Children in detention centres

[bluecat*dancing]

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jan/18/child-detainee-mental-trauma-will-last-immigra...

International Health and Medical Services, the company contracted to run health services in detention, has also told the government that detention health services are already inadequate, and that more cuts to mental health services will further harm people in detention.

IHMS health data, confidentially provided to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection but obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, paints a bleak picture of deteriorating mental health in detention, particularly among children.

Depression is the most common specific chronic illness among children in detention, the IHMS data shows, and those under 18 have, by far, the highest rates of mental health presentations in detention of any age group.

“The minors are seen due to a variety of triggers, including previous trauma and torture, enuresis [bed-wetting], nightmare, family conflict and situational crises,” the IHMS reports say, highlighting violence in detention harming children’s mental health.

In offshore detention, the percentage of children’s presentations to a doctor that have resulted in a mental health diagnosis has nearly doubled over the past year. Adult diagnoses have remained static.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4390238.htm

TIM PALMER: The Government's threat to return scores of asylum seeker children to Nauru within weeks could set the scene for a legal clash on the issue.

The move by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was announced ahead of a High Court judgment which will decide the fate of children on Nauru.

Doctors, lawyers and political opponents are accusing the Government of using the children as political pawns, as Natasha Robinson reports.

NATASHA ROBINSON: It was a statement met with astonishment in legal circles.

In today's Daily Telegraph newspaper, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton announced 72 children would be returned to immigration detention on Nauru within weeks.

A High Court judgment that will decide the legality of offshore detention on Nauru is pending.

Daniel Webb is a director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre that's running the case.

DANIEL WEBB: Look, it's for the Minister to decide what he thinks is appropriate to say when a matter is currently before the courts.

The fate of this group of children, which includes 33 babies born right here in Australia, depends in part on the outcome of this High Court case and it would be fundamentally wrong for the Minister to send them back to a tiny island, to conditions that we know would cause them a great deal of harm.

NATASHA ROBINSON: The Government is taking credit that the numbers of children in immigration detention has dropped to historic lows.

Latest figures show 68 children are in offshore detention on Nauru, and according to Mr Dutton's office, there are now 79 in detention on the mainland.

Claire Hammerton from the organisation ChilOut, which lobbies for children to be taken out of detention, says the trauma for families caught in the system remains intense.

CLAIRE HAMMERTON: We have directly spoken to children who have been in detention for years.

I'm aware of one family who have been in detention - there are two reasonably young children in that family who have been in there for almost four years.

NATASHA ROBINSON: What does that family tell you, and what do those children say about their experiences?

CLAIRE HAMMERTON: This particular family, the children within that family I've spoken to have simply lost hope.

NATASHA ROBINSON: Late last year, amendments to legislation passed the Senate that called for all children to be removed from immigration detention within 30 days.

Richard Marles is Labor's immigration spokesman, and he says there is no reason for detention to extend to months and even years.

RICHARD MARLES: The truth of the matter is that processing times have blown out dramatically under this Government.

People are being kept in limbo.

[bluecat*dancing]

A number of truths have been exposed recently with, no doubt, more to come. Information provided under the Freedom of Information Act vindicates the asylum seekers, refugees, medical professionals, past and present employees as well as advocates. I bet these politicians loathe the FOI Act.

Get the children out of detention centres, speed up the processing time and treat those seeking safety with dignity and humanity. Its not that difficult.

[harley_babes_hoard]

yeah lets rip the children away from their parents (the only safe place they know) and place them by themselves with someone strange............ great that will help. pfft.

[bluecat*dancing]

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection publishes statistics setting out the number of people, including children, in immigration detention.

As at 30 November 2015 there were:

174 children in closed immigration detention facilities:

104 are held in closed immigration detention facilities in Australia and 70 children are detained in the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru

331 children in community detention in Australia.

The vast majority of the children who are in closed detention in Australia are held in low security immigration detention facilities.

As at 30 November 2015 there were:

65 children detained in Wickham Point Alternative Place of Detention (which was originally classified as a high security Immigration Detention Centre but in 2013 was re-designated as an APOD for holding families with children)

3 children detained in Perth Immigration Residential Housing

11 children detained in Sydney Immigration Residential Housing

8 children detained in Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation

17 children detained in Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation.