National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention

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Submission to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from

Melissa Ogilvie

Many of my clients (while I was working as a Child and Adolescent Counsellor with STARTTS June 2000 - January 2002) refused to talk about their experiences in Australian Immigration Detention Centres. In addition, several mothers only let me see their children for counselling on the condition that I not raise their Australian Detention experiences as it would distress them too much and they do not want to talk about it. This concerned me a lot. These same children (aged between 6 and 17) discussed their trauma experiences in their country of origin and other countries of asylum but would not talk about their experiences in Australia.



Those clients who did discuss Australian Detention spoke of their traumatic experiences, including such matter of lack of schooling; lack of information regarding their health, status and rights; mistreatment by ACM staff including separation from primary care givers within the centre.



Lack of support services for clients released on Temporary Protection Visas was particularly disappointing. Families with extremely physically ill children had no information on how to access health care; unaccompanied minors had little information on their rights and minimal support in learning how to function on a practical daily basis.



As a psychologist, I found this work very challenging. As an Australian, I found it disappointing and shameful that these children appeared to be further traumatised on arrival in Australian due to being mandatorily detained, mistreated whilst in detention, and the lack of support and information about survivng in society upon release. The fact that some of my youngest clients refused to talk about their detention experiences and would "prefer" to discuss such issues as witnessing violence and having family members killed and tortured was highly disturbing. Their refusal to discuss their Australian Detention experiences was problematic as it was indicative that these experiences were more traumatising than their horrific experiences in their country of origin and other countries of asylum.



The children I counselled when working for STARTTS and those I saw as a Settlement Services Officer when working for the Department of Immigration had had very little security and stability in their lives, if at all. On arriving in Australia, their sense of trust in a safe and just world was further destroyed as they felt they were being punished and didn't know why. Highly traumatised children should definitely not be separated from their primary care givers - the results I saw of this were high levels of anxiety, difficulties in establishing trust and relationships, suicidal ideation and depression.

Last Updated 14 July 2003.