23 Jun 2015

Nauru camp sex film claim believable - advocate

8:40 am on 23 June 2015

A refugee advocate says the latest allegation of Nauru detention centre guards filming sex with refugees, shows the centre has been a complete mess of sexual and physical abuse.

Nauru refugee protests asylum seekers

Nauru protesters Photo: supplied

Australian media have reported a submission made by a former Save the Children case manager, Charlotte Wilson, alleges guards paid for sex with female refugees, filmed it, and circulated the videos.

A Senate inquiry was launched following the release of the Moss Review, which detailed allegations of physical and sexual assault of asylum seekers by guards and staff.

Refugee advocate, Ian Rintoul, says tragically the latest allegations are entirely believable.

"The systematic, systemic harrassment that took place at the showers, the requirements for extra time in the showers for women to expose their bodies to Nauruan guards. It doesn't take much of an extension beyond that, which has now been established beyond doubt, to think that some of those incidents may well have been recorded and have been transferred from person to person on Nauru."

Ian Rintoul says it is shameful how long Australia's Minister of Immigration has known of allegations of abuse and has done nothing about it.