Why we must free the kids
The Herald Sun
14 May 2004

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.

A psychiatrist at Adelaide's Women and Children's hospital, cited in the report, said of Rusol: "I asked him if there was anything I could do to help him, he told me that I could bring him a razor blade or knife so that he could cut himself more effectively."

Rusol's ongoing detention, along with another 150 children here and on Nauru, proves that the Human Rights Commission’s findings are not all in the past.

Between July 1999 and 30 June 2003, 2184 children passed through Australia's mainland detention centres. At its height in June 2000, the Australian detention system had 164 babies imprisoned.

1058 children were Iraqis, fleeing Saddam Hussein with their parents; 870 were Afghans, victims of the Taliban, while another 211 were Iranian. While some only spent a few months detained, the average time in detention was over a year and by 2003 was 1 year, 8 months and 11 days.

The vast majority were recognised as refugees: 97.6% of Iraqi children, 95% of the Afghan kids and 74.2% of the Iranians. However they have only been granted temporary protection visas.

A prison culture prevails in Australia's centres and the Human Rights Commission found they are fundamentally unsafe for children. The difference between prisoners and asylum seekers is that the latter are never charged with any crime, nor sentenced, yet people are detained for years.

Children were named by numbers; rallied for head counts; their movement was curtailed in prison lock downs; they were tear gassed, blasted with water cannons and exposed to confrontations, adults self-harming and riots. In the six-month period from July to December 2001, there were 159 alleged, attempted or actual assaults in detention centres, 19 involving children.

The Commission found very high rates of children injuring themselves including suicide attempts. Between January and July 2002, 137 child protection notifications were made.

The Commission has found the treatment of children in Australia's detention centres to be 'cruel, inhumane and degrading'.

Mental Health experts have been unanimous for years that detention is damaging to children and that kids could not be treated in detention for it was the system itself that causes the harm.

The tragedy is that it need not have been so. The Minister and the Department have always had the powers to remove children and their parents from high security detention.

The Minister has a range of legal and administrative devices including bridging visas, ministerial discretion, and options to place in the community. The means were there, the political will lacking.

A better way is now possible for Australia. The reality has always been that more asylum seekers, such as 1600 East Timorese, live in the community than in detention.

The Government funds the Australian Red Cross to provide basic health and welfare to such community asylum seekers to the tune of $11.5 million in 2001/2 for 2600 cases. Compared to $2 million per week it cost to detain 1326 asylum seekers in December 2002, the savings of a more humane approach are dramatic.

There is no reason why, once health security and identity checks are completed in detention, families and children cannot be moved out and cared for and monitored in the community. Evidence shows that people do not disappear when linked into a system.

The Human Rights Commission has called on the Government to remove all children and their parents from detention centres in Australia and on Nauru within a month.

People smuggling, of any significant numbers, is a historic issue, dealt with over three years ago by the Government's tough policy stance and the collapse of the Taliban and the removal of Saddam. The absence of new boat arrivals gives the Government the opportunity to re-appraise the detention system's terrible impact on kids like Rusol.

For God's sake, stop punishing children and families and let's ensure that tragedies like Rusol's never occur again in Australia.

Marc Purcell
Executive Officer
Melbourne's Catholic Commission for Justice Development and Peace.