Self-harm, Suicide, Sexual Assault and Drug Addiction in Australia’s Detention Centres

More evidence of the worsening conditions in Australian detention centres has been revealed in recent weeks with reports of suicide, self-harm, sexual assault and drug addiction.

A recent Parliamentary committee was told that there had been 289 cases of people hurting themselves in detention centres between July and October this year.  The committee was also told that 451 people had been diagnosed with a mental illness and 228 were receiving anti-psychotic medication.

The deteriorating conditions were highlighted this week by the death of a refugee from Sri Lanka.  The Tamil man in his mid-20s had been in detention for over two years and was recently moved to the family compound at Villawood Detention Centre.  He had been granted refugee status about three months ago.

The man was still being held in detention after being granted refugee status because the Government was waiting for an ASIO security assessment before releasing him.  The Refugee Action Coalition says that “there are over 1500 people, accepted as refugees, being held in detention waiting for ASIO security assessments.”

The Refugee Action Coalition said that the man’s suicide might have been triggered when his request to be released to attend a Hindu festival was denied.  "Whether that was the final straw, it's impossible to know," they said.

This was the sixth suicide in detention in Australia, and the fourth in the Villawood detention centre since September 2010.

Meanwhile an Australian news programme has provided a graphic account of life for people waiting in detention.  In interviews with staff and asylum seekers waiting to find out if they’ll be accepted as refugees detention centres are compared with prisons and even Guantanamo Bay.  It is claimed that mental illness, suicide attempts and self-harm are widespread and many people are unable to lead normal lives, even after they have been released.

A nurse at the Northern Detention Centre in Darwin said that teenagers who moved from the Darwin Airport Lodge to the Detention Centre when they turned 18 were at risk of sexual assault.  "There were a lot of allegations of sexual abuse going on there […] and I would suspect a lot of that was true by seeing the patients' reactions."

There have also been reports about the distribution of sedatives, sleeping pills and powerful painkillers inside detention centres.

One refugee says the pills are handed out by medical authorities inside detention centres.  The man, who spent nearly two years in detention, says the pills make detainees "like robots" and leave them with drug problems which need more treatment even if they are released into the community.

An Australian reporter says one of the biggest problems facing psychiatrists working in detention centres is a widespread culture of sleeplessness.  The journalist reported that mental health nurses in the detention centre use the medication to manage detainees.  She claims that medical company that looks after the mental health of people in detention cannot manage the numbers of people who are depressed and suffering from ongoing sleeplessness and insomnia.

“The short-term solution they've come up with is to prescribe large quantities of Mirtazapine which is actually an antidepressant.”

Some refugees, such as Afghan man Hamid Amiri, took anti-depressant medication while in Curtin Detention Centre and still requires medication despite having been released from detention more than a month ago.

Refugee advocates protested against mandatory detention at the Sydney office of the Department of Immigration on the 26^th of October.  The protest called for an end to offshore processing and for the release of asylum seekers from detention so their claims can be processed while they live and work in the community.  

The protesters also said they were supporting the rooftop protest of a Rohingyan refugee in Darwin’s Northern Detention Centre.  The man has been granted refugee status but has been waiting for two years for his security clearance.

Conditions in detention are likely to worsen as more people try to get to Australia by boat and are detained in already crowded detention centres.

Australian Politicians Blame Each Other as More Asylum Seekers Arrive

Australia’s major political parties are blaming each other after the arrival of three more boats carrying asylum seekers over the weekend.

The first boat with 15 passengers and one crew member was found near Ashmore Islands off the West Australian coast on Saturday 22^nd October.  Another boat carrying 79 passengers and two crew was found north of Christmas Island during the night of the 22^nd of October.  A third boat carrying 44 passengers and three crew was intercepted east of Christmas Island early on Sunday 23^rd of October.

All 138 people are being taken to Christmas Island for initial health and identity checks and to determine their reasons for travelling to Australia.

Both sides of Australian politics are accusing each other of helping people smugglers. Neither side will support the other's proposals for offshore processing of asylum seekers.  Both the Government and the Opposition want to see no asylum-seekers arriving to Australia by boat but can’t agree on where to send the asylum-seekers. The Government wants to use Malaysia for offshore processing.  The Opposition wants to use Nauru.

The Home Affairs Minister described the Opposition Leader as the "best friend" of people smugglers.

The Opposition Leader accused the Government of providing the people smugglers with their "business model".

The Home Affairs Minister also said he did not know how many more asylum-seekers could be housed in the Christmas Island detention centre before it was full.

With these recent boat arrivals, there have now been four boats of asylum seekers to arrive since the Australian Government had to put the Malaysia Plan on hold. Australia’s Immigration Department had warned that going back to onshore processing could lead up to 600 asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat every month.

With such intense political fighting over the issue in recent months, and as more boats arrive, Australia’s policies may get even tougher.

When the numbers of people trying to arrive by boat has increased in the past, government policies towards boat arrivals become tougher. In 2001 when numbers increased, the Howard Government began processing asylum-seekers in Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. This policy lasted 7 years and the number of people arriving by boat dropped from 5,516 to 148. In 2007 when the Prime Minister changed from John Howard to Kevin Rudd policies got better towards asylum-seekers and more people came to Australia by boat. In 2010 when numbers got too high again and 6,879 arrived by boat, the government decided to be more tough towards asylum-seekers again. In 2011 to stop the boats the Gillard Government proposed the Malaysia Plan in which 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat would be sent to Malaysia for processing by the UN Refugee Agency.

Less people claiming asylum in Australia

There was an almost 20 per cent drop in the number of people applying for asylum in Australia in the first half of 2011. 

The United Nations Refugee Agency reported that just under 5,000 people sought asylum in Australia in the first half of 2011.  This was 19 per cent less than a year ago.  UNHCR said that this was in ''sharp contrast'' to the other Western countries, which had an average 17 per cent increase in the number of people seeking asylum.

The UN Refugee Agency reported that the drop was because less people tried to arrive in Australia by boat.  The UNHCR representative in Australia said that “the fall in the overall number of claims in Australia was largely driven by a drop of almost 50 per cent in the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat in the first half of this year.”

The Australian Government said the fall in numbers arriving by boat could be due to a number of factors, including their policies in the first half of 2011.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister said the drop could be the result of “the government's announcement of the innovative Malaysia arrangement, increased co-operation through the Bali process … as well as the tragic boat crash at Christmas Island in December last year.”

The Opposition said the fall in the number of people arriving by boat had “come off an incredibly high level.”

Meanwhile the first boat has arrived in Australia since the Government’s Malaysian solution was put on hold.  There were 51 people on the boat, mostly from Iran and Iraq.  The boat was stopped by an Australian Customs boat and was running out of food and supplies.

The asylum seekers are being taken to Christmas Island for processing.  The Prime Minister said that the asylum seekers would be held in the Christmas Island detention centre for health and security checks and to confirm their identities.

People trying to reach Australia by boat do not have visas and are considered to be coming to Australia illegally. 

In 2011 there were 13,750 places in Australia’s humanitarian entry program.  6,000 places are open for refugees identified by the UN Refugee Agency outside of Australia.  7,750 places are available for people who are the immediate family members of people already in Australia and people who come to Australia and then claim asylum. 

A recent survey of Australian people found that most people support the humanitarian program but do not support people trying to reach Australia by boat.  Another survey found that most Australians support people arriving by boat being put in detention centres.

Indonesia and Australia’s Monsoon Season will put Asylum-seekers at risk of drowning

People smugglers in Indonesia are trying to arrange for their boats to leave quickly before the monsoon season begins and makes the boat journey to Australia even more dangerous.

Reports suggest that there are over 500 people waiting in Indonesia to try to get to Australia by boat without visas.  They are trying to use people smugglers who are eager for their boats to leave soon because they have only another two to three weeks before the monsoon starts.

The monsoon season in Indonesia begins in November and moves south to Australia where it usually lasts for 3 months from December to March.  Throughout the monsoon season there is much heavier rain than normal in northern Australia.  These rains and storms make the seas north of Australia very unsafe for the small wooden Indonesian fishing boats. 

A minister of the Australian Government said that he was very concerned about asylum seekers dying while trying to get to Australia by boat.  He said: “We do not want to see asylum-seekers lose their lives. We've got the monsoon season coming up. We do not want to see boats arriving and people losing their lives like they did just before Christmas last year.”

During last year’s monsoon season in December 2010 a boat carrying Iranian, Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers crashed into rocks off the coast of Christmas Island during a monsoon.  30 people drowned and the bodies of another 18 asylum seekers were never found.

At the beginning of the monsoon season last November 2010, a month before the Christmas Island boat tragedy, another boat carrying asylum-seekers went missing between Indonesia and Australia. Relatives and friends of those asylum-seekers say that they heard their loved ones were getting on a boat but then never heard from them again. According to Australian authorities, boats usually take 2 to 4 days to reach Australian waters from Indonesia. It has almost been a year now since that boat left Indonesia on November 13.

Over the years there have been many cases of boats sinking or going missing on the way to Australia. The bad weather during monsoon season makes the sea journey even more dangerous. While the exact number of asylum-seeker deaths at sea will never be known, those attempting to count the deaths of irregular migrants at sea have estimated that only one in three bodies are ever recovered.

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Malaysia Plan Still an Option for Australia’s Government

The Australian Government’s plan to send asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat to Malaysia is still up in the air after debate on the law to allow offshore processing was delayed this morning because the Government did not have the votes.

The Government was going to introduce the law for debate today.  After it became clear that they would lose the vote, they held an emergency cabinet meeting and delayed the vote for a later date.

The politician with the deciding vote, Mr Crook, said last night that he would not support the changes.  He said that the new law could stop asylum seekers trying to get to Australia by boat but he was worried about how the asylum seekers, especially children, would be treated in Malaysia.

Malaysia has not signed the United Nation’s Refugee Convention.

But Mr Crook said that he would support the law changes proposed by the Opposition because these would allow offshore processing in countries which have signed the Refugee Convention – like Nauru.

Nauru has recently signed the Refugee Convention and the Opposition would like asylum seekers arriving by boat to be sent there instead of Malaysia.

The Opposition says that the offshore processing centre in Nauru was successful in protecting Australia’s borders and deterring people smuggling.

The system, often called the Pacific Solution, was implemented by the Opposition between 2001 and 2007.  The Leader of the Opposition says that Nauru is a “proven solution for offshore processing”.

Almost all Australian politicians support offshore processing at the moment, suggesting that the Government and the Opposition only need to agree on which country the asylum seekers arriving by boat will be sent.

The Government said this morning that they "remained committed" to the Malaysia swap deal.

Asylum-seeker deals for Malaysia and Papua New Guinea to be decided this week

This week the leaders of Australia and Papua New Guinea will meet to continue their discussions to reopen the Manus Island Detention centre.

In August, Australia made an agreement with PNG to reopen the detention centre on Manus Island for asylum-seekers who try to come to Australia by boat without valid visas.  The plan has been delayed after the Australian High Court decision that the Gillard Government's plan to process asylum-seekers in Malaysia was unlawful. The Government hopes to resume its offshore processing plans after the Australian parliament votes this Thursday on changes to the Migration laws so that asylum-seekers can be sent to Malaysia.

PNG's representative in Australia said that his government "is ready and willing to cooperate with Australia on any solutions through Manus processing centre".

Amnesty International and other refugee groups have criticized the plan to send asylum-seekers to Manus Island, saying that sending them to PNG is no different to sending them to Nauru. 

Another leading Australian organisation condemned conditions on Manus Island.  The Executive Director of the Australian Council for International Development stated that there was “overwhelming evidence” that people detained in Nauru and on Manus Island “suffered mental damage with self harm and suicide attempts a common occurrence, and an absence of trained counsellors and staff being able to cope.”  He also said that many of these asylum-seekers were still being treated for trauma and mental health issues following their detention.

An Australian lawyer who worked on Manus Island in 2008 said that conditions in the detention centre on Manus Island had been very hot, humid and cramped.  He said that “it would be pretty tough going” for asylum-seekers in the centre.

“During my travels around there I was told that people had tried to commit suicide by throwing themselves on power boxes, trying to electrocute themselves obviously in a state of hysteria or despair I should say.  […]  So obviously those people had quite enough and weren't prepared to continue on there. They're the sort of stories that I heard, again only hearsay from locals who observed these things they say”, he continued.

Meanwhile, the UN agency for refugees told parliament today that sending asylum-seekers to Malaysia is better for them than being detained in Australia. UNHCR Regional Representative Richard Towle has said that the conditions in the agreement between Australia and Malaysia mean that an asylum-seeker would be treated better there than they would in Australian detention. Australia’s policy of mandatory detention does not allow asylum-seekers to work or live in the community, which Malaysia would allow.

UNHCR’s support for the agreement with Malaysia is crucial ahead of Thursday’s parliamentary vote to make the Malaysia deal legal. No Australian Prime Minister has lost a vote on changes to the law in parliament for 80 years.

Asylum-seekers in Australian Immigration Detention suffer Assault, Depression and Abuse

Recent reports have highlighted the worsening conditions for asylum seekers in detention around Australia.

Australia has a system of mandatory detention for any people arriving in the country without a valid visa.  These people are detained in remote facilities while their applications for asylum are decided.

The Australian Department of Immigration reports that there are 3,289 people in detention centres as of July 2011.  More than a third of people in detention centres have been waiting for more than a year to find out whether they can stay in Australia or not.

Between 2008 and June 2011, there were 1,273 reports of assault, damage to property or aggressive and abusive behaviour in detention centres.  596 cases involved allegations of assault while police were notified of incidents 242 times.

In a report to the Australian Parliament, The Australian Medical Association said hospitals were reporting large numbers of adults with mental health problems hurting themselves on purpose and requiring medical treatment.  The Association said it was worried about the mental health of detainees.
Meanwhile, Australia's Human Rights Commissioner has reported on the mental health damage of indefinite detention in Curtin Detention Centre.

The Commissioner expressed concern about the high rates of self-harm caused by poor conditions and a lack of services.

"Indefinite detention, particularly in a remote place, is very damaging to [asylum seekers’] mental health. They spoke to us about sleeplessness, about feelings of wanting to [commit] suicide, we know that there've been a worrying number of self-harm incidents there, including a man apparently who threw himself through a glass window."

Alexander Dianati, 37, an Iranian asylum-seeker has been in detention for three months after fleeing Iran to avoid religious persecution. He says fellow detainees are cutting, burning or trying to kill themselves on a weekly basis because they do not know what is happening with their asylum claims.
"Almost every week we have one situation like this, I'm sure Australian people don't know these things.”

He says tension in the facility is extremely high. The "mental health of the detainees is really bad, they are so depressed," he said.

He warned of mass protests if the situation is not resolved.  "The most biggest protest will happen in the history of Curtin soon, if Immigration and Serco doesn't do anything, I can guarantee this."

Mr Dianati also says that he was threatened with violence by detention centre staff after he spoke to the media about the problems.  Mr Dianati said he was called to a private meeting with a senior staff member from the detention centre.  He said the staff member got angry and threatened him after he refused to stop speaking to the media.

There are also reports that detainees and staff members at Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney engage in clashes at least once a week.  The Australian Government says that police are called to the centre at least every two weeks.

Villawood holds about 349 asylum seekers.  Between 2008 and June this year there were 45 incidents involving injuries to detainees and police were called 87 times. The figures show there were also 22 staff injuries.

Meanwhile asylum seekers in the Darwin detention centre are warning they will increase their protests unless their demands are met within a few days.

"They have given an ultimatum to the immigration department to fix things in a few days, or the protest will escalate. The asylum seekers have access to tools and construction items," the Refugee Action Coalition said.

The detainees want to know when they will find out whether or not they are allowed to stay in Australia.

It is also reported that immigration detention centre guards around Australia are worried that detainees could take them hostage or stage mass suicide attempts as more asylum seekers become increasingly desperate about their plight.

United Voice, the union for staff employed at detention centres, said rumors were circulating that detainees were plotting to take guards hostage to protest the time it was taking to make decisions about their asylum claims.

"Another rumor issuing out of (the Darwin camp) was that detainees were threatening to stage a mass hanging at a time when it was well known that the centre would be understaffed and unable to cope with multiple incidents," the Union said.

Australia told detention of child asylum-seekers is abuse

Refugee advocates have criticized the Australian Government for sending 73 unaccompanied child asylum seekers to a remote detention centre in rural Western Australia.

A plane carrying 36 teenage boys seeking asylum landed in the remote town after the Australian Government decided to use the town's detention centre to hold unaccompanied youths.

The boys, aged 14 to 17, are believed to be mostly from Afghanistan. Another 37 asylum seeker children will also be flown to the centre.

The Australian Government had planned to send the teenage boys to Malaysia for processing as part of a deal between Malaysia and Australia. But the High Court rejected this plan because Malaysia has not signed the UN's refugee convention.

According to recent statistics from the Australian Department of Immigration the majority of children currently in detention come from Iran and Afghanistan. 246 children have come from Iran and 187 from Afghanistan.

The Refugee Rights Action Network says detaining children is a form of child abuse. “We do know as a matter of absolute certainty that children that are held in immigration detention experience levels of depression, of self-harm and of suicide that is never seen in children that are held in the community", they said.

The Australian Medical Association said it was worried about the mental health of detainees, and that children were suffering from depression and self-harm.

"We are aware of a nine-year-old child who was recently admitted for trying to commit suicide," the Association told a committee of Australian politicians investigating the detention system.

They said hospitals had also reported large numbers of adults with mental health problems hurting themselves on purpose and requiring medical treatment.

Australia has a policy of mandatory detention that requires all people arriving in the country without a valid Australian visa to be detained in remote facilities while their applications for asylum are assessed. Some people wait for a year or more to find out whether they can stay in Australia or not.

A doctor at the Australian Medical Association has said, "Mandatory detention is medically harmful, violates human rights, has no known beneficial effects and is a waste of money".