Australian Human Rights Commission calls for release of all children in Immigration Detention by Meaghan Shaw 9:05am 14th May, 2004   Canberra. May 14, 2004 ( Published by the Age)    Australia's treatment of children in immigration detention is "cruel, inhumane and degrading", a major human rights report has found.    After a two-year investigation, the Australian 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 Australian Government has rejected the call, describing the report as unbalanced.    The commission's report, A Last Resort found that the Government's mandatory detention policy failed to protect the mental health of children, provide adequate health care and education, or protect unaccompanied and disabled children.    Children placed in detention spent an average 20 months locked up, it found, even though 93 per cent were eventually found to be refugees.    Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski demanded the Government release all children in detention and residential housing projects within four weeks. He also called for law changes to ensure detention was no longer the first and only resort for asylum seeker children.    But Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone condemned the report as "unbalanced and backward looking". She said releasing the children would send a "dangerous message" to people smugglers.    "What it says to people smugglers is if you bring children, you'll be able to be out in the community very quickly. And that is a recipe for people smugglers to in fact put more children on these very dangerous boats," she said.    Senator Vanstone denied Australia was in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, saying the convention allowed children to be detained, a position recently confirmed by the High Court.    She said only 12 children from boat arrivals were in detention on the mainland. But department figures show 94 children in all forms of detention in Australia.    "This report deals with a situation a couple of years ago when thousands of people were arriving unauthorised and unannounced and that's not the situation we're in today," Senator Vanstone said.    Dr Ozdowski said it was not "ancient history". "We are still abusing the rights of children in detention today. Children are still behind barbed wire now," he said. "Children with emotional and physical scars will be a legacy of our mandatory detention policy."    "Hassan", 16, recalls vividly the three months in 2001 he spent at Woomera with his parents and five brothers, including Jaafar and Mohammad Mahdi. "I still remember it, every second of it," he said yesterday, speaking from his home in Broadmeadows.    "I remember it because we used to wait behind the fence and... I would say to my friends 'When am I going to get out?' " The worst part was not knowing when he would be released.    He welcomed the commission's call for all children to be immediately released from detention.    Opposition immigration spokesman Stephen Smith said the report damned the Government's approach to children in detention. While acknowledging that Labor had established mandatory detention in 1992, he said the Government should learn from its experience.    Australian Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett said the law should be changed, particularly for the 70 children on Nauru who were outside the inquiry's scope.    Refugee advocates universally welcomed the report. The Refugee Council of Australia said both major parties were responsible for the policy and it was not the time to apportion blame or make excuses. "Nor is it acceptable to deny the need for action by pointing to declining numbers or to a change of management company," president David Bitel said. "It cannot be denied that the fundamental conditions that underpinned the worst abuses are still in place and there is nothing to stop them".    - with Andra Jackson    15th May, 2004.    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.    UNHCR regional representative Michel Gabaudan made the call after a report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found mandatory detention was breaching children's rights.    Mr Gabaudan said the convention required detention of children to be a "last resort", for the "shortest period of time" and subject to independent review. "It's not the green light to detain," he said. His call was backed by World Vision Australia chief executive Tim Costello, who said it was shameful that Australia, which had ratified the convention, was failing its obligations."It is unambiguously still an abuse and violation of their rights and we can't raise our head in the international forum at the moment," he said. Visit the related web page
	Next (more recent) news item
	Next (older) news item