darren_stranger | Children in Detention

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.