This morning, dozens of children - under the watchful eye of the Australian Government - were escorted to school by guards. This evening the children will return to a fenced facility on a remote island and do their homework in demountable buildings, while they ponder their plight. Sound like fiction?
Sadly, there are families and children on Christmas Island who experience this heartbreak daily.
When I visited the new Christmas Island Detention Centre last year I was horrified to see the prison-like conditions that people applying for asylum in Australia must live in. We were told that children would not be detained in the new detention centre. What we have discovered is that the alternative detention arrangements for the 68 children, including 41 unaccompanied minors held on the island are little better, and in many respects worse.
Tomorrow is World Refugee Day. Please stand with us and call on the Government to end this shameful treatment and remove all detained children from Christmas Island.
The "alternative" detention arrangements are inappropriate for even the briefest period. A fenced-in facility which currently holds the 68 children consists mostly of metal, concrete and gravel, tiny demountable buildings, with small claustrophobic bedrooms. The children are under guard and not free to leave the fenced perimeter of the facilities. This is unacceptable -- if children were detained under these conditions on the mainland there would be outrage in the Australian community.
No child seeking asylum should be detained on Christmas Island. Please take action now by sending a prepared letter, or your own, to Senator Chris Evans, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, from http://www.amnesty.org.au/action/action/21112/?&utm_source=refwk&utm_med...
While the Federal Government committed to no longer keeping children in detention centres – instead they are exiled to an environment where the conditions and the lack of services have similar detrimental psychological impacts. This is a betrayal of the Government’s commitment to a more humane immigration policy -- and for the sake of 68 young children we must call for this to end.
Thank you for standing up for a more humane refugee system.
Yours sincerely, Graham Thom, Refugee Coordinator, Amnesty International Australia