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Submission to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
the Lutheran Community Care, South Australia
Lutheran Community Care, South Australia is pleased to use the opportunity to make a submission to the above Inquiry, based upon extensive experience and expertise in working with families, including refugee families.
Lutheran Community Care, South Australia is an agency of the Lutheran Church of Australia, South Australia Northern Territory District. It works closely with its counterparts in other parts of Australia.
In South Australia, Lutheran Community Care has a strong background in working with children with attachment disorders and lifelong allied issues. It assists the community through a wide range of services including counselling, low-income support, emergency relief provision and a refugee committee. It is located in a socio-economic environment characterised by high unemployment, poverty, diverse populations and a high incidence of refugee families. In preparing this report, Lutheran Community Care consulted with Australian Lutheran World Service and others who work closely with refugees and people who have been released from detention centres, particularly the centre located at Woomera.
This submission mainly responds to the fourth Term of Reference - 'The impact of detention on the well-being and healthy development of children, including their long- term development'. This in turn relates to a Key Principle of the Convention - 'the right to survival and development'. The relevant articles on the Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989) include:
Article 3 - best interests of the child
Article 22 - refugee children receive appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance
Australia is the only country in the western world to demand mandatory detention. This is despite the fact that on a per capita basis it ranked 17th out of 21 industrialised countries in relation to the number of asylum applications received during 1999. (1) Unfortunately discussion has focussed far more on how to deflect the problem rather than acknowledging and addressing the issues that lead to large movements of people in the first place.
Background Papers developed to support the inquiry clearly set out the rights of all children, as well as the responsibilities of the state to all children. Lutheran Community Care understands that stated conventions, treaties, and domestic interpretations of law, have all been ratified by the Australian Government.
Lutheran Community Care support for refugees
Lutheran Community Care supports refugee families in the immediate post-detention period. Upon discharge from the Woomera Detention Centre, refugee families are eligible to apply for one of twelve metropolitan South Australian Housing Trust homes, nine of which are located in the immediate area. The agency is therefore a 'first option' support base for many new arrivals, and the following information provides the general circumstances under which these families seek assistance.
Refugee families accessing Housing Trust accommodation in the area are eligible for a maximum of four weeks accommodation before being required to seek private rental accommodation. They have already been assessed for financial support by Centrelink, but are allocated only half the first fortnightly payment in advance, with the balance being paid in arrears. Rental accounts for much of this payment, leaving little for food or contingency plans for sickness and other unexpected costs. These difficulties are further exacerbated for families with several children and it becomes impossible for people to exist without additional relief.
Another crucial difficulty facing families with children is that children's family taxation payments do not become available until Tax File Number allocation; a process taking five to eight weeks. People using our service have little alternative but to approach Lutheran Community Care or other agencies; yet this is often done within a cultural context in which charity is eschewed due to a strong belief in self-sufficiency. Possibilities for self- reliance have already been disrupted during detention, but are continued rather than resolved in the post-detention period.
We are aware that in many of the cultural groups who use our services, the notion of shame falls very strongly on the head of the male, who is perceived as the head of the house. His inability to provide for his family is something that reduces his self esteem, and his own sense of self worth.
The impact on children of mandatory detention
Members of our staff maintain that parents and their children visiting the agency after leaving Detention Centres often have 'blank faces'. They are reluctant to talk of their experiences within the Detention Centre. This is because they are on temporary visas only, and believe that non-adherence to an agreement of silence concerning their experiences will result in denial of the opportunity to secure a permanent visa. They do not know whom they can trust, and indeed the experiences that they have undergone make it increasingly difficult for them to trust people. This fear is often exacerbated by the lack of acceptance and racial vilification that they experience within the local community. We are aware of families whose children have been engaged in fights, their toys stolen and in one situation petrol was poured around the back yard and dry wood piled against the front door. This does not make it easy for people to feel accepted in the neighborhood!
The impact of detention and post-detention re-settlement on children's long-term psycho-social development cannot be underestimated.(2)The detention environment exposes children to a range of negative experiences including episodes of self-harm, forcible removal and a reduction in parental capability for nurturance. The wide range of psychological disturbances often observed include nightmares and night terrors, separation anxiety, disruptive conduct and impaired cognitive development. More profound symptoms include psychological distress, mutism and refusal to eat and drink.
These matters have a profound impact on a crucial issue for all children, which is successful primary attachment. This is severely challenged within the detention environment when children can be used as 'pawns', or separated from other family members in an effort to curb protests or hunger strikes. Familial relationships are also often based on cultural and gender relationships in which it is important for the husband to be the family provider. Personal and family identity are defined accordingly. This can cause further tensions within families who are already struggling to adapt to a new life. It is well understood that family tensions have a traumatic affect on children's psycho-social development.
The difficulties for men in finding paid employment in the post-detention period serve to perpetuate this problem. Further challenges include language barriers, which cannot always be resolved due to the high cost of interpreting services. Children are often placed in the situation of being required to act in an age- inappropriate manner as spokesperson for the family. This in turn serves to undermine the normal parental role. Parents are unable to shield their children from the problematic nature of the communications they often must interpret. This is against both child and parental best interests.
Agency case studies:
A local Lutheran Pastor who is actively involved in the work of Lutheran Community Care and the lives of refugees in the area, concurs with the view of agency staff that a major impact on children within detention and in the post detention period is the reduced capacity of men, and the stresses this brings to their families including children. With rapid integration of older children into Australian culture, the parental role is often further challenged by intergenerational conflict. These stresses are exacerbated by the personal histories of each family, which while unique, are often representative of many other families.
For instance one refugee family has four children, two of which have severe medical problems and whose father is a survivor of torture. Another family has a child with severe asthma forcing them to spend their limited Centrelink funds on emergency taxi visits to the Children's Hospital. The pastor has also accompanied a young refugee child to a local dentist as his teeth were so severely damaged by the ravages of malnutrition that they needed immediate attention.
Refugees on Temporary Protection Visas leave the detention centre with very few possessions. The need to fulfil the most basic needs serves to highlight just how difficult it will be for some families to achieve the self-actualisation needed to allow their children the standard of living adequate for sound physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. (3) Yet these are underlying principles of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989).
Barriers to assistance
While there are many and varied issues to be faced by children and families, what has become clear to this agency are the overriding barriers to addressing such issues faced by refugee families. For some refugees there are major obstacles to communication due to fear, defensiveness and lack of trust. These are then compounded by language and cultural constraints. The extent of fearfulness that these people are experiencing was brought home by the extreme reluctance of members of the community to contribute to this report. We assured them that names and identifying data would not be used. We also suggested that the men with whom we were meeting could act as the mouthpiece, and that they could relay the information to us. This also was not acceptable, and the men concerned did not return phone calls or attend the next meeting of the group. This may have been a coincidence or it may have been due to their uncertainty and unwillingness to cause "trouble". We are gravely concerned about the level of fear within this already traumatised community
When this reality is understood from the perspective of Lutheran Community Care representing a microcosm of the broader society, the extent of the true social impact of the following issues can be more fully understood.
For instance some men who attend Lutheran Community Care seeking emergency assistance for clothing and household goods find it culturally inappropriate to engage with female staff and volunteers. This naturally leads to a reticence among some volunteers, and a possible lack of empathy for the reality of stressful lives. What staff and the wider community may fail to understand is that the majority of refugees are appreciative of assistance received. Many refugees are highly educated, well established, and of high standing in their country of origin. Internal anger and frustration at the cumulative losses now experienced may lead to anger being expressed outwardly. Resultant misunderstandings may then mirror broader societal and political antipathy towards refugees.
In recognising that many refugees are reluctant to speak of their experiences, it can be argued that a further barrier to communication arises from the very respect accorded their need for privacy. Many refugees have histories of interrogation and negative interactions with authority figures in their country of origin. Within Australia further engagement is generally with mandated state authorities, including Australian Correctional Management and Centrelink. Resultant reticence is misunderstood by some agencies, which then may become reluctant to intrude 'inappropriately' into the lives of refugees.
Also while it is necessary to focus on the best interests of children and their longer- term development, there are natural barriers to directly canvassing their own views, as these can only be sought with parental permission. Yet it is well understood among agency staff that children may already be engaged in acting as interpreters and spokespersons for adults on a range of contentious issues. Staff recognise that further age inappropriate interventions and intrusion into children's lives should be avoided.
Understanding the impact that detention and the immediate post-detention period has on the longer- term development of children, it is important to recognise not only the primary issues, but also barriers to the assistance needed for adjusting to a new life in the community. The temporary nature of initial accommodation may also serve to disrupt the difficult re-settlement process, which is often already framed by the reality of financial hardship, and a socio-political climate of antipathy.
Spiritual Needs
We would also like to register our strong concerns about the lack of respect for people's spiritual needs that is being shown. Lutheran Community Care is a church based organisation. For us that means that our mission is determined by our Christian orientation. Our freedom to put our Christian faith into action in the work that we do is a great privilege, comfort and motivator for many of us here.
In stark contrast we see the apparent lack of consideration that is given to the religious beliefs and spiritual needs of those who are in Detention Centres. We are aware that there are sensitivities about the various religious groups of people who are in detention. There are conflicting groups forced into close proximity with each other that leads to tensions. People whose religion requires them to be near water are being housed in the desert. Religious tensions that may have caused people to flee in the first place are part of everyday life in the detention centres.
We believe that we have the right to practice our religion and that this is a basic human right for all people - including those who have come to this place seeking refuge. We are concerned that these factors will deter children from developing faith and hope. Surely this does not bode well for their future.
Other information
We coordinate a group of people from within the Lutheran Church who have an interest in working with refugees. Part of our role is to encourage friendship and neighbourliness between our people and new arrivals. Among this group there are several people who have worked with children from detention centres. Their anecdotal evidence highlight some of the concerns that we have raised above.
The teachers in the group have taught children who have seen family members, friends and/or neighbours tortured and killed. The children have suffered multiple losses of people but also of all of the other components of their day to day life style. The children distrust authorities. We know also from our experience in working with children who have suffered multiple losses the effect that attachment disorders can have on people throughout their life - the inability to trust and to form intimate relationships; the reliance on material things to meet needs.
We are aware that families and children who come to Australia do so with certain expectations - ie that things will be better. Their experiences on arrival do not fulfil their expectations, and again they lose trust. For some, there has always been the hope that things will get better. They arrive here and feel that they have come to the end of the line. They can lose hope.
We also see the isolation that people experience because of their lack of English language. It is of concern that while families are in detention, it is not possible for the adults to attend English language classes. The children do however have some instruction, and therefore we find that we have reverted to the situation where children are being used as interpreters for their parents - not an ideal situation for any one. It is not appropriate that children should have the knowledge or the power that this infers. They can in effect run make decisions about their family members when they are the ones with the language.
The issue of gender equity is very significant for many of the people that we see here. We are concerned that so much of what occurs here undermines the beliefs and the culture of the people that we are seeing, where the role of men and women is so vastly different to what is acceptable here. If change in attitude is to happen, then there need to be positive experiences to demonstrate why and how such change can and should occur.
This organisation is not able to afford the high cost of using professional interpreters, and so we need to rely on cheaper alternatives - using children, drawing pictures, and frequent misunderstandings. We are concerned at the lack of dignity that this can infer.
The Future
We are concerned about the implications that the above information has for the future. People who have come to this country with hope and optimism lose that and they learn about hatred and vilification. What the Australian community is saying penetrates into Detention Centres and is also experienced by those who gain temporary protection visas.
Forgiveness and acceptance are needed as are opportunities for healing. We have seen in our local community here the damage and the racial vilification that refugee families experience. Within this local community, although there are a significant number of new arrivals and people with Temporary Protection Visas, there is still an element of the community that is fearful and vindictive. We work within our own sphere of influence to educate and dispel myths, but the media has in the past provided only negative images.
We see families who have come into our community, albeit on a temporary basis. They have so many needs - physical, emotional, and social. Agencies such as this one are challenged as we respond - there is no funding from the commonwealth government for this work, and the state government has only limited resources.
In conclusion, we have a number of recommendations.
1. That the Australian Government explore other options than Detention Centres for housing children and adults who come to this country seeking refuge.
2. That the religious and cultural backgrounds of those coming for refuge are respected.
3. That there be adequate funding made available to address the issues that children face as a result of the torture and trauma that they have experienced
4. That the Commonwealth Government make interpreters available without charge to agencies assisting refugees.
5. That funding be made available to agencies to assist in the resettlement of people who are released from Detention Centres.
6. That public education is undertaken to redress the vilification and ignorance that are rife within the community about people who come from Detention Centres.
Conclusion
Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to the Inquiry. I would be happy to speak to this submission should there be the opportunity to do so.
Colleen Fitzpatrick
Director
Lutheran Community Care, South Australia
PO Box 288 KILBURN SA 5084
Phone 08 8269 9300
References:
UNHCR The state of the world's refugees: fifty years of humanitarian protection. New York, Oxford University Press 2000
Steel S, Silove D, 'The mental health implications of detaining asylum seekers', Medical Journal of Australia Vol 175 3-17 December 2001 p 599
Maslow A, Motivation and Personality 1954
Draft report for AMCO (the Association of Major Community Organisations) - condition of children in detention at Woomera IRPC - unpublished paper April 2002
Last Updated 9 January 2003.
