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Submission to National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
Barbara Rogalla - former Woomera Nurse
With thanks for on-line pro bono assistance to: Patrick T. Byrt, Human Rights Barrister, South Australia
ABREVIATIONS
CAT - Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. 1987
CROC - Convention on the Rights of the Child
IDC - Immigration Detention Centre
NGO - Non-government Organization
OMCT - The World Organization against Torture
Rules - UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles deprived of their liberty
TD -Tampere Declaration
Introduction
"We reaffirm our commitment to continue our struggle to eliminate all forms of violence and torture against children and to create a world that protects and fulfils the rights of all children." [1]
As the result of my onsite observations during my employment at the Woomera IDC for three months as a Registered Nurse during the year 2000, I wrote to the Human Rights Commissioner on 23rd September 2000 to inform him of the facts evidencing "a disturbing gap between our international obligations and what is actually happening at Woomera."
I have since by media made a public condemnation of conditions inside IDCs.
Much information in this submission is based on my previous work [2], [3], [4].
Following my letter to HREOC, riots, hunger strikes and use of the water canon have become more frequent at IDCs. I recently visited Woomera, only to find that the camp now looks even more formidable, frightening and offensive.
The outer perimeter now extends to the Roxby Downs road, with an additional two rows of razor wire fences between which lies a haunting no-man's-land. The layout of staged high razor wire fences with open spaces between more than ever resembles concentration camp horror, straight out of Nazi Germany.
The central argument of my submission is that IDC detention of children constitutes acts of torture outlawed by the Convention against Torture.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC) [5] also prohibits Torture. CROC [6] guarantees protection and rehabilitation of child victims who have been exposed to torture.
Therefore, it is also my submission that an investigation by HREOC of IDC detention of children is torture outlawed by CAT and prohibited by CROC, is within the terms of reference by which your HREOC inquiry is established.
I submit that the IDC detention of children therefore violates both the Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, for the following reasons:
- The routine treatment of children inside IDCs, without the provision of efficacious remedial measures, constitutes an unlawful neglect.
- The nature and extent of the implementation of mandatory detention of children in IDCs makes it impossible to provide the required efficacious special remedial measures on site so as to alleviate all unlawful neglect.
- The unlawful neglect directly arises in the implementation of mandatory detention which is the required operational policy of IDCs, and is therefore inherently systemic to the continuing operation policy of IDCs.
- Applicable State child protection law is not adequate as domestic Australian law to prevent systemic unlawful neglect inside Federal IDCs.
- The direct implementation of the Australian government policy of mandatory detention through IDCs constitutes the unlawful neglect of children detained in IDCs and the operation of IDCs does nothing to reverse it.
- A systemic application of a government policy of mandatory detention, which constitutes unlawful neglect of detained children, constitutes gross and inescapable mental and physical suffering that is a violation under CAT and is prohibited by CROC within the terms of all outlawed torture.
- The Australian government is thereby culpable of torture of children.
Unlawful child neglect materially occurs in IDCs both as a logically necessary, and substantially effective, consequence of any significant implementation of the policy of mandatory detention in the operation of IDCs by a government.
This submission provides examples of the significant extent to which the material conditions of daily life imposed in IDCs under mandatory detention compromise the mental, social, and developmental profiles of detained children, and how this harm arises directly from a mandatory detention policy.
These conditions are examined in the light of Australia's international obligations, particularly CROC and CAT.
OMCT, the World Organization against Torture, works closely with the UN and with NGOs across the globe in an effort to identify, prevent and address all forms of violence against children, including torture and neglect, and neglect which extends to torture. The Tampere Declaration (TD) enhances the role of OMCT by proposing improved protection for children wherever they suffer structural or institutional violence. TD holds governments responsible for all forms of child neglect, because governments are mandated to protect children. Therefore, the role of OMCT and the recommendations and strategies of TD are relevant to the HREOC inquiry.
OMCT condemns the treatment of asylum seekers and warns that conditions inside IDCs amount to ill treatment. OMCT therefore requests that Australia guarantees the "respect of human rights and the fundamental freedoms throughout the country." [7]
From this principle, and from my own observations of the damaging effects of detention on children, follows the tenet that children should be released from detention, together with both parents, and that mandatory detention of unaccompanied minors is indefensible.
Best Interests
"In all actions concerning children … the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration." [8]
This commitment is re-enforced by the non-discrimination clause [9] in CROC which operates irrespective of the parent's or the child's legal status. Non-discrimination means that all rights set out in CROC apply, even if the child arrived in Australia by boat and without valid travel documents.
The right of the child to an identity, including a name [10], is at odds with the practice of calling individuals by a number, as is practice in some IDCs.
CROC advocates that staff who work in institutions where children are kept, are selected on the basis of suitable personal attributes, as well as professional competency. [11] These requirements are more clearly spelt out in Rules. Rules stipulate the personal qualities of "integrity, humanity, ability and professional capacity". [12] Australia, through its private contractor ACM, [13] falls short of delivering these standards.
These are the findings of a parliamentary investigation.
"…in the course of 2000 a small proportion of detention officer staff were treating detainees including children as if they were criminals, intimidation and verbal abuse occurred and detainees were not sufficiently aware of their right to complain to the Ombudsman." [14]
At the time the Flood report was commissioned by Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock, an Ombudsman investigation "…following complaints and a number of reported incidents including escapes and allegations of assaults on detainees", was already nearing completion. [15] Findings of the Flood and Ombudsman reports were released within days of each other.
Not surprisingly, the Ombudsman report also revealed disturbing evidence.
"…there were a worrying number of reports of indecent assault and threats toward unattached women and children who represent the groups at highest risk. In my view, the accommodation and monitoring/care arrangements at IDCs did not come up to what I would regard as a minimum acceptable standard to ensure that those at greatest risk are not exposed to harm." [16]
Flood recommended that the training of detention staff be upgraded, because some staff lacked awareness of company policy and also needed "guidance to deal with issues of racism, sexism and religious intolerance". [17]
HREOC needs to investigate if this recommendation has been implemented. As the result of improved staff training, there should now be evidence of better working relationships between ACM detention staff and detainees, and greater protection for detained women and children. Periodic disturbances that are reported in the media, the use of the water canon, batons and tear gas when children are nearby, suggest that relationships have deteriorated, rather than improved.
But acting in the best interests of children is not restricted to appropriate personnel selection. Mandatory detention of children can never be in their best interests, and therefore contravenes the spirit of CROC. Their detention is also an indictment of Australia.
"These children arrive through no fault of their own. They arrive because adults bring them here. Yet they are held accountable for the problems created by grown-ups. The indiscriminate detention of children, therefore, is a reflection of how this nation treats those who are innocent. A legal and political framework that scapegoats children and uses them as a deterrent to stop others from arriving is offensive to Australians.
Setting children free is the only logical step available. Yet it is not enough to free only the children because, as we know from the work of developmental researchers, to separate children from their parents becomes the blueprint for generating even more harm. Therefore, the children and their parents (not just the mother) need to be released together. Anything less goes against the laws of development and comes at the expense of our previously good reputation for kindness and compassion." [18]
As former Human Rights Commissioner Chris Sidoti observed, "the basic problem is detention itself". [19]
The UN CROC Committee voiced its concerns [20] over the detention of children under the Aliens Act in Sweden, even though children cannot be detained in Sweden for more than six days. In Australia, the Ombudsman identified one nineteen-month old child who has been detained since birth, and another child who has spent four years in detention. [21] Children who are born whilst their parents are in detention, are incarcerated from the moment of birth.
The CROC Committee also recommends that detained children have access to public legal counsel. [22] This recommendation contrasts with the Australian practice where detention is of indeterminate length with virtually no scope for judicial intervention.
Failure of Nigeria to consider the adoption of principles ensuring detention of juveniles as a last resort, and for the shortest possible time, prompted the Committee to ask for "… a radical review of the whole system of administration of juvenile justice in Nigeria." [23] It would be of interest to note how the CROC Committee views the Australian situation. The last report by Australia to the CROC committee was presented in 1998, and this report did not address the mandatory detention of children.
Administrative arrangements of IDCs are a matter of concern. DIMIA selected ACM from seventeen applicants for the tender. ACM, with its working culture that developed from prison and police work, is unsuitable to operate IDCs, and to act in the best interests in children. Were DIMIA to have intended its choice of an IDCs manager to provide humane and efficacious processing, rather than prison services, it ought to have contracted a company with a track record in employing primarily social workers, teachers, and specialist counsellors with trauma and torture experience.
Another cause for concern is how ACM ever obtained the contract without first producing a Child Protection Policy. In February 2001, the Flood inquiry documented that there was no such policy implemented. [24] This seems indefensible; given the company has been the sole operator of immigration detention facilities in Australia since 1998.
The best interests of children are linked with the fate of their parents, because both are interdependent. As children grow up inside the unpredictable IDC environment, their Human Rights become compromised. The at times brutal manner in which parents and other adults are detained impact on the physical and emotional environment in which children live. This may dull the children's' recognition that other people have Human Rights, and could lead to detrimental social consequences when the currently detained children become adults.
It would therefore be in their best interests that detained children become formally educated about their own Human Rights. This practice also fosters respect for the rights of others. Copies of CROC should be made available to children [25] and their parents, in languages spoken by detained asylum seekers. Child friendly editions should include drawings and paraphrased language to assist younger children to understand the Convention.
Distribution of CROC inside IDCs should also include information about complaint mechanisms that can be pursued by detained individuals who believe CROC has been breached.
Survival and Development
"States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child." [26]
Commensurate with such requirement is an appropriate standard of living that ensures "mental, spiritual and social development." Growing up in an environment of "happiness, love and understanding," [27] together with the right to "rest and leisure, and to engage in recreational activities" [28] are essential prerequisites for growing up to become a well-adjusted adult.
But detention centres depict a different reality.
"The structure of wire fences, of orderly routine, and of medical treatment driven by detention policy form the backdrop to the ever-present possibility of danger. Children are aware that batons, riot shields, water canons or gas that causes nosebleed can always be directed at them, even if friendly medical personnel patch up injuries. An environment where tension, riots and hunger strikes are routine means torture, because children live in fear." [29]
A visitor to the Villawood IDC reports.
"At the close of visiting time, a three-year old from the security of his father's arms reached out, imploring me take the both of them with me. His tear-filled eyes followed me through the perimeter razor-wire fence until I was out of sight.
He had spent over half his young life in detention but he clearly recognised that where I came from was much better than the misery of life behind cruel coils of razor wire with an institutional regime which denies children the right to freedom and development in a secure environment." [30]
The rights to freedom of assembly [31] and freedom of expression, [32] freedom of thought, conscience and religion [33] become meaningless in a fluid and unpredictable detention environment that restricts almost all forms of entertainment and educational opportunities, does not offer access to the Internet, nor exposure to the performing arts. The fences, the uniformed guards, and the illumination of the camp at night, stifle spontaneous social interaction and privacy.
Future studies may well identify inter-generational damage, as detention renders children incapable of negotiating their own needs.
"I observed a group of detainee children in the visitor area of the Villawood IDC in Sydney fighting over one rusty, dilapidated and rickety swing. A boy around 6-years of age was pleading for a turn - he became increasing frantic as he whined for a turn, lest he miss the chance before the short visiting period came to an end. Eventually he gave up - walking away with head bowed and shoulders slumped in resignation. Not even a tension-relieving tear!"
It was me who wept for this sad boy." [34]
The ability to reach out to others in a loving and caring way becomes compromised.
"… the two siblings in the family had increasingly begun to fight with each other, to the point where their only interaction was violent. It was a dramatic illustration of what's happening to families in detention centres." [35]
CROC recognises the responsibility of both parents to bring up the child, [36] and also the right of the child to be with both parents. [37] "At least seven times" [38] [a child] went to hospital, recovered but became ill again when he returned to detention. For three months, his cycle of treatment and relapse continued as he oscillated between clinical indicators of health and illness. Then the media arrested the cycle. [39]
[The child] was released from detention. But appropriate medical treatment came at a cost. The family was split up. His parents initially remained in detention, but the mother was later released. His father remains in detention at the time of writing. [40]
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child links the placement of children inside institutions to "… stunted development, emotional and behavioural disorders (and) inadequate social skills." Institutions predispose children to suffering neglect and abuse, and the Committee reports that "preventing the placement of children in institutions was one of the most effective measures to prevent violence against children." [41] On this basis the Committee recommends that children be placed outside of detention, in order to meet the child's needs
"…not only for survival, but also for development, including psychological, mental, spiritual, moral, psychological and social development, in a manner compatible with human dignity and to prepare the child for an individual life in a free society, in accordance with article 6 of the Convention." [42]
Some of the children currently detained inside IDCs will grow up to be Australian adults, without personal memory of any other country. The detention experience is incompatible with anything that fosters normal survival and development.
Mandatory detention of children and the deliberate withholding of developmental opportunities generates adverse consequences for the whole of Australian society. Current government practice is creating a legacy of injustice that future generations may have to grapple with, because the full damage caused by detention may not become evident for many years.
Torture by neglect
"No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." [43]
Children are damaged as the result of their detention inside IDCs. The link between childhood deprivation and pain and suffering later in life is well documented in clinical literature. Relevant evidence is also available to the HREOC inquiry in a separate submission. [44]
Where children have been subjected to torture or neglect, measures should be taken toward their recovery. [45] But there is nothing humane about keeping previously traumatised children inside detention, so that it is unlikely for healing to occur inside IDCs.
"Even an "innocent" decision such as room allocation can have a detrimental effect and can activate previous trauma. Routine awakening by guards during random night patrols, including the use of flashlight beams and the repeating of detainee names can lead to children developing fears about sleeping. A young father told me his child resisted being put to bed and would often collapse exhausted, only to wake screaming with nightmares."
…
"A 15-year-old detained in a desert camp in Australia told me of his fear when he was housed with men from the ethnic group which had persecuted him and his family in his country of origin."
…
"Everybody told me that Australia was a good country and people were kind. My father sent me away to save my life. But they persecute me here in Australia. They do not believe my story and shout at me. The guards say to me Australian people do not want you. I am dying inside every day in DIMA detention with no hope. I cannot go home to find my family and I cannot have freedom. " [46]
Child protection laws are in place in Australia, and there are memoranda of understanding between child protection agencies and detention centres. But these laws do not protect detained children from neglect or from cruel and inhumane treatment that is caused by conditions of detention. Torture comes about by the ongoing failure of the government to act and to protect the detained children from harm and neglect.
OMCT addresses structural violence against children by promoting community based, rather than medical or legal mechanisms. But IDCs are harsh prison camps, not communities that shape their own future. The remote location of some camps, and the deliberate attempts to keep the press and visitors out, and the suppression of information, make the IDCs an ideal environment for torture.
One example demonstrates the government's reluctance to intervene, when child abuse is suspected. In November 2000, the daily newspaper The Australian reported that child abuse was "rampant" at the Woomera detention centre, [47] that a child was raped eight months earlier, [48] and that ACM management suppressed an investigation.
The response was unique. A government official confirmed previous sexual abuse investigations, but summarised these as instances of faulty "parenting skills". [49] Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock blamed vested interests of political opponents and claimed these allegations "were being pushed by advocacy groups opposed to the mandatory detention of asylum seekers with children". [50]
A subsequent parliamentary inquiry confirmed a cover-up. [51] This finding highlights concerns for the safety of detained children and also casts doubt over the integrity of the information process between DIMIA and ACM, and between the government and the Australian public.
The Tampere Declaration recommends transparency as a strategy to combat child abuse and neglect. Amnesty Australia documents its concerns over legislation that prohibits the Human Rights Commissioner and the Ombudsman from initiating contact with detained asylum seekers. [52]
TD also recommends a national plan of action with effective monitoring bodies and national co-operation with UN fact-finding missions. But Australia scoffs at the UN. A UN delegation was prevented from inspecting IDCs in August 2000, and permission for the pending UN visit in mid-May to the Woomera detention centre was only given after reluctant stalling by the Prime Minister.
Whilst Australia is a signatory to the Convention against Torture, there is no domestic law that prohibits torture within Australia. The 1988 Torture Act and its 2001 amendment only recognise torture if an Australian official commits the offence outside of Australia. [53] But torture is a crime against humanity, and offenders should be liable to prosecution, regardless of where it occurs.
The Tampere Declaration calls on governments to "ratify and fully implement all international and regional human rights and humanitarian instruments relevant to violence against children in all areas under their jurisdiction."
HREOC needs to address this issue and ensure that the Australian Torture Act is not a blueprint for impunity.
Establishing Torture
"Torture presupposes the innocence of its victims. Such innocence becomes most obvious where the victims are children." [54]
Within the context of Human Rights, the definition of torture comes from article 1 of The Convention against Torture.
"For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions." [55]
CAT stipulates that torture occurs only in the context of four conditions that accompany pain and suffering. Where children in IDCs are concerned, all four conditions for establishing Torture are met.
1. From Severe Pain or Suffering to Torture.
Examples cited in this submission should leave no doubt that pain and suffering of the children is severe. But how do severe pain and suffering relate to torture?
Precedent in international law suggests a two-tired consideration that propels inhuman and degrading acts into the realm of torture.
The European Court of Human Rights found a technique applied to a prisoner "of such a serious and cruel nature that it can only be described as torture." Accordingly, the severity of the act automatically identifies certain acts as torture. [56]
Other court findings locate inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment on a continuum with torture. Somewhere on this continuum is the cut-off point for torture. Where treatment and torture intersects, depends on the personal circumstances of the victim, such as sex, age, state of health, and relationship to the perpetrator. [57]
Consideration of personal circumstances of the victim has implications for arguing torture under Australia's mandatory immigration detention regime. Prior to their incarceration in Australia, asylum seeker children may have already experienced or witnessed trauma. Such experience is likely to make some children even more vulnerable to conditions inside IDCs. Previous noxious experience therefore means that torture threshold is reached much sooner than it would otherwise.
2. Intent.
Child neglect by itself does not constitute torture. Neglect is the foreseeable outcome of detaining children. Intent comes about by the continued refusal of the government to intervene.
Intent can also be argued on the basis of discrimination. Discrimination is evident from the conditions in which detained child asylum seekers are kept. No other children in Australia are subjected to such conditions.
3. Instigation, consent or acquiescence of a public official.
The privately owned company ACM is contracted by DIMIA to perform day-to-day operation of the IDCs. But overall responsibility rests with DIMIA, and this responsibility cannot be delegated to a private contractor. [58] Therefore, ACM employees are in the functional role of public official.
Contrary to the stereotype image of torture, there is no torturer inside IDCs who regularly beats screaming children. Nevertheless, the child neglect that occurs during detention is just as real as if there were an individual torturer.
Owing to the recent changes in international law canvassed in the statutes of the recently established International Criminal Court, there is an international move toward a more liberal definition of torture. Culpability in this forum may have been extended to include not only those who played a key role in the implementation of the policy of mandatory detention, but also to all individuals who had a lesser role in mandatory detention.
4. Pain and suffering arising from lawful sanctions.
Mandatory detention has its legislative basis in the Australian Migration Act. [59] But no form of legal detention justifies that children, or any other prisoner, becomes damaged as the result of detention to the extent that children are damaged inside IDCs.
Concerns arising
Trauma and Torture (T&T)
The mandate to seek out torture [60] and the power of CAT to investigate institutions [61] are hampered inside IDCs. Immigration Detention Standards stipulate that asylum seekers with a history of T&T should not be detained, except that
- There is no systematic way of identifying T&T survivors when they reach the detention camps;
- T&T is not part of the initial medical assessment, which is usually conducted by nurses; and
- Nurses are not usually qualified to identify T&T victims.
Effective primary screening instruments should include an early intervention protocol to identify T&T victims, whose release should be implemented without delay.
From there, as recommended by the Tampere Declaration, the reintegration of child victims should commence according to established community standards, and in collaboration with NGOs. But reintegration cannot occur whilst children are detained under conditions of the current mandatory detention regime.
Identified T&T victims at Woomera
The visiting Senior ACM Psychologist identified two (2) T&T victims in April 2000. Based on his assessment he recommended that they be transferred to another centre.
One of these individuals was 12 years old at the time.
The other was a man who had an identified psychiatric condition. A triage nurse at Glenside Hospital in Adelaide informed me that his treating Glenside psychiatrist recommended as early as February 2000 that Woomera was inappropriate. Both individuals were still detained at the Woomera centre at the end of July 2000.
Other concerns
In July 2000, a GP requested an urgent referral for a twelve year old to a child psychiatrist. This is another child, not the twelve year old identified as a T&T victim by the psychologist. The girl showed clinical signs of stress after she witnessed a traumatic incident at the Woomera detention centre. I was unable to arrange for a consultation by video link, because my working contract had expired. To my knowledge, the consultation with the child psychiatrist never occurred.
A paediatrician from the Port Augusta Hospital recommended that an infant be transferred from Woomera, because the child needed medical attention that could not be provided at Woomera. This request was also ignored. The boy later developed life threatening respiratory distress and needed emergency transfer to another medical facility. ACM management delayed the ambulance transfer of the critically ill child by almost one hour.
I can supply details to HREOC that would enable the Commissioner to access the clinical files of all four individuals.
In a six-week window during June and July 2000, there were several allegations of child and adult sexual abuse at the Woomera IDC. These matters have already been referred to the relevant authorities.
My remaining concern is that when abuse allegations were raised, alleged victims were returned to the compound where they lived, often in close proximity to the alleged perpetrator, locked together into the same compound.
HREOC needs to ensure that whenever sexual assault is alleged, the alleged victim is immediately moved from the area where it is alleged to have occurred to a safe dormitory, and not only after detention staff are convinced of the merit of the allegation. Detention staff are not qualified to assess or substantiate allegations of sexual abuse.
1. The Tampere Declaration. Produced at the OMCT Conference "Children, Torture and other Forms of Violence" Tampere, Finland, 27th Nov to 2nd Dec 2001
2. B. Rogalla and T. Highfield. "The Systematic Incarceration of Children in Immigration Detention Centers of Australia: A Modern Form of Torture" Unpublished Paper, used as background material OMCT Conference "Children, Torture and other Forms of Violence" Tampere, Finland. 27th Nov to 2nd Dec 2001. Paper was also presented at the University of NSW Conference in Sydney "Where to from Here." 6th to 9th December 2001.
3. B. Rogalla "Modern day torture: Government sponsored neglect of asylum seeker children under the Australian mandatory immigration detention regime." 2002. Publication in Progress.
4. A more comprehensive account of how the needs of children are neglected inside IDCs is in the submission from the KIDS working party to this HREOC inquiry, especially in the sections on Health and Mental Health.
7. OMCT Media Release, Geneva. Oct 4: 2001
12. United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles deprived of their Liberty, articles 81-87: 1990
13. Australasian Correctional Services is the company contracted by DIMIA to operate immigration detention services. But the company operates as Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) from its head office in Sydney.
14. P. Flood, A.O. "Report of Inquiry into Immigration Detention Procedures." p 32: February 2001
15. Commonwealth Ombudsman. "Report of an Own Motion Investigation into the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs' Immigration Detention Centres", p 2: March 2001
17. P. Flood, p 42: February 2001
18. B. Rogalla. Australia's Little Prisoners. Australian Children's Rights News. March 2001.
19. Report on the Human Rights Commissioner's Visit to Curtin IRPC in July 2000, Human Rights and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, http//www.hreoc.gov.Australia/human_rights/asylum/index.html
20. UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. "Concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: Sweden. 18.02.93." CRC/C/15/Add.2.
21. Commonwealth Ombudsman. "Report of an Own Motion Investigation into the Department on Immigration and Multicultural Affairs' Immigration Detention Centres." Page 21: 2001
23. UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Summary Record of the 323rd meeting: Nigeria. 1-10-01. CRC/C/SR.323
24. P. Flood, p 26: February 2001
29. B. Rogalla and T. Highfield: 2001
30. B. Rogalla and T. Highfield, 2001
34. Rogalla and Highfield: 2001
35. Sydney Morning Herald, Newspaper. "Two of Us": 7-7-01
38. ABC television, "7.30 Report," comment by Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock: 14-8-01,
39. After screening of the "4 Corners" television documentary on ABC TV, [the child] was again admitted to hospital. He was later released into foster care with a family in Sydney.
40. Sydney Morning Herald, Newspaper. "Legal reprieve for refugee family." April 9: 2002
44. Submission to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in relation to the Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. J. Liberman et al: 2002 http://www.julianburnside.com
46. Rogalla and Highfield: 2001
47. The Australian, Newspaper. "Child abuse alleged at Woomera": 13-11-00
48. The Australian, Newspaper. "Woomera officer tells of boy raped and sold for cigarettes": 15-11-00
49. The Australian, Newspaper. "Child abuse alleged at Woomera": 13-11-00
50. The Australian, Newspaper. "Woomera detainees not segregated:" 18-11-00
52. Amnesty International. Annual Report 2000. Australia
53. Crimes (Torture) Act 1988 - No 148 of 1988 - Consolidated to 24 May 2001. Section 6.1
54. B. Rogalla. "Border Protection Australian Style: A modern form of torture" Australian Children's Rights News. December 2001. http://wwwdci-au.org
55. Convention Against Torture or other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment and Punishment. Article 1: 1987
56. Aksoy v Turkey, Judgement of 18 Dec 1996, European Court of Human Rights. Cited in C. Mackenzie. Untitled Paper. Circulated as background material at OMCT Conference "Children, Torture and other Forms of Violence" Tampere, Finland, 27th Nov to 2nd Dec 2001
57. Republic of Ireland v United Kingdom. 2 European Human Rights Reports 25, 1979-1980. Also cited in Mackenzie: 2001.
58. Commonwealth Ombudsman, p 27: 2001 Joint Committee of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, p 25-26: 2001
59. Migration Act 1958. Act No. 62 of 1958, amended 4 June 2001, section 189
Last Updated 9 January 2003.
