Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton has revealed that 72 asylum-seeker children and their families will be transferred from Australia to the “open” facility on Nauru within weeks.
“It has been the main priority of this government and my personal priority to remove as many children from detention as possible,” he told the Daily Telegraph yesterday.
According to the Minister, there are currently 79 children in onshore detention, seven of whom will remain there while their parents await security clearance.
“The majority of remaining children in detention are due to return to Nauru and the other few remaining cases are the most difficult where there may be a security issue with the parent for example,” he said.
The group of children — which includes 33 babies who were born in Australia — will join the 68 currently being held on the island and at least 80 others currently living in the Nauruan community.
The move has already been slammed by refugee advocates, health professionals and political opponents — especially because it comes ahead of a High Court judgement on the fate of refugee children in Australia’s care.
Greens immigration spokesperson Senator Hanson-Young told Mamamia that there is a political agenda at play: “These children are being used as pawns in a political battle and I’m very worried for their safety.”
Malcolm Turnbull should grant amnesty to these children, guaranteeing that they won’t be sent back to Nauru and allowing them to stay in Australia.
“We are strong enough and brave enough to offer people the safety and protection that they need to put their lives back together.
“Every day the government chooses to keep these children locked up, either here or on the prison island of Nauru, is another day that they are needlessly damaged.”
Despite Minister Dutton’s claims that the number of children in detention has reached a record low under his stewardship, asylum-seekers are currently being detained for longer than ever before.
Yesterday, the Guardian Australia revealed a warning from the Government’s own healthcare provider, International Health and Medical Services, that hundreds of children are being put at risk of lifelong mental health damage.
According to the IMHS report, depression is the most common chronic illness among children in detention with the percentage of mental health diagnoses almost doubling in the past year.
“The minors are seen due to a variety of triggers, including previous trauma and torture, enuresis [bed-wetting], nightmare, family conflict and situational crises,” the report stated.
On New Year’s day, asylum-seeker children living in the community on Nauru held a devastating protest:
Refugee advocate Margaret Sinclair from the Victorian branch of the Refugee Action Collective told Mamamia that the decision was “unconscionable in the extreme”.
“What sort of person, let alone a government minister, sends children, including babies back to Nauru?” she asked.
“The assaults, rapes, poor health, including the depression, self harm and suicide attempts are not only foreseen, they are predictable and planned outcomes of the detention centre regime.”
She added that resettlement of children and families in the community on Nauru was no safer than detention.
An online petition has been circulating urging the Minister to reverse his decision.
Mamamia contacted Peter Dutton’s office for a statement regarding the transfers but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Top Comments
This whole situation makes me sick. My main concern is for the children, and when they are finally granted Australian citizenship, how are they going to feel after being held on an island camp in the pacific for most of their childhood? Pretty bad when their peers have grown up with such privilege.
So is shy wanting to forcibly remove these children from their parents or wanting to put Australians at risk by ignoring the parents past?. Describing Nauru as a prison island is wrong and no doubt offensive to the people that call it home, its true that these children (who have parents btw) are being used for political point scoring, but not by Peter Dutton, its the people who encouraged thousands of parents to risk the lives of their children that continue to use inflammatory language, half truths and misinformation, to offer false hope by suggesting settlement in Australia could be a possibility when you know damn well its not going to happen is unnecessarily cruel.
So all of the doctors and child development experts who have come out in opposition of extended detention of children are all wrong. Your position is basically f--- the kids as long as Im safe. Good one.
Well if you look further into it.......past your I just want to feel warm and fuzzynes, what are the choices? We could separate them from their parents but that would embitter both the children and the parents and that's not going to do our communities any favors. We could release the children and parents into Australia even if one or more family member has an adverse finding against them or had not been identified (pretty much the case across the board by now) in which case we should bring all children and their families over from Nauru too, that would release people we have rejected (for good reason) into our communities that can't be good AND it sends the message that children get you into Australia.... Is that a message we want to send?, do we want the boats to start coming again, this time loaded with children?. These children are not going into closed detention they are going to open detention. The government has hugely reduced the number of children I'm detention already, there's no reason to believe they won't finish the job.
The recently exposed events in Europe, statistics coming out of Sweden are very good reasons for us to only take people who we can verify before they arrive, not those who try sneaking in the back door.
Anon...is that name foreign? Just kidding...I know you're hiding. I would too if I was to write such ill informed drivel as you. Rape, assaults, unemployment, disease, ill health, poor medical facilities....sounds like paradise to me Anon. Send the kiddies there to stop other kiddies fleeing persecution. Just punish the kiddies. Great solution. And I love your "It's all Rudds fault"...if only he hadn't started the war in the middle east it would now be safe to kill children in foreign lands. The only thing exposed is your predilection for torturing children in the name of saving children in the name of keeping Australia safe from foreigners. Are you sure Anon isn't a foreign name....
"doctors and child development experts who have come out in opposition of extended detention of children"
Anon, you didn't respond to this point, so I think we can assume that you are in fact rejecting the opinions of trained medical experts.