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Submission to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
Margaret Wood
[Address removed]
National Inquiry
into Children in Immigration Detention
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
GPO Box 5218
SYDNEY 1042
Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing to express my serious concerns about the health and well-being
of children, pregnant and lactating women and women of child bearing age
in the groups of asylum seekers presently locked up in detention centres.
I am also concerned about the men.
The human right to
adequate food and nutrition is a well established concept across
the world (see "Nutrition rights: The Human Right to Adequate Food
and Nutrition" by George Kent on behalf of the World Alliance on
Nutrition and Human Rights, 2000-http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent/tutorial2000/titlepage.htm).
Whilst food and human rights is not mentioned in the Australian constitution, Australia is a signatory to international standards of the United Nations including the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the right to health under Article 12, ICESCR.
I am sure that most Australians agree with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states "Everyone has the right to a decent life, including enough food, clothing, housing, medical care and social services. Society should help those that are unable to work because they are unemployed, sick, disabled, or too old to work. Mothers and babies are entitled to special care and assistance."
Women of child bearing age, pregnant and lactating women and children have particularly important food and nutrition needs related to particular stages of the life cycle. If these needs are not met at the appropriate physiological age/stage, there are health effects at the time or later in life.
When children are deprived of adequate food and nutrition at important stages of growth, there are long lasting and often permanently damaging consequences. Some examples are stunting (growth failure) and marasmus (severe underweight) or both together, together with the devastating effects of particular micronutrient deficiencies. There can also be effects on psychological and social well-being and behavioural and mental problems.
When pregnant and lactating women are deprived of adequate nourishment, the health of the mother suffers and adds to her burden of disease and morbidity and reduced longevity later in life.
We are limited in our review of the health and well-being of such vulnerable people in detention centres-for the reason that the centres are not open to examination by professional experts and others.
My serious concerns are presented here on the basis of current knowledge and long experience in the field of food, nutrition and dietetics. These concerns are now expressed in a food insecurity framework.
In the first instance, asylum seekers come from third world countries and then refugee camps where the food supply and living conditions are problematic (even under the better of situations). Food insecurity has often been a long standing factor in their original and transit communities. I expect that a proportion of the children and the women, in particular, will have been poorly nourished either intermittently or constantly for at least several years before arriving in Australia.
Add to this, the exposure to high ambient temperature and lack of food security in smugglers boats for perhaps several weeks of transit to Australia.
On arrival in Australia, we understand that asylum seekers are not screened (let alone assessed) for nutritional status. The children and pregnant and lactating women are not reviewed for nutritional problems, which are expected to exist in a proportion of them. There are no services provided in detention camps for food and nutritional monitoring and support, particularly of those most in need.
In remote detention centres in remote communities and the Pacific, we do not know if food insecurity exists. But food insecurity is expected to exist because of the way in which families are communally fed, with no flexibility as to eating hours, or availability of food and nourishing snacks between meals for anyone, and little opportunity for the use of family meals to foster good behaviour and child development.
If children need feeding between meals, as most children do, I understand that there is a limited choice of junk food snacks for sale but if families (and particularly single mothers or single children) have to spend what little money they have in this way, it leads to further impoverishment.
It would also be interesting to know if families have any choice of foods, and whether they are culturally acceptable to all of them. I would not expect that this exists, leading to further food insecurity. All of these important factors, which have enormous implications for health and well being in the groups in question, are of course of increasing concern when detention extends from weeks to months and years.
Those who protest about their detention by fasting or sewing their lips together can be expected to suffer greatly from a nutritional and health viewpoint. The negative nitrogen balance and catabolism of body protein and fat stores develops in four days or less, depending on initial body weight, and age. Add the compounding effects of dehydration in high ambient temperatures and the serious and perhaps life threatening decrease in body thiamin reserves. Permanent brain damage and perhaps death is likely after four to six weeks from thiamin deficiency in a healthy adult with good body thiamin reserves to start with. There has been no work on how long this takes in children or pregnant or lactating women-for obvious reasons-but theoretically it could possibly be days in an undernourished child, and certainly would be a much shorter period than four to six weeks.
On release from remote detention centres, asylum seekers are again highly likely to be confronted by food insecurity. Their inability to work or get a health card and their own depleted resources and health means that they gravitate to the areas of Australia which are already the most disadvantaged (the lowest socio-economic index of geographical area, known as the first quintile of SEIFA).
Here asylum seekers are observed and known by us to often be unable to access sufficient food, and they are presenting in increasing numbers for emergency food relief. There are many occasions when even this sort of charity cannot meet their needs.
In summary, food insecurity is a negative and often continuous factor in the lives of asylum seekers - from their often impoverished lives in their original homeland through mandatory detention centres and perhaps for years in their lives in the Australian community. This is potentially serious and most disadvantageous for the development of children and the health and well-being of them, and of pregnant and lactating women.
We must also be cognisant of the effect of the potentially increased burden of disease and physical and mental and behavioural problems which asylum seekers potentially bring to Australian communities - particularly communities which are already disadvantaged, which have low levels of infrastructure and resources, and where community and individual food insecurity already exist.
There are more humane and cost-effective ways of coping with the asylum seekers who reach our shores. It will be highly advantageous to them and to Australian residents if they are screened and assessed for nutritional problems on arrival. This should be followed by the provision of food and beverages which ensures their food security and promotes their health and well-being-with continued monitoring. On discharge to the community (as soon as possible, preferably weeks) it would be wiser to provide them with sufficient entitlements to prevent further food security and its associated high burden of ill-health and other problems.
I will be pleased to provide the Inquiry with further detail and information on the consequences of food insecurity and its prevention in asylum seekers, as required.
Yours sincerely
Margaret
Beverley Wood PhD, FAHIA, MDAA, APD
Consultant in Food, Nutrition and Dietetics
