the protest was to draw attention to the continued detention of children and to urge the Government to convert temporary protection visas to permanent status.
Resorting to rights
Alanna Sherry from ChilOut, a group that campaigns against the detention of children, says Vanstone has quietly released a number of detainees on bridging visas but stresses that the policy remains as hardline as ever. "She should not just be doing these things quietly," Sherry says. "She should be prepared to make these changes by the front door and to change policy rather than leaving it to the whim of the minister."
Detention children finally find human touch
THE Askari boys don't talk about the three years and four months they spent in immigration detention. But they have a toy radio and sometimes they pretend to be guards. The two boys – now nine and 14 – and their 17-year-old sister have a rare intellectual disability that was not diagnosed until they had been detained for two years.
Dehumanisation - humans respond
The writer Ahmad Shah Abed left Afghanistan to avoid forced recruitment by the Taliban. "They started collecting young lads again and many people were killed," he writes. He is in a psychiatric hospital after three years in detention in Port Hedland. Mary Yousefi, an Iranian secretary still in Baxter after three years, writes: "My son finds it hard to sleep and when he does he has very bad nightmares and wakes up screaming." [...] These stories come from Another Country, a collection of refugees' writing published this week, giving voices to people usually not heard. They show the consequences of the Federal Government's actions, which were examined in detail in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's report on Australia's immigration detention policy regarding children.
Refugees' story hits Australian stage
"My view is that every country has the right to protect its borders but treating people like this – especially kids – I can't understand under any circumstances," [Majid Shukur, who plays the father] says. Shukur says In Our Name has been provoking powerful reactions from audiences, many of whom have been reduced to "tears of shock, shame and pity". "To give people some information about what really happened in those detention centres is very important, because it is the right of Australian people to know the truth," says Shukur. ‘We've had great feedback, and you can see that many people in the audience want to do something about it now – either letters to the government, donating money, or attending rallies – and I think that's a great thing."
In Our Name is currently showing at Sydney's Belvoir Street theatre.
There's a better way to treat asylum-seeking children
Our system, recognised by HREOC, will address the significant problems of the current system and we urge the Australian Government to stop the failed system of detention and adopt "The Better Way" of doing things. [...] The time has come to stop the injustice and damage that faces innocent children and families in detention. All we ask for now is the political will and leadership to recognise that a new start is needed. We call for a refugee policy that Australia can be proud of again.
John Wilson, acting executive director, Brotherhood of St Laurence
John Dalziel, communications director, Salvation Army
Dr Ray Cleary, CEO, Anglicare Victoria
Rev Raoul Spackman-Williams, director, UnitingCare Victoria and Tasmania
Syd Tutton, Victorian state president, St Vincent de Paul
The politics of suffering children
Late on Thursday, during the excitement of budget week, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock quietly tabled the long-awaited Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report into the mandatory detention of asylum-seeker children.
Release kids from detention centres
We need a mandatory detention policy that does not surrender to either populism or bleeding-heart liberalism – but that above all does not traumatise children.
System left children trapped
Despite Vanstone's dismissive approach to the inquiry's findings, The Age understands that her department has been consulting church and welfare groups with the view to placing families still in detention in community-based accommodation. Although these plans are yet to be finalised, they indicate the Government is headed in a new direction - without fanfare. Vanstone herself has indicated that she would like to see fathers living in residential housing projects with spouses and children.
About face: Afghans on Nauru to be let in
Despite tough rhetoric at the last election that none of the "illegals" would set foot in Australia, it appears most will now be allowed in, Government sources said yesterday.
[...] The Labor spokesman on homeland security, Robert McClelland, said detaining children as a "law enforcement tool" was disgraceful.
UN adds voice to detained children call
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has urged Australia to amend its immigration laws to make them consistent with the UN convention on the rights of the child.
Churches join push to release child detainees
Thirteen year old Rusol lies on his bed comatose. He has made numerous suicide attempts since being placed in Immigration detention in early 2001, cutting himself repeatedly and withdrawing from communication. He has been subject of twenty child protection notifications by South Australia's Family and Youth Services, calling for his removal from detention. A memo contained in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's report on children in detention, released yesterday, reveals that the prison company Australasian Correctional Management warned the Department of Immigration (DIMIA) as far back as October 2002, that the boy could not be cared for in detention. He is still there today. Full story...
Note: On 25 May this family has been granted refugee status after more than three years in detention.
Australia under fire again over hardline immigration policies
The Human Rights Commission, an independent statutory body, found Australia had breached international obligations by failing to protect the health and welfare of children in what amounted to "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment." It was the latest of a series of national and international human rights organisations to call for the release of children -- with their families -- from detention centres.
Cruelty to child migrants
More than 2,000 children have passed through the detention system in recent years, and 170 are still inside. The government says detention is necessary to prevent abuse of the system, although between 1999 and 2003 93% of children put through the detention system were eventually found to be refugees.
Detention centres promise to be a hot political issue
The Federal Government has rejected the Commissioner's demand that all children in detention be released. It's restated its belief that to do so would only encourage people smugglers. The Opposition says the indefinite detention of children for the purposes of law enforcement is a national disgrace, and it vows to release all children from detention centres if it wins government.
HREOC says Department treated fairly
"The bottom line is that they got all procedural fairness and from day one they were involved with the inquiry. First they were invited to put a formal submission. Then, when we had public hearings they participated in all public hearings, or most of them if I remember correctly. Then they had a chance to look at the draft report three times and provide comments and I considered those comments very, very carefully." [said Dr Ozdowski].
Human rights chief stands by detention report
The Federal Government dismissed the report after it was tabled in Parliament yesterday, saying it was unbalanced and backward-looking. Dr Ozdowski says the Immigration Department was given every opportunity to have input into the inquiry. "They certainly got a very fair procedural handling by this commission and the report is looking very much forward," Dr Ozdowski said.
Condemnation of government over kids in detention
The Federal Government insists the International Convention on the Rights of Children allows for their lawful detention. But human rights advocates say incarceration is for a limited time and only as a last resort and they defend the report.
MARCUS EINFELD, UNICEF AMBASSADOR FOR CHILDREN: It's the most encylopedic, authoritative castigation of Australia, its Government and its people on child abuse that has ever been written.
PM fears flood of asylum seekers
The commission found serious and systemic breaches of Australia's international obligations and said the government had failed to adequately protect children. Dr Ozdowski called for the separation of roles by the immigration minister as guardian of unaccompanied children and the jailer.
'No evidence' of Govt's children in detention claim: human rights chief
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says to release children from detention would send the wrong signal to people smugglers.Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski rejects that.
SEV OZDOWSKI: There is no evidence whatsoever to support this proposition.
TANYA NOLAN: The Convention on the Rights of the Child does allow for the lawful detention of children, but Sev Ozdowski says it's not being applied in the right way.
SEV OZDOWSKI: The convention allows for lawful detention of children for the shortest possible period of time and as a matter of last resort. We don't do it.
'No evidence' on PM detainee claim
THERE was no evidence to back government claims that releasing children from immigration detention would encourage people smugglers, Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski said today.
Child detention to stay: Howard
Keep them locked up: Howard
"But the problem is that if you reverse the policy of mandatary detention you will be sending a beckoning signal to people smugglers and you could see a resumption of the problems we had a few years ago." [said John Howard]. [...] Dr Ozdowski said he did not oppose mandatory detention but said it should be for the shortest possible time and a measure of last resort. "If we don't change the laws, we will be creating a terrible legacy for ourselves," Dr Ozdowski said.
PM fears flood of asylum seekers
'Accept human rights report' plea
Refugee and church groups are demanding that the government back the recommendations of a report which found Australia's immigrant detention centres breached the human rights of children.
Howard urged to free 151 kids
Call for Ruddock's Resignation over children in detention
Howard Glenn, a spokesman for the group, A Just Australia says Mr Ruddock's position is compromised because he was immigration minister during much of the period documented. 'The Human Rights Commission is now part of his portfolio now in his new role as attorney general and he ought to step down, not just because of ministerial accountability for the terrible period that the report documents. But now as attorney general he can't be responsible for dealing with a report into his own administration.'
Compo claims could follow child detention, group warns
Latham dismisses Vanstones' 'far-fetched' child detention claim
Documents support HREOC report: refugee advocates
AM has obtained papers from a detention centre which appear to illustrate many of the commission's findings. They tell the story of a 13-year-old Iranian boy's history of self-harm and the failure of authorities to take action when warned about the child's state of mental health.
Department denied 'natural justice': Vanstone
"I was amazed to see the Human Rights Commission acknowledge in its report that procedural fairness, which is a fancy way of saying natural justice, was not given to the department," she said.
Read chapter 2 on the Inquiry Methodology to see what the report says...
Detention policy damned as cruel to children
The final report of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into children in immigration detention, tabled in Parliament yesterday, recommended the release of all children from detention centres and residential housing projects. But Senator Vanstone said that to implement its recommendations would be to "send a very dangerous message" to people smugglers that "if you bring children you'll be able to be out in the community very quickly".
Release children, report says
After a two-year investigation, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has called on the Federal Government to immediately release all children in detention centres, finding that Australia has committed numerous breaches of children's rights. But the Government has rejected the call, describing the report as unbalanced.
Children's treatment 'shocks' expert
The conditions in which children seeking asylum in Australia are detained have shocked a US human rights expert. Professor Jacqueline Bhabha, executive director of Harvard University's Committee on Human Rights Studies, said yesterday that while the number of children detained in Australia was relatively low compared with America, the circumstances under which they were held here were "much harsher".
Trauma that made a boy give up on life
The case of Shayan Badraie, an eight-year-old Iranian boy, highlights the traumatic impact that detention has on children, the Human Rights Commission found.
Boy still at Baxter despite self-harm
A 13-year-old Iranian boy at risk of suicide remains in detention despite 20 child protection reports recommending his release.
Plea to free 151 kids now
The commission laid the blame for abuses on the Federal Government, and its mandatory detention system for failing to make its main concern the welfare, safety and health of children. The Government rejected the report, insisting children had to be detained to enforce immigration policy and deter unauthorised boat arrivals.
Free kids, demands watchdog
AUSTRALIA'S human rights watchdog has demanded the release of all children from immigration centres within four weeks, saying detention should no longer be the first and only resort for asylum-seeker children.
Bakhtiyari children in limbo
THE lives of the Bakhtiyari children are on hold until Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone decides their future later this month.
Detention denies children's rights
The report, issued after a two-year inquiry, says some of the children have been exposed to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. It calls for the release of all child detainees from detention within four weeks of their arrival and the establishment of a guardian for them.
Detained children's human rights breached: report
"The treatment of some of these children has left them severely traumatised and with long-term mental health problems," [Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski] said. "Children with emotional and physical scars will be a legacy of our mandatory detention policy." Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone and her predecessor, Philip Ruddock, immediately rejected the commission's findings.
Vanstone critical of Human Rights Commission report
MARK COLVIN: The Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has accused the Human Rights Commission of encouraging people smugglers. She's lashed out at the Commission's damning criticisms of the treatment of children in immigration detention.
Report recommends freeing child detainees
The Human Rights Commission has found that some children held in Australia's immigration detention centres have been exposed to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. [...] The children's refugee advocacy group ChilOut has welcomed the report. Dianne Hiles says the Government cannot reject its findings. "It can't dismiss it, it's our national human rights watchdog, it is set up exactly to draw attention to this sort of situation where we have a flawed policy that is causing harm and is in breach of human rights," she said.
Child detention breaches UN convention: human rights report
A leaked final draft report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) is calling for urgent changes to Australia's immigration detention laws.
Release the children, says report
The report says Australian migration laws and regulations fail to ensure the best interests of the child are a primary consideration in decisions affecting children - including the decision to detain, and the location and the manner of detention.
Detention of children condemned
Leaks 'add weight' to detention inquiry calls
An Adelaide lawyer trying to secure the release of five children from immigration detention says a leaked document adds weight to calls for a royal commission into Australia's treatment of asylum seekers.
HREOC denounces Govt policy of placing children in detention centres
Labor says Govt should rethink detention centre policy
Ruddock stands by detention of children policy
Ruddock defends child detention