Reports of abuse, miserably hot and crowded living conditions and frequent suicide attempts at the detention camps have circulated for years.
Advertisement
“Australia’s policy of exiling asylum seekers who arrive by boat is cruel in the extreme”, said Anna Neistat, Senior Director for Research at Amnesty International, who also visited Nauru. “Service providers said this new practice was introduced after lawyers in Australia were successful in preventing the returns of some of the refugees to Nauru following medical treatment”. Australian taxpayers are funding it.
The immigrants recently told the human rights advocates that they have spent years waiting for salvation that never comes.
Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection criticised the two groups for not consulting the government while preparing the report and said it “strongly refutes numerous allegations”.
Bochenek, a senior counsel on children’s rights at HRW, said Canberra’s “atrocious treatment” of asylum seekers on the island over the past three years has taken a huge toll on their well-being, adding that, “Driving adult and even child refugees to the breaking point with sustained abuse appears to be one of Australia’s aims on Nauru”.
The investigation, carried out in Nauru and involving dozens of interviews with those being held in effective indefinite detention, reveals that Australia is responsible for a situation where vulnerable people, including young children, are suffering the agony of a life in limbo and other serious threats to their mental and physical health. They come primarily from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and eastern Africa.
About one-third of the 1,200 refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru remain in the tents, people interviewed said.
Broadspectrum, an Australian corporation that runs the facility, and International Health and Medical Services, the facility’s main medical service provider, rejected the allegations when asked for comment, the rights groups said.
“In my experience there is no other developed country that I can think of who has pursued this course of conduct with people who are fleeing persecution, who are seeking freedom, who are accused of no crime”, Bochenek told CNN. Many have stopped attending.
Some of those allowed to leave the processing center reported feeling unsafe, particularly women.
“After I left the camp, I felt very unsafe, I could not go out”, said a refugee interviewed by Amnesty International.
‘If you are alone, everything is a struggle, ‘ she said. At least he could go shopping or accompany me.
A statement from the Immigration Department criticised Amnesty for not consulting the government.
Human rights figures show the Australian government spent $415million on its Nauru operations in the fiscal year ending on April 30, 2015 – almost $350,000 for each person held on the island. The government has yet to specifically respond to the allegations.
The human rights workers say that the Australian government has consistently failed to address claims of abuse, which have been carried out under its authority against the refugees on Nauru.
Advertisement
“All transferees are made aware of their rights and responsibilities while they are in the regional processing centre when they arrive, including how to make enquiries or complaints through safe and confidential channels”.
