Senator queries Christmas Island detention policy

5 June 2009, 05:06PM

Children in detention on Christmas Island in 2004

Amnesty International remains deeply concerned with the Australian government’s current policy of detaining asylum seekers on Christmas Island. This issue was raised in Amnesty International’s recently released 2009 Annual Report, and when Claire Mallinson, the National Director of Amnesty International Australia, launched the report she stated that:

"… unaccompanied children are still routinely detained on the island … It looks like a prison and feels like a prison … It’s steel and barbed wire, and cameras are watching every move … If you are fleeing from torture and abuse, it’s not the type of place you would find welcoming … Processing could be done on mainland Australia. And we still discriminate against asylum seekers arriving by boat rather than plane."

On Wednesday 3 June, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young quoted the above passage at a Senate Budget Estimate hearing. Amnesty International welcomes this issue being discussed in the Senate and looks forward to the Department of Immigration following through on the questions that Senator Hanson-Young raised.

In particular, Amnesty International would like clarification as to why children are still being held in detention facilities on Christmas Island despite the government’s promise to end all detention of minors. The organisation understands that children and unaccompanied minors are presently not held in the Christmas Island Detention Centre but instead placed in “alternate detention facilities”. However, Amnesty International has visited the available asylum seeker accommodation at Christmas Island, and strongly believes that the detention facilities that are currently home to more than 80 children (mostly unaccompanied minors) are completely inappropriate and constitute a betrayal of the government’s new vision for a more humane immigration policy.

The children kept in alternate detention arrangements are guarded around the clock and are not free to leave the fenced perimeter of the facilities. Furthermore, the remote location of Christmas Island means that they have limited access to legal, health and counselling services. If children were detained under these conditions on the mainland, there would be outrage in the Australian community, and Amnesty International believes that it is unacceptable for the situation of children on Christmas Island to be ignored solely because they arrived by boat.

Amnesty International firmly maintains that for Australia to meet its international obligations, Christmas Island should be closed down as an asylum processing facility. As a matter of priority, however, the government should immediately remove all children and families from the island and house them appropriately on the mainland.

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