Refugee Update: Nauru

Please be warned that the details of child sexual abuse in these news items are sickening.

Current and former workers at the Nauru detention centre have written an open letter alleging the government have known about sexual abuse, assault, and exploitation in the camp for at least seventeen months.

Nauru child protection worker: we felt a duty to tell Australia about abuse

Lateline speaks exclusively to three former Save the Children workers who were based at the Nauru detention centre.

Women who report sex abuse on Nauru face threats from perpetrators

Perpetrators 'have easy access' to victims on Nauru

Nauru open letter could send legal shockwaves - opening the possibility for the government not just to be sued, but for criminal charges to be brought against the Department of Immigration. Oh, yes.

ETA:

AMA among 15 peak health bodies calling for all asylum children to be freed

Spate of serious self-harm incidents among asylum seekers in Darwin, mostly by those in danger of being returned to Nauru. In February a sixteen year old girl who reported being sexually assaulted on Nauru attempted suicide rather than be sent back there.

Finally, from the ever excellent Gosford Anglican Church:

Refugee Update

A few different things.

Nine refugees, plus six asylum seekers, landed on Christmas Island in March, but were sent back to Indonesia.

The Migration Amendment (Maintaining the Good Order of Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2015 "would give the federal government - and private contractors managing the centres - a level of immunity for personal injury claims that is not even available in relation to the actions of police officers." Essentially it would make lawful the lawlessness already present in detention centres when it comes to the treatment of asylum seekers.

The government is negotiating with Iran in hopes of getting them to accept Iranian asylum seekers unsuccessful in their bid for refugee status.

Transfield Services, who run the detention centres on Manus and Nauru, "has warned staff they can be fired as a result of who their friends are on Facebook or who follows them on Twitter and has forbidden them from joining political parties or churches that oppose offshore processing. It has also cautioned them not to 'embarrass' the company or the government or reveal how asylum seekers are treated." Too late: we know.

Federal Government to spend $4 million on TV drama to deter would-be asylum seekers. Why don't they just put together a tape of news items?

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has admitted that boats continue to leave Indonesia for Australia, but that only his government can keep them "largely stopped" because "any other government, I suspect, would quickly succumb to the cries of the human rights lawyers". Shadow Minister for Immigration Richard Marles remarked that "It is astonishing that human rights has become an enemy of this government." (Until the ALP changes its policies, of course, human rights are also its enemy.)

A review into Morrison's immigration excesses: "Scott Morrison's determination to cement his reputation as the hard man of the Abbott Government led him to repeatedly ignore due process and seize on unverified information coming out of Nauru and Manus Island."

What Australia, and the Liberal Party, used to be like: The Vietnamese refugee with so much to thank former prime minister Malcolm Fraser for

Criminals awaiting deportation at Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre have threatened and assaulted asylum seekers. An inquiry into brutality at the centre was announced in February.