Files detail abuse of Australia-detained asylum seekers

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH (AA) - Refugees and asylum seekers detained by Australia on the South Pacific island of Nauru are experiencing rampant abuse, including assaults on minors, according to a trove of more than 2,000 documents made public Wednesday.

The incident reports, which were compiled by detention center staff, were leaked to the Guardian Australia and provide further evidence of the litany of abuses on Nauru, including hundreds of cases of threatened self-harm and the sexual assault of children.

In 2015 alone, there were 155 cases of threatened self-harm; 90 of abusive or aggressive behavior; 48 assaults and 57 additional assaults on minors, and 26 accidents or injuries.

Guardian Australia found that even though children account for just 18 percent of the people in detention on Nauru, 51.3 percent of the reports filed between May 2013 and October 2015 were related to incidents affecting minors.

One case from January 2015 involved the sexual assault of a boy by a Nauruan guard working for Wilson Security. Another, filed in August 2014, detailed allegations made by a detainee who said she had been raped the month before.

The poor conditions on Nauru are not exactly a secret; in 2015, separate reports by Australian Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs and former integrity commissioner Philip Moss detailed abuses of refugees and asylum seekers on the remote island.

Guardian Australia reported Wednesday that Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the government would look into the allegations made in the reports.

The office of Immigration Minister Peter Dutton did not respond to questions sent by Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

It is worth noting that offshore detention is a policy also supported by the opposition Australian Labour Party (ALP); the deal between Australia and Papua New Guinea to detain asylum seekers on Manus Island is the work of former Labour leader Kevin Rudd.

ALP leader Bill Shorten was quoted by Guardian Australia as saying that “[t]ransparency is the best way, I believe, to ensure that people in our care have been properly maintained and Australian standards are being upheld and not undermined in these centers.”

The Australian Greens party is against the offshore policy.

On Wednesday, its South Australia senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, tweeted that the government had “known for years of child abuse & sexual assault on Nauru,” and that they had “downplayed & covered it up”.

She called for a royal commission into the allegations laid bare in the leak.

Unicef Australia issued a statement Wednesday that called for the government “to provide a permanent resettlement solution for asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru” in the wake of the latest allegations.

Nicole Breeze, Unicef Australia’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, said: “There is undeniable, cumulative evidence that suggests that asylum seeker and refugee children are not safe under existing arrangements on Nauru. The Australian Government must take immediate action for children and their families to prevent further harm.”

Kon Karapanagiotidis, founder and CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, told Anadolu Agency by phone from Australia on Wednesday that there would only be change to the existing offshore detention policies “when the Australian public demands it.”

He doubted the ability of the leak -- as damning as it is -- to bring about any significant change, seeing as neither the Triggs or Moss reports could do the same.

“None of these [abuses] is an aberration or accident,” he said.

“We sit there horrified and disgusted, but for the government, this is not a bad news story for them. This is part of their policy. When you outsource human rights abuses... have open-air child abuse camps... when you vilify and dehumanize people, child abuse and sexual abuse is the inevitable result of this. The policy creates such horror that it wants people out there… to know, if you come to our country, this is what will happen to you.”

Australia refuses to accept asylum seekers who arrive by boat. Instead, it detains them on Nauru and Manus.

In 2014, it signed an A$55-million ($42.5 million) agreement with the Cambodian government for refugees on Nauru to be resettled there if they choose.

To date, only five people have taken up the offer and all but one remain in Cambodia.