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Australia's Nauru detention centre 'not safe for children', says Senate inquiry
Senate committee condemns Australia’s migrant detention centre on Nauru following claims that women and children raped and abused
Australia’s migrant detention centre on the remote Pacific island of Nauru has been declared unsafe by a parliamentary inquiry, which said alleged rapes and abuse of women and children have not been reported because of an overwhelming “culture of secrecy”.
In a scathing condemnation of the centre, an Australian upper house committee urged Tony Abbott, the prime minister, to remove all children “as soon as possible”. More than 600 asylum seekers are currently being held on the tiny island, including 86 children.
“The present conditions and circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre on Nauru are not adequate, appropriate or safe for the asylum seekers detained there,” said the committee’s majority report.
“The committee is gravely concerned that the culture of secrecy surrounding operations at the RPC, the lack of access for asylum seekers to information and support, and the lack of independent avenues of complaint and oversight, create a dangerous likelihood that the present incidence and apparent culture of abuse will continue and even intensify.”
A dissenting minority report, released by government MPs, said the inquiry was politically motivated and authorities were working with Nauru officials to ensure the centre was a “safe and secure environment”.
Mr Abbott has adopted a hard-line approach to asylum seekers arriving by boat, including towing back vessels to Indonesian waters or transferring migrants to detention centres on Nauru and an island in Papua New Guinea.
Most of the boat people are from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq and have attempted to enter Australia via transit camps in Indonesia; many have died attempting the perilous journey.
The approach has effectively ended the arrival of boat people but the offshore centres have been repeatedly condemned as inhumane and cruel by the United Nations and aid groups.
The Senate inquiry heard claims that young girls and women were being regularly sexually harassed and that goods and services were being bartered for sexual favours.
In the latest case of alleged abuse, a 17-year-old Iranian girl who spent seven months in Nauru has personally begged that she and her family not be sent back to the detention centre because of the dire conditions there. She and her family were taken to Australia after her brother needed medical treatment. A psychiatrist who consulted the teenager in Brisbane said she was subject to “inappropriate sexual comments” by staff at the centre and had attempted suicide, according to a report in The Guardian.
A spokeswoman for Peter Dutton, the immigration minister, told The Telegraph that his office was not aware of the case.
Mr Abbott has further ramped up Australia’s immigration stance with plans to create a military-style unit consisting of up to 6,000 personnel who will be trained in the “use of force”. The so-called “Border Force” was created in July following the merger of the immigration and customs agencies.
It will conduct raids of brothels and workplaces that are believed to be the site of illegal foreign workers as well as passport checks at airports. The agency made headlines last week after it cancelled a controversial plan to patrol streets in Melbourne and conduct random visa checks.