Refugee Rights Action Network WA
Around 40 refugee supporters from the Refugee Rights Action Network (RRAN) travelling to Leonora this weekend have been shocked to discover children who have been in detention for over a year when they visited the remote Western Australian detention centre.
Around 140 unaccompanied minors have been moved in recent weeks from Christmas Island and Darwin to the detention centre. The RRAN activists have called for the immediate release of the children from detention.
“We were told that children and families were going to be out of detention by the end of June last year, but Leonora is proof positive that even six months later, the government has not lived up to the promise of getting children out of detention. It’s a scandal”, said RRAN spokesperson Victoria Martin-Iverson.
“These kids are not recent arrivals. A majority of the 40 kids we managed to see have been in detention over a year. Yet, they are either still waiting for their second interview or have just had their appeal hearing. One seventeen year-old Hazara asylum seeker has been in detention for two years and only had his second interview this week! How is that possible?
“We were shocked to find that Serco guards referred to them by number. How dehumanising is that? One guard came is asking ‘Is 176 in here?” Another introduced a young Mohammed as, “Here is 428; he speaks good English.” Perhaps more shocking – some of these kids have signs of self harm on their bodies.
“We have serious concerns. They are not going to school; teachers are meant to be coming into the detention centre – but even that hasn’t happened yet, six weeks after they have arrived here.”
“We eat, we sleep; we eat, we sleep. We are very tired,” one Hazara told the Perth visitors.
“We were told in town that the no asylum kid has been to the library since the families were moved out of Leonora,” said Victoria.
“We are also concerned that there seems to be a large number of untrained MSS guards at Leonora, and that we saw them with direct client contact responsibilities with the children in detention. We thought that having untrained guards in such contact is in direct conflict with guidelines for children in detention. There is a serious question whether Serco or the Immigration Department is breaching its duty of care by using untrained guards.”
The RRAN cavalcade will be leaving Leonora around Sunday lunchtime (29 Jan) to make the return journey to Perth.
For more information/ interview contact Victoria Martin-Iverson 0417 904 329.
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