| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
  The Trauma of Refugee Children May 5, 2002 Reporter : Helen Dalley Producer : Paul Steindl  It's an incredible statistic. Among the asylum seekers who have come to Australia in the past three years, two and a half thousand children have been locked up behind the razor wire of our isolated detention centres. These children have not been convicted of a crime, because they are unauthorised arrivals -- they are detained ... many for at least four months, some as long as two and a half years ... not only deprived of their freedom, but witnessing violence, stress and suicide attempts almost daily.The comments from the children are poignant ... and heartbreaking: "I always remember those people who were sewing their lips, those who were going above the tree and trying to burn themselves," said one. "It was like when you put a bird in a cage, and you feed them, but you don't let them go," said another.  A former teacher at the Port Hedland Detention Centre, Katie Brosnan, described their plight: "Children being exposed to people trying to commit sucide. Children being exposed to adults who are truly desperate in their need for freedom, in their need for information from the authorities as to what's happening in their cases. Children seem to be exposed to just about everything." One boy told Sunday's Helen Dalley: "I will kill myself. (It will be) better for me." There are nearly 500 children presently detained by the Australian Government. Sunday talks to some of the children inside detention centres for the first time. Due to a government ban on media access, these children were secretly filmed, as they told their girm tales. One twelve year old boy and his six year old sister have been in detention for two and a half years with their parents and older brother. According to psychological reports they are now timid, fearful and often depressed. Worse, some children are committing serious acts of self-harm. Humam Al Abaddi told Sunday: "I had a razorblade in my hand and I was trying to hit myself. They broke the door, grabbed me from the shoulders, took the razorblade and send me to the medical centre." Some as young as 12 and 13 have even tried to commit suicide. One boy told Sunday: "If I died in Afghanistan, better than if I die in detention centre. I know some people, 10 years, 9 years, they hang themselves and they drink shampoo. They cut their hand." Clinical psychologist Zachary Steel is among the many health specialists who are predicting long-term damage to children in detention: "At the most extreme end, we are seeing children profoundly distressed and disturbed by their experiences ... There is now overwhelming evidence that we are seeing horrific adverse outcomes for children in these settings and it goes against everything which the medical and psychological profession stands for."  Australia has a far tougher policy on asylum seekers than most European countries, where there are strict rules on how long children can be detained. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock defends the government's policy of putting children and families together with adult males for months on end. Ruddock says: "Now I'm not saying it's always perfect and I'm not saying people won't complain and say ... can't you do more? But we go to quite extraordinary efforts to put in place very comprehensive arrangements to provide for the welfare of children in detention."One child in detention, Ali, fled from Afghanistan, he says after the Taliban were going to kill his father, a police officer. He and his brothers and parents spent 9 months in Woomera Detention Centre. Finally declared refugees, they were released on temporary visas just a few weeks ago. This is what Ali learned at Woomera: "Woomera is very bad for children. Just I learnt in detention centre that cut the hand and drink shampoo, and hang themselves, and just I learnt the problem." He told Sunday he cut his arms with a razor blade, and we asked why he tried to hurt himself: "So I was going crazy. I got no sleep, in my sleep I was talking and I had nightmares." Zachary Steel comments: "There's really only one explanation. The level of despair and distress in those centres have reached such a high level that a ten year old can see no other way out of his circumstances than either try to kill himself or herself or to inflict pain because his or her anguish is so great." And how does the Australian government respond to this? Philip Ruddock again: "Well, it's a very unfortunate situation that we see incidents of that sort occurring and I make the point again that some of the reasons that are put to me as to why they're occurring in the way in which they are is that people have come to a view that misbehaviour of this sort might cause a change in policy and previous outcomes."  Another child, Maysaa El Helo, was just ten when she and her Iraqi father arrived by boat in 1999 and were sent to Woomera. Conditions were awful, and there were searches in the middle of the night by security guards: "They want to look under the beds, and see if we had some stuff like knives and stuff, so we could break out of Woomera ... I was scared of them. You know because when you see someone just come through your stuff and look through your stuff, you don't really know what they're going to do after that."She claims she and her father were both thrown into jail, separate from the main compound, because her father was involved in a peaceful protest. Also in the jail, she claims, were 22 men, and a little boy named Mohammed. Her father said: "I don't believe that any country on planet earth, or government of any country on earth would imprison a child, a girl at the age of ten." Since then she and her father have been declared refugees, and given temporary visas. Maysaa is 12 and now attends school in Australia. Sunday asked her why she was speaking out about her time in detention, given that she only has a temporary visa. She says: "So that the Australian people could understand more how it feels ... to be in detention. And I want him to know how, to let John Howard know who it feels to stay in detention, and how he did to us like that, and what happened to us right now. And I want him to understand how people would feel if their kids or even he was there for that long ten months."  The final word goes to Philip Ruddock, who was asked by Sunday if it distressed him that children witness incredible violence and self-harm by adult detainees. "It does," says Ruddock, "but responsible parents removed their children away from that environment and away from witnessing those sorts of events when they occurred and I think even in detention environment, parents have particular responsibilities in relation to what their children see and what they're exposed to." |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
