Commission Website: National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention
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Submission to the National
Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
the Women's Rights Action
Network of Australia (WRANA)
1. Summary
The Women's Rights
Action Network of Australia ("WRANA") is gravely concerned for
the well being and human rights of children held in immigration detention
in Australia, both as unaccompanied minors and children with accompanying
families.
2. Women's Rights
Action Network of Australia
WRANA was established
in 1998 to facilitate Australian activism for the promotion and protection
of women's human rights through:
- education and
training to ensure human rights mechanisms are accessible, understandable
and relevant in the lives of women in Australia;
- training enable
the participation of women in Australia in human rights machineries;
- advocacy for the
promotion and protection of women's human rights within Australia;
- documentation
and raising awareness of women's human rights violations and abuses
within Australian society.
Members of the Women's
Rights Action Network - Australia endorse the principles of the United
Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and work towards
the creation of a society which respects and protects all human rights.
WRANA recognises
the indivisibility of human rights, and the need to develop informed critiques
on the current human rights system, particularly relating to the capacity
of the human rights framework to respond to the diversity of women's experiences.
3. International
Human Rights Standards
Australia is a signatory
to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic
Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention Against Torture and the Refugee
Convention and its Protocol.
Pursuant to these
Conventions, children in Australia are endowed with the following rights:
- protection and
humanitarian assistance as asylum seekers (article 22, CROC);
- protection from
violence, abuse, mistreatment and exploitation (article 19, CROC);
- health (article
24, CROC; ICESCR, article 12);
- standard of living
adequate for physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development
(article 27, CROC);
- education (article
28, CROC);
- privacy (article
16, CROC);
- recreation and
play (article 31, CROC);
- care by parents
and non separation from parents (article 7, CROC);
- protection of
the family (article 10, ICESCR).
Special measures
are required for children with mental or physical disabilities (article
23, CROC).
Pursuant to article
37(b) of CROC, detention of children must be a measure of last resort
for the shortest possible period.
These rights extend
to children in Australia whether they are citizens or not.
Moreover, women in
Australia are entitled to appropriate services in connection with pregnancy,
confinement and the post natal period, as well as adequate nutrition during
pregnancy and lactation (article 12(2), Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women).
Further, the international
community has recognised the additional barriers faced by girl children
(Beijing Platform for Action, Section L).
4. Experiences
of Children in Detention
WRANA refers to and
relies upon the accounts of women and children in immigration detention
provided in the Kids in Detention Story submission to the HREOC inquiry.
The experiences recorded
in these accounts demonstrate that children in detention experience the
following harms:
- deprivation of
liberty
- exposure to violence
- absent or unsatisfactory
developmental opportunities
- inadequate education
- poor health services
- substandard nutrition
and hygiene
- enforced separation
from family members
- pervasive despair,
frustration, family breakdown
- self harm
- degrading, punitive
and harsh treatment by prison staff
WRANA notes that
the human rights of women as mothers are violated by inadequate ante natal
and post natal care; the violations of these rights have direct impact
on the well being of children born in such circumstances.
WRANA is gravely
concerned that by detaining children who are seeking asylum, Australia
is in breach of its international obligations in the following respects:
- Australia fails
to protect children seeking asylum;
- It denies humanitarian
assistance to children seeking asylum;
- It inflicts upon
and exposes children to violence, abuse, mistreatment and exploitation;
- It denies children
an adequate standard of health;
- It denies children
a standard of living adequate for their physical, mental, spiritual,
moral and social development;
- It denies children
access to an adequate standard of education;
- It invades children's
privacy;
- It fails to provide
children meaningful opportunities for recreation and play;
- It separates
children from their families and actively contributes to family breakdown;
- It denies mothers
an adequate standard of health care before, during and after pregnancy.
WRANA concludes that
the current policies and practices of detaining children seeking asylum
create an environment which is positively harmful to children's rights,
interests and development.
Detention is contrary
to the paramount principle of the best interests of child and is disproportionate
to the ostensible object of an orderly and secure immigration system.
In this regard, WRANA
expresses its concern about the conflict between the role of the Minister
for Immigration as guardian for unaccompanied minors and his role as the
Minister at whose direction detention centres are established and operated.
In WRANA's view, the Minister is not fulfilling his responsibilities as
a good guardian.
WRANA is further
concerned that the special needs of girl children in relation to reproductive
and sexual health, privacy, gender sensitive trauma counselling, culturally
appropriate play and education, protection from sexual assault and the
threat of sexual assault, and culturally sensitive health service provision.
5. Recommendations
WRANA makes the following
recommendations:
- the release of
all children and their families from immigration detention;
- the introduction
of a processing system which detains asylum seekers for a minimum period
for the purposes of health and security checks only;
- the immediate
closure of Woomera detention centre and relocation of processing centres;
- improved provision
of health, education and recreational services to children in processing
centres and after release into the community;
- access to processing
centres by the public and the media;
- the provision
of health services to mothers seeking asylum during pregnancy, childbirth
and breastfeeding, equivalent to the services enjoyed by other women
in Australia.
6. Conclusion
In WRANA's assessment,
Australia's treatment of child asylum seekers is inappropriate and unsatisfactory:
- Australia is
in breach of its international human rights obligations;
- Australia is failing
to care for children already traumatised and vulnerable and is compounding
their suffering through detention upon arrival in Australia;
- mandatory detention
is in no circumstances acceptable and an alternative must be established
without delay.
Women's Rights Action
Network of Australia
7 May 2002
Last
Updated 9 January 2003.