Shocking reports of child abuse and self-harm in Australia’s detention centre in Nauru have led the Labour Party to call for the Government to do more.
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The Guardian’s revelations, which contain graphic reports of sexual assault, child abuse and self-harm, were dismissed by Australia’s immigration minister Peter Dutton, who accused people of setting themselves on fire in order to get to Australia.
She further noted that numerous allegations contained in the leaked documents are “sadly” consistent with the findings from regular visits by United Nations experts to Nauru in recent years.
Global outrage about Australia’s treatment of people held in immigration detention on Nauru and Manus Island is growing, as senior British and New Zealand politicians question the Turnbull government’s approach amid revelations of abuse, sexual violence and self-harm. The majority on Nauru have been held for more than three years.
“The allegations contained in the documents must be systematically and properly investigated and those responsible held accountable”, Ms. Shamdasani said, urging the authorities in Nauru and Australia to promptly put in place preventive measures and ensure the protection of the physical and mental integrity of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
Numerous migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees in these centres were transferred by Australia to Nauru more than three years ago and have been living in very hard conditions ever since, she said.
Labour leader Andrew Little said New Zealand should be helping the Australian government to find a solution to change how offshore detention centres are run.
Last year, New Zealand suspended some assistance payments to Nauru over concerns about civil rights and the rule of law in the island nation.
Shamdasani repeated the UN’s position that Australia must end offshore processing.
But Foreign Minister Murray McCully says the allegations are for the governments of Australia and Nauru to address.
“In a nutshell, the advice says that while the royal commission can’t obviously go to Nauru and exercise coercive powers on Nauru, it can look at the response of the Australian Government and its contractors to child sexual abuse that occurred on Australia’s detention centre on Nauru”, he told the ABC.
In a speech to the Samuel Griffith Society on Friday night, Abbott said he wondered about the wisdom of opposing, and ultimately defeating, the policy, even if he did not support it. I doubt it would have worked. “It would have been a step back from the hyper-partisanship that now poisons our public life”.
“No policy challenges justify inflicting this harm on innocent people”.
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Mr Dutton took aim at Labor saying the Nauru legacy was going to last a long time. Can the Australian people read of young detainees who sew the shape of a heart into their own hand using a needle and thread, or grab bottles of cleaning fluid in their classrooms and desperately drink it and not be affected?
