Children in Detention - HREOC Report.

[darren_stranger]

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's report into the detention of children has been tabled today in federal parliament.

http://www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/children_detention_report/report/

Among other things, it found that "Australia's immigration detention laws, as administered by the Commonwealth, and applied to unauthorised arrival children, create a detention system that is fundamentally inconsistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)." and "Children in immigration detention for long periods of time are at high risk of serious mental harm. The Commonwealth's failure to implement the repeated recommendations by mental health professionals that certain children be removed from the detention environment with their parents, amounted to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of those children in detention (CRC, article 37(a) - Chapter 9).".   It recommends that Australia's immigration detention laws should be amended, as a matter of urgency, to comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It has been suggested that the timing of its release is designed to slip it under the public's radar amid the frenzy of "what's in it for me?" budget analysis.  Surely our esteemed leaders wouldn't do anything so cynical.

Either way, it should be brought to light as widely as possible.

Comments

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I asked this elsewhere, and I can't spare the time to read
but:
If 92% of all children are actually legit refugees, what % of the parents are legit?

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

i've heard it estimated at around 90% (that were eventually approved by the Tribunal), but i'm sure that would be lower in recent years as some of the countries they've come from have had regime changes and been declared safe after the fact (eg Afghanistan *cough*).