To End Detention of Children and Separation of Families in Australia
Wednesday, 26 November, 2003
To: Prime Minister John Howard and Senator Amanda Vanstone, Minister for Immigration
Australia currently holds more than 94 children in Immigration Detention in Australia and 90 in the Pacific.
- Villawood 32 children
- Maribyrnong 1 child
- Baxter 22 children
- Woomera Housing Project 7 children
- Port Hedland 15 children
- Port Hedland Housing 2 children
- Christmas Island 15 children
- Nauru 90 children
(November 2003 figures from A Just Australia)
The oldest children in detention are living out their teens behind razor wire and electric fences. The youngest is a baby born a month ago, who was placed in detention in Baxter shortly after his birth. The physical, emotional and psychological damage detention inflicts on children is well documented and not in dispute. Some children in Australian detention centres have been unnecessarily imprisoned for years. In Sweden the maximum time a child is kept in custody is six days ...
It makes me sick how Australia treats asylum seekers. It's inhumane and it goes completely against what the Bible says.
A couple of years ago I attended a seminar given by a man who regularly visits detention centres to teach refugees English and, if he is allowed, read the Bible with them. He said, “I am not so much concerned with the issue of whether or not Australia should accept refugees as with the issue of how they are to be treated when they get here.” He told us a story about a man who, in his home country, had been a heart specialist. One day he noticed that he was exhibiting symptoms of a seizure and he went straight to the nurse in his detention centre. She said to him, “Take two aspirin and go have a lie down for a while.” He said, “Can I have that in writing?” This made her suspicious so she went and checked out his file. Of course, once she found out his former profession, they rushed him straight to hospital, but think of all the others who might have gone seeking help for equally serious problems and were treated in the same way.
The Bible says,
“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”
(Leviticus 19:34 ESV)
And Australian calls itself a “Christian” country!
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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Disqus comments
Other comments
Mr Howard is attempting to keep a norm of current behaviour which is effectively deterring people from coming here in boats in 10’s or 100’s of thousands and getting themselves killed through accidents on the seas.
He’s trying to balance committing a lesser evil against a greater one in his perception. He attempts to do this by establishing a “norm” of behaviour. However, the issue of Children is a difficult one that all governments are trying to face, either separate the Children from their families and make it the government’s responsibility to take care of them - or keep them in prison/detention with their families. Separation from their families is considered a big problem as well and not desirable. Consider what the UK is trying to do.
The question is, what do you do if you are the PM? Please suggest an answer.
John Howard is (ostensibly) Christian.
Christians are called upon to not hold prejudice, to offer hospitality when required, to give with an open hand and not a closed fist. I see no reason why this should not extend to refugees and asylum seekers.
From memory, the UK situation is different because they have a much higher number of asylum seekers attempting to enter their country. Despite what we hear to the contrary, there are much fewer asylum seekers trying to get into Australia—so much fewer, I think, that the talk of us being swamped is just an illusion. But it is apparently an illusion that the government has accepted, because they have engaged in some decidedly ‘unorthodox’ politicking (e.g. under-the-table deals with Indonesia to intercept asylum seekers early) to stop this supposed reality.
“to give with an open hand and not a closed fist” - if he did that consider the implications, we would have Millions of people in south east Asia trying to come into Australia. He’s trying to stop that from occurring. “fewer asylum seekers trying to get into Australia” yes the case at the moment because the tatic he is using is deterring them from coming. It is likely that we would be swamped if we let them all come in and gave them the “good life”.
Go ask any Indonesian if they had the opportunity to come to Australia, would they turn that down. If there was a boat waiting with a certain voyage to Australia for a price, would they not take it. If your a poor Indonesian in a small village, you have been living the same life for ages - and you hear about an opportunity to go to a 1st world country, what are you going to do. Think about it.
Consider Indonesia - “Indonesia, a vast polyglot nation, faces severe economic development”.
Howard should ensure that, when they get here, they should be treated humanely. Families should not be split up between detention centres. Persecution of Christians by Muslims should not occur. There should be a reasonable ratio between the number of people and the number of toilets in the detention centres. There should be an efficient and just means of dealing with asylum seekers’ cases and appeals, instead of proceedings taking months and months, shuttling back and forth between the courts. There should be steps taken to look after the mental health of refugees. All of this is fairly basic stuff.
This is what concerns me: how they are treated when they get here. Not whether or not they should get here at all. The basic fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of people in detention centres around Australia and their living conditions are horrible.
Rabbit Proof Fence, the movie based on the book, touched our family deeply - far away, here in Canada where we have not dissimilar issues.
It is a film that should interest more than just Australians.
thrive!,
O
I met a girl on the train the other day who is a Christian and she said she was going to pray for the people at the detention center, by going there to visit them and pray for them. She goes to Macquarie Uni, looks like there some group that organises that.
The asylum seeker issue is a bit of a tough one. I think it comes from the fact that there’s sort of two laws intersecting here. Firstly there’s immigration. Anyone can apply immigrate to Australia. When you do, you’re checked out to make sure you’re the sort of person we’d want as a citizen, your command of the English language is tested, etc. For countries like Australia, where lots of people want to immigrate, there is often quite a long waiting list.
Then there is the laws regarding asylum. Anyone whose life or freedom is in danger due to their ethnicity, religion or other factors in their home country can apply for asylum. People granted asylum are admitted straight into the country. There are no tests regarding English literacy, or education or any of the other things immigration requires.
However, what’s happening nowadays is that a whole lot of people who do not qualify for asylum (they are not in any danger, they just want to be in Australia) are arriving on our doorstep and claiming asylum. Unfortunately, mixed in with this lot are people who actually *do* qualify for asylum.
Detention centres are not a good solution. They are an interim patch on the problem, designed to keep the asylum seekers still while their applications are processed. However, because there are such large numbers of asylum seekers now, application processing takes ages, and people are kept in the centres far longer than was originally intended.
It’s really a no-win situation. People seeking asylum under false pretences should *not* be allowed into the country. At best they’re queue-jumpers, who should have to go through the same things everyone else who wants to immigrate to Australia does. Legitimate asylum seekers should be allowed into the country. Yes, facilities at detention centres should be improved, but bear in mind they were never designed to hold so many people for so long.
The problem is speeding up the application process so people leave the detention centres (either back home or into Australia, depending) faster. This is not helped by fake asylum seekers deliberately muddying the waters, burning papers and suchlike. If there was a quick and easy way to find out who was truly an asylum seeker and who wasn’t, the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, the best we can do now is try to improve the facilities in detention centres, and wait for applications to be processed.