Children who do not feel safe

The boy was thin, angular, frenetic. He rushed into the room of strange adults. He strode to the conference table and stiffly shook hands with everyone, without any idea of who we were. His body was tense; his politeness excessive. He was 11-years-old. He was a child acting the man.

But he was alive. Thanks to his father, who a few weeks before, had found him trying to cut his wrists.

An exaggeration? We all wished it were. Behind the boy, his young brother followed, also shaking hands in a formal, tense way. Their father watched, but said nothing.

The boys were displaying the outside cool of terrible inner turmoil. They and their parents had recently been let out of a detention centre on a temporary refugee visa, after many months of being held behind wire enclosures, where they had witnessed things children should never see: such as violence, people suffering depression, people attempting suicide.

After all those months in detention, the family was out in the community but still had no promise of being allowed to stay in Australia permanently: there was no assurance of security in which to begin to recover their health and start a new life. Their father, a professional man of natural authority and courtesy, had no choice but to be staunch while he and his family remained in limbo, fearful of being sent back to the country from which they had escaped. If returned, they knew they would face persecution. Not for these boys carefree days of kicking a football about. They had to grapple with the fear of an unknown future and the helpless sense of belonging nowhere.

They were on a countdown list, a countdown while the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) decided if they could stay, or if they should go. Even if the boys did not know it, they had also been on another countdown list - on the list for the hard-fought struggle by individuals and organisations to get children out of detention before too much psychological damage has been inflicted. Fighting the Federal Government to get each child out of detention has been like pulling teeth. The battle is not yet won. At the time of writing, 58 children are still held.

Jon Jureidini, head of the department of Psychological Medicine at Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital, commented that all the adults and most of the children he had seen were “extremely badly damaged - more damaged by their detention experience than by their experience before arriving”. He said instances of children committing self-harm were prevalent and disturbing. Detainees’ “only means of protest is largely self-destructive”. DIMIA informed Parliament in 2003 that five children had sewn their lips together, three had slashed their arms, two had swallowed shampoo, one child tried to suicide by hanging themselves, and thirteen had threatened to hurt themselves over a two-week period.

Queensland lobbying group Refugee Action Collective (RAC) reported that the longest a child has been held in detention is 5 years, 5 months and 20 days. The mother and child were released from Port Headland in 2000, after finally being assessed as refugees. It had taken over five long years to convince a DIMIA “someone” they were fair dinkum.

In March 2005, the number of children in detention was 93 (DIMIA statistics), these were listed as 45 Tongans and Fijians, at Villawood; 12 Chinese at Port Augusta; 7 Tongans at Maribyrnong; 10 Vietnamese at Christmas Island; 11 Afghans at a hotel or house; 2 (unknown) at Baxter, plus 5 unaccompanied Afghan children.

Detained children included Naomi Leong, the three-year-old girl who had only known life in a detention centre. She is the daughter of Virginia Leong, a Malaysian, aged 31, who was detained when trying to leave for overseas on a false passport. Pregnant with Naomi at the time, it seems her valid visa had expired. It took a psychiatrist’s request for Naomi to be allowed out of Villawood detention centre for the first time in the three years to attend a play group for two hours. The little girl was reported to have become listless and unresponsive and her mother told the ABC that she was so upset herself that Naomi responded by banging her head against a wall and would not to talk to other children there.

In a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald editor (May 9, 2005), Jane Roberts, of Lindfield, wrote:

I regularly visit the mother and child in Villawood. My understanding is that because Naomi was born in detention she is stateless and no country will readily accept her as a resident. If Virginia Leong leaves Australia she cannot take her daughter with her. To keep her child she must continue to live in detention. There are many individuals and agencies willing to support and assist Virginia and Naomi if the Department of Immigration were willing to release them from their legal limbo.

Naomi’s story caught the attention of the media after news that a mentally ill Filipino, also an Australian citizen, had been wrongfully deported, and another confused person, an Australian citizen of German descent, had been held at a detention centre for 11 months, and later moved to a psychiatric unit. The stories made big news in Australia and internationally, and the immigration minister clearly embarrassed. Unexpectedly, Naomi and her mother were released on a bridging visa and it was announced Malayasia had offered citizenship to the little girl. Her brother, Griffin, 7, lives in Australia with Veronica’s ex-husband and his mother has not seen him for more than three years.

A humanitarian, non-political organisation, Chilout (Children Out of Detention), remains concerned about the conditions under which children have been detained, the length of their detention and “the high security, prison-like centres in which they are held.” It reports some children are on anti-depressants, some have been on hunger strikes.

Chilout told, for example, about the story of Shayan, who was five when he arrived in Australia by boat in March 2000, with his parents, and taken to Woomera detention centre. There he saw hunger strikes, fires and riots, in which tear gas and water cannons were used, and saw an adult detainee slash his chest with a shard of glass and jump from a tree.

He suffered nightmares and would awake at night crying “They are going to kill us”. He repeatedly drew pictures of fences with himself and his family confined inside them. He withdrew socially and displayed aggressive behaviour.

The family was transferred to Villawood. Shayan's father took him to the medical clinic because the boy became so distressed after seeing a fight and another suicide attempt. He would not leave his parents’ side. He hid under a blanket, wet himself, would not eat, would only drink small amounts of milk, would not speak and could not sleep.

Shayan, now seven, has been diagnosed with acute and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of his experiences. It was August 2002 before the entire family was recognised as refugees, and could live in the community on temporary protection visas - temporary, not permanent. There was no promise of permanency.

The Amnesty International’s Children in Detention report (pdf file 476KB) included examples of traumas experienced by detained children including tear gas and late night spot checks by guards, and witnessing their parents being abused. It described how they lived in cramped conditions among people who were suffering depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. There was no consistent full-time education system for the children; there were insufficient play and leisure areas, and limited, if any, contact with the outside world.

The United Nations High Commission on refugees (UNHCR) has made clear that refugees at most risk of sexual violence are children in detention, particularly girls and unaccompanied minors. Senator Bartlett has said, for instance, that two convicted child-sex offenders were detained at Baxter.

On Nauru, a 14-year-old girl in a detention camp where other detainees are mostly young men, became depressed and lonely because she was not allowed to go to the dining room, shopping or swimming without being in the company of her parents.

In April 2005, Howard Glenn, Executive Director of Rights Australia Inc, addressed the UN Commission on Human Rights regarding six children held on Nauru. He reported that the High Court had confirmed that the Immigration Act did not provide children with legal or constitutional immunity from mandatory detention: children were in the same position legally as their parents.

“They too can be detailed indefinitely under legislation passed by this Parliament,” he said. ”And there is no constitutional remedy.”

Federal Parliamentary Library information notes state that, “While many countries detain illegal immigrants for varying periods of time, to date Australia is the only country where detention is mandatory for adults and children for the duration of processing by DIMIA. Mandatory detention for unlawful non-citizens was introduced in Australia in 1992.”

Howard Glenn pointed to the cost of detention: DIMIA’s current estimates (April 2005) indicated that per year the average detention estimates were $A87 million for accommodation, staff and other administration costs.

He told the commission he believed “Even Australians with the hardest hearts surely cannot sleep easily knowing that their government insists we condemn stateless people - men, women and children - to live out their lives behind locked gates, walled in forever”.

Apparently the government can. An 800-bed immigration facility is being built on Christmas Island, apparently to house future asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat. Christmas Island first attracted world attention as a result of British and US nuclear tests.

The 9 children, 8 women and 18 men currently at Christmas Island Immigration Reception and Processing Centre have videos, DVDs, playstations, gameboys, music system and karaoke to amuse them. Sports include fishing and swimming, and sewing machines and computers are available, according to DIMIA.

On May 11, there were 68 children altogether in Australian detention. On May 23, DIMIA statistics stated 58 children are in detention. So the count is going down further. The children include those held on Christmas Island, 8; in Villawood, 28; Maribyrnong, 1; Baxter, 2; and Port Augusta, 19.

Even if they were all released tomorrow, what are the long-term effects of the incarceration of children?

Dr Louise Newman, director of the NSW Institute of Psychiatry, said on the ABC recently that detention was a very abnormal environment for child rearing, and that the majority of children the institute had clinically and developmentally assessed had shown signs of emotional and psychological trauma and stress, and their development had been affected.

Dr Newman, speaking subsequently, said among the children her institute had seen, some were born in detention, some had lived in detention for three or four years, and some had experienced the Woomera riots.

As a result, children were receiving treatment for psychological problems and post-trauma stress disorder. Effects manifested themselves in depression, isolation, and a fear of separation. She said even very young children could sense the anxiety of their parents, who, as a result of their own experiences, could become withdrawn and not emotionally available for their children.

Under detention there were not enough opportunities for the children to play and not enough facilities for their education, she said. There was inadequate stimulus for the children and, in addition, they often had to deal with depressed parents. It was a combination in which the children could not thrive.

When the children were eventually released, she anticipated, “Some will need intensive treatment and psychological support, as well as remedial education to get them up to where they should be”.

Both parents and children in the community on temporary protection visas continued to suffer anxiety about their future. “It is especially important for adolescents to feel they belong,” she said.

In the long-term, the children could still need psychological intervention. Much depended on how well they were re-integrated into society and how connected to the community they became.

“The attitude of the Federal Government has to change,” Dr Newman said. Anxiety and symptoms of post-trauma stress order would continue until people had permanency. “The Government must make a sincere effort to reform the law. There can be no progress until we actually reverse that.” The children could not get better until they had security. “They don’t feel safe,” she said. 

This drawing by Shayan Badraie, at 6, shows Shayan and his sister crying, with their parents. The van at bottom right is the ambulance that would take Shayan to and from Westmead Children's Hospital, when he needed to be rehydrated because he would not eat or drink properly. Top left is a guard with a baton. Bottom left is a detainee bleeding where he has cut his wrist. All along the top is the razor wire that sits across the fences at Villawood. Courtesy, Chilout (Children Out of Detention).