At least 56 children are in detention in Leonora, with 38 between the ages of 4 to 8. During the school holidays they are only allowed out one hour per week to the local recreation centre however the Leonora community is banned during their visits. The people I visited describe that outside the heat can become unbearable, that there is nothing for them to do there, they are limited at best to half an hour a day internet access. The accommodation is minimal. During our Saturday and Sunday at Leonora the detainees were held back and coerced into their rooms. We had described to us distress, alienation, neglect (physical and mental) - they are told to deal with it by thinking 'happy thoughts' or 'by closing their eyes and thinking other stuff'... The children in such an environment surely are being developmentally held back and will find it difficult to keep pace once in society, it is damaging their identity formations and surely even their relationships with their parents who cannot fulfil their full parenting roles in such circumstances. Every visit to a Detention Centre evidences trauma, neglect and negligence.

 

We aware of assertions that guards and management are aggressive, authoritarian, demeaning, ill trained, and of one guard in particular who is abusive. The fact is that if someone is sick or mentally losing it in Leonora the Centre has no psychologists or counsellors on call, no medical health practitioner onsite, nor has Leonora extensive medical facilities, nor has Leonora nor Kalgoorlie a resident psychologist. Unlike citizens in community the detainees cannot make an appt with a pyschologist or doctor and then organise transport to attend.  It was asserted to me by two detainees that a male detainee three weeks ago tried to commit suicide in Leonora. It was asserted to me by two detainees that an Arabic lady detained now nearly a year in Leonora is losing her mind and she does not sleep, she does not speak and walks the corridors all night long. This is what people are enduring and what the CHILDREN have to bear witness to day in day out.

Detainees are permitted to give notes to visitors however on a visit in August 2010 a regular visitor to Leonora reported that:

those notes were all aggressively confiscated and detainees disciplined for trying to hand them over. We received a letter of apology from the department of immigration and the ombudsman investigated.  Their complaint was found to have merit but as the notes had disappeared after Serco employee (SM) took them into his possession and promised, in the presence of a state security officer (SW), to mail them to us. We never did received the notes (we have emails documenting this, both from the dept and from SW). Given this experience detainees now hand us notes secretly.  Click here to read a note handed over by a detained asylum seeker.

Sex Abuse Inquiry at Leonora 18 September, 2010 The West Australian