CATHOLIC Religious Australia (CRA), Catholic Mission and many other Australian organisations and individuals have joined an international campaign to remove children from immigartion detention.
CRA released a statement about the campaign on March 21, the day the International Detention Coalition (IDC) was to release its report Captured Childhoods at the 19th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, together with the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants and the Swedish and Belgian governments.
The St Vincent de Paul Society has also spoken out in support of the campaign.
According to the IDC, Australia holds 528 children in secure and remote facilities.
Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OSLH) Sister Anne Higgins has been involved with detained children and families for more than 10 years and is supporting the call for an immediate end to the detention of children.
“The claims that detaining people for immigration purposes for any lengthy period, even three to six months, often leads to mental illness are well documented,” Sr Higgins said.
“Children are especially vulnerable. I recall in particular a 12-year-old girl who arrived at a detention facility with her parents and younger sister.
“She was a bright-eyed child relieved to be safe from the danger experienced in her country of origin.”
Sr Higgins said that, after several months, she was alarmed to learn that the young girl was suicidal.
As in many detention cases the refugee determination and review processes were drawn out allowing the fear and despair to re-emerge and, through incarceration, be heightened.
“Her parents were powerless; they could not change the situation,” Sr Higgins said.
“The local guards also did not know what to do.
“As the child’s life was now in danger from her situation, the doctor attending the centre placed her in hospital.
“This bright-eyed, engaging young girl had now become a sad, listless child.
“After many more months the family were eventually accepted but severe damage had already been done to this young person and to her family.”
In its report, the IDC noted that there are a handful of countries around the world, such as Belgium, Argentina and Japan that have successfully put the interests of the child first and use community-based alternatives to immigration detention.
CRA said holding children in detention was unacceptable and clearly in breach of Australia’s responsibilities under the Refugee Convention and the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child.
“We call on the Government to act now to remove children from detention,” the CRA’s statement said.
The St Vincent de Paul Society National Council, in a statement issued on March 22, said cruelty was the unequivocal consequence of keeping children in detention and called on the Government to honour its 2010 promise to end child detention.
Chief executive Dr John Falzon applauded recent efforts to bring this appalling practice to light, such as, the Australian launch of the IDC’s worldwide campaign to end child detention.
“The mandatory detention, especially of children, continues to be a serious abuse of human rights,” Dr Falzon said.
“The continued detention of people who pose no danger to the community is unjustifiable by any moral standard.
“I encourage all Australians to sign the global petition against child detention, which will be taken to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva later this year.”
The petition can be found at www.endchilddetention.org
Meanwhile, the St Vincent de Paul Society national president Anthony Thornton urged the Federal Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, who is the official guardian of many unaccompanied minors in detention, to stop the cruel practice of mandatory detention.
“In 2008 the Government referred to its ‘changes’ to immigration detention policy as a reversal of a shameful chapter in our history,” Mr Thornton said.
“Four years ago the Government promised to use detention only as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time.
“They also promised to end the detention of children and we call on them to uphold that promise.”
