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Submission to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
the Women's Rights Action Network of Australia (WRANA)
1. Summary
The Women's Rights Action Network of Australia ("WRANA") is gravely concerned for the well being and human rights of children held in immigration detention in Australia, both as unaccompanied minors and children with accompanying families.
2. Women's Rights Action Network of Australia
WRANA was established in 1998 to facilitate Australian activism for the promotion and protection of women's human rights through:
- education and training to ensure human rights mechanisms are accessible, understandable and relevant in the lives of women in Australia;
- training enable the participation of women in Australia in human rights machineries;
- advocacy for the promotion and protection of women's human rights within Australia;
- documentation and raising awareness of women's human rights violations and abuses within Australian society.
Members of the Women's Rights Action Network - Australia endorse the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and work towards the creation of a society which respects and protects all human rights.
WRANA recognises the indivisibility of human rights, and the need to develop informed critiques on the current human rights system, particularly relating to the capacity of the human rights framework to respond to the diversity of women's experiences.
3. International Human Rights Standards
Australia is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention Against Torture and the Refugee Convention and its Protocol.
Pursuant to these Conventions, children in Australia are endowed with the following rights:
- protection and humanitarian assistance as asylum seekers (article 22, CROC);
- protection from violence, abuse, mistreatment and exploitation (article 19, CROC);
- health (article 24, CROC; ICESCR, article 12);
- standard of living adequate for physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development (article 27, CROC);
- education (article 28, CROC);
- privacy (article 16, CROC);
- recreation and play (article 31, CROC);
- care by parents and non separation from parents (article 7, CROC);
- protection of the family (article 10, ICESCR).
Special measures are required for children with mental or physical disabilities (article 23, CROC).
Pursuant to article 37(b) of CROC, detention of children must be a measure of last resort for the shortest possible period.
These rights extend to children in Australia whether they are citizens or not.
Moreover, women in Australia are entitled to appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and the post natal period, as well as adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation (article 12(2), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women).
Further, the international community has recognised the additional barriers faced by girl children (Beijing Platform for Action, Section L).
4. Experiences of Children in Detention
WRANA refers to and relies upon the accounts of women and children in immigration detention provided in the Kids in Detention Story submission to the HREOC inquiry.
The experiences recorded in these accounts demonstrate that children in detention experience the following harms:
- deprivation of liberty
- exposure to violence
- absent or unsatisfactory developmental opportunities
- inadequate education
- poor health services
- substandard nutrition and hygiene
- enforced separation from family members
- pervasive despair, frustration, family breakdown
- self harm
- degrading, punitive and harsh treatment by prison staff
WRANA notes that the human rights of women as mothers are violated by inadequate ante natal and post natal care; the violations of these rights have direct impact on the well being of children born in such circumstances.
WRANA is gravely concerned that by detaining children who are seeking asylum, Australia is in breach of its international obligations in the following respects:
- Australia fails to protect children seeking asylum;
- It denies humanitarian assistance to children seeking asylum;
- It inflicts upon and exposes children to violence, abuse, mistreatment and exploitation;
- It denies children an adequate standard of health;
- It denies children a standard of living adequate for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development;
- It denies children access to an adequate standard of education;
- It invades children's privacy;
- It fails to provide children meaningful opportunities for recreation and play;
- It separates children from their families and actively contributes to family breakdown;
- It denies mothers an adequate standard of health care before, during and after pregnancy.
WRANA concludes that the current policies and practices of detaining children seeking asylum create an environment which is positively harmful to children's rights, interests and development.
Detention is contrary to the paramount principle of the best interests of child and is disproportionate to the ostensible object of an orderly and secure immigration system.
In this regard, WRANA expresses its concern about the conflict between the role of the Minister for Immigration as guardian for unaccompanied minors and his role as the Minister at whose direction detention centres are established and operated. In WRANA's view, the Minister is not fulfilling his responsibilities as a good guardian.
WRANA is further concerned that the special needs of girl children in relation to reproductive and sexual health, privacy, gender sensitive trauma counselling, culturally appropriate play and education, protection from sexual assault and the threat of sexual assault, and culturally sensitive health service provision.
5. Recommendations
WRANA makes the following recommendations:
- the release of all children and their families from immigration detention;
- the introduction of a processing system which detains asylum seekers for a minimum period for the purposes of health and security checks only;
- the immediate closure of Woomera detention centre and relocation of processing centres;
- improved provision
of health, education and recreational services to children in processing
centres and after release into the community;
- access to processing centres by the public and the media;
- the provision of health services to mothers seeking asylum during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, equivalent to the services enjoyed by other women in Australia.
6. Conclusion
In WRANA's assessment, Australia's treatment of child asylum seekers is inappropriate and unsatisfactory:
- Australia is in breach of its international human rights obligations;
- Australia is failing to care for children already traumatised and vulnerable and is compounding their suffering through detention upon arrival in Australia;
- mandatory detention is in no circumstances acceptable and an alternative must be established without delay.
Women's Rights Action
Network of Australia
7 May 2002
