Let no child who arrives in Australia ever suffer under this system again.
Ten years ago, the Australian Human Rights Commission released a
previous report into children in immigration detention, when there were
around 700 children in detention.
Today, there are over 1000 children in Australian detention centres including unaccompanied minors sent off-shore. The average length of time spent in closed immigration detention facilities is 226 days, the highest level in more than two years.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has announced it will conduct
yet another national inquiry into the ways in which life in immigration
detention affects the health, well-being and development of children.
Even though refugee advocacy group welcome the inquiry, the federal government has expressed disappointment that an inquiry into children in immigration detention was not launched under the previous Labor government.
Rather than both sides of politics blaming each other, or worse still
backing each other up, rather than spending more time and money
endlessly redoing investigations and reports, read what was written ten
years ago and act on it NOW.
This is an excerpt from the paper written by Human Rights Commissioner Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM published in 2004 entitled A last resort? National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. He began his paper with the following quote:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King Jnr
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