The first boatload of asylum seekers at Christmas Island to be sent to Malaysia under the swap deal between the two countries includes 18 minors or people claiming to be minors.
Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says 18 members of the group are children and 13 of them are unaccompanied. Three had arrived with parents and two with an adult brother or sister. ''The process now begins to transfer these people to Malaysia,'' he said.
The Australian Government says the children will be assessed on a case-by-case basis but any asylum seekers who arrive by boat can expect to be sent to Malaysia.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has warned that there can be no full exemptions for children under the Malaysian swap deal and says their transfer will be filmed and posted on YouTube as a deterrent.
Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has repeated the Prime Minister's message that there will be no blanket exemptions."I will not have the situation where we provide a reward for people who put their children on a boat, and undertake that dangerous journey. If you have full exemptions, people smugglers would exploit that loophole and put children on boats and we'd be dealing with the dangerous situation of boatloads of children."
Human rights lawyer Andrew Khoo, who is part of the Malaysian Bar's Human Rights Committee, said the deal might breach Australia's legal responsibilities and warned that unaccompanied children might be preyed upon by criminal gangs.
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