Call for children in asylum seeker camps to be released

Transcript

The Australian Greens say the Abbott government should release all the hundreds of children it is holding in asylum seeker camps.

The government has announced that about 150 children in mainland camps are to be released from detention but Greens spokesperson on immigration, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says hundreds more will remain locked in places like Nauru.

She says the government's cut off point is July last year and arrivals after that date are treated more harshly.

Ms Hanson-Young says the conditions in Nauru and on Christmas Island are horrendous.

She spoke to Don Wiseman.

SARAH HANSON YOUNG: It's a pretty harsh reality for those children left in appalling conditions. How do you explain to a ten-year-old that they deserve to be incarcerated, to be imprisoned, simply because they arrived by boat in Australia on the wrong day. It's an extremely inhumane position for this government to be taking.

DON WISEMAN: We already know of course, don't we, about the mental health of these kids, and it's not great.

SHY: No, there's many studies, there is lots of evidence, we know from the way children have developed in the past after being held in immigration detention for long periods of time how damaging it is. And we can't be naive about this or ignorant. We know that every day a child is held in immigration detention is another day they are being damaged. The children in Nauru at the moment, the children held in custody on Christmas Island, children who have been in detention many of them for well over a year, their mental health is deteriorating rapidly. There is daily occurrences of attempted self-harm. We have children as young as four and five years old becoming mute because of the stress that they are under. We have other children suffering very, very awful circumstances of physical, verbal or sexual abuse while being in detention as well. Those issues are issues that this government is refusing to act upon.

DW: You say that Australians are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the incarceration of refugee children, but are they? After all, this government was elected, backing these policies, and is continuing to do so. And I suppose there's got to be a significant movement in public opinion before what you are calling for will start to have an impact?

SHY: Look, I think that's right. But I am hopeful. I think that the really outrageous treatment of children and the really concerning elements of the suffering of children in detention centres is making Australians feel uncomfortable. That's why the minister has made this pathetic announcement of 150 out of over 900 children is to try and dampen that community concern. But of course, while those children remain locked up offshore, out of sight out of mind, the suffering will continue. Australians need to be reminded regularly that this is being done in our name, it's being done with Australian taxpayer money. Billions of dollars are being spent on detention camps that are damaging children. And while that continues as Australians we either speak out and stand up against it, or we are complicit in seeing that state-sanctioned child abuse continue.