Refugee Update: Children in detention / Christmas Island

[dreamer_easy]

Child asylum seeker wins government payout over Christmas Island detention trauma (GA, 26 April 2017). The girl, "suffered recurrent dental abscesses and recurrent allergic reactions while in detention on Christmas Island and was also diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression with anxiety, separation anxiety, stuttering and bed-wetting." | Children are being damaged in detention – Australia's day of reckoning will come (GA, 27 April 2017)

Catching up on links.

At What Cost? The Human, Economic and Strategic Cost of Australia's Asylum Seeker Policies and the Alternatives. Report from Save the Children and UNICEF, September 2016.

Detention abuse inquiry did not interview children so as to not 'traumatise them further' (GA, 6 March 2017) IIUC the report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is due at the end of this year.

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Report on Christmas Island (August 2016). From the introduction: "The Christmas Island detention centre holds around 30 men seeking asylum mixed in with about 200 men exiting prisons from across Australia after serving sentences of varying length for crimes of varying severity. This places the men seeking asylum at significant risk of harm due to the simmering resentment of some of the ex-prisoner population. The effects of the extreme isolation, fear of violence, uncertain future, and lack of adequate mental health care has had a deeply dehumanising effect on these men. The detention centre on Christmas Island is run as a high security military camp where control is based on fear and punishment and the extensive internal use of extrajudicial punishment by force and isolation is evident." | 'I do not deserve this,' pleads asylum seeker detained with violent criminals on Christmas Island (SMH, 27 September 2016) | Australia's forgotten detention centre: the peculiar torture of Christmas Island's asylum seekers locked up with hardened criminals (SMH, 17 September 2016)


This is the most recent news I can find on the boat that sank off Christmas Island: Siev 221 tragedy: class action adjourned as asylum seeker boat survivors seek documents (GA, 28 September 2016)

Going even further back in time: Christmas Island detention centres to close as part of immigration savings (GA, 12 May 2016) They won't be mourned (the shire president describes them as having been "a disaster" for the community.)

End Immigration Detention of Children is a worldwide organisation; their Australian branch is the End Child Detention Coalition.

Comments

[hnpcc]

Have been reading your posts and not commenting. The only positive in the whole Dutton thing is that his colleagues and some media are telling him to pull his head in. Would be better if they were telling him to resign, but hey, it's a start.

[dreamer_easy]

I'm curious about how it's playing in the PNG media, which I'd like to pay more attention to (The Embarrassed Colonialist mentioned a number of sources, such as Loop).

[hnpcc]

Yes. Have seen a few English language responses, but they were European/North American. It's interesting that Dutton started almost inadvertently involving himself in PNG politics by critisising the Manus MP though. Possibly not the best look for an Australian politician.