Half of the world’s refugees are children but their voices are amongst the least heard. Amidst the debate and conflict around refugees and border protection, the rights of refugee children have been neglected.

“We come to a country we heard has human rights and freedoms. We can’t believe what’s happening to us….We haven’t any human rights. We are just like animals. We do not have a normal life like a human. Our feeling is dead. Our thinking is dead. We are very sad about everything. We can’t smile.” (Ibrahim Ishreti-refugee living on a bridging visa)

Australia is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol and has a proud tradition of sheltering refugees but the current mandatory detention (an essential component) for on-shore arrivals including the children of asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors has enormously damaged its international reputation. Whilst these might be legitimate policy concerns they have led to an approach to asylum seekers that has caused wide community debate and division in Australia.

The writer is a Pakistani origin immigrant in Australia. Pakistan considers a poorest country of the world host over a million Afghan refugees enjoying ample freedoms, however in Australia – where the number of unauthorized arrivals has never been much more than 4000 in any one year are placed indefinitely in detention camps with limited access to services, hence the motive for selecting this topic.

Key Aspects of the Policy

The major policy objectives of mandatory detention have been to have “ordered” approach to immigration and to ensure that Australian borders are secure. But little or no consideration has been given to the impact of these polices on the children who are caught up in them. That policy

● Denies internationally recognised fundamental human rights to all the children of
particular social group;
● Locks up, behind razor wire, children who have committed no crime;
● And fails to recognises the vulnerability and special needs of these children.

The fundamental purpose of children’s rights is to identify children as human beings who because of their vulnerability and special needs require special protection. To address this special status the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was developed. The UNCRC to which Australia is a party (1990), decrees that a child seeking refugee status is to receive appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance. Refugee children share certain universal rights with all other people; have additional rights as children and particular rights as refugees. It provides a comprehensive framework to guide the development of policy and practices that relate to children.

Irrespective of where people stand on the Australian Government’s broad asylum seekers policy it is an undeniable fact that any form of detention applying to children is a breach of their rights. In the terms of UNCRC the imprisonment of these children is either “cruel and inhuman treatment” or at the very least “harsh treatment”. Both of which are unacceptable under the terms of the convention. Detention compounds the effect of previous trauma and exacerbates the grief and loss that these children have already suffered whether they are accompanied or unaccompanied in their flight to Australia.