The latest victims of Australia's security system are two boys aged 6 and 8, their mother Ranjini and new step-father Ganesh. Ranjini and her sons arrived to Christmas Island by boat in 2010 and spent almost two years shuffled from one detention facility to another. Christmas Island, Leonora, Inverbrackie and then on to community detention in Brisbane. Ranjini, from Sri Lanka was widowed in 2006 and has been found by Australia to be a refugee in need of protection.

This is National Families Week in Australia. Families Australia describes the role of a family as "vital". 

Last month, known to DIAC, Ranjini married Melbourne man, Ganesh and moved there with her sons.  Not long into their first term at their new school the boys have been taken out of their home, away from their step-father and detained with their mum at Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre. The boys and Ranjini join at least 2 other families, and 4 other children in the Residential Housing Project there (still most definitely detention no matter what name the facility is given) - all of whom face a lifetime of immigration detention. 

ASIO made an adverse security finding against Ranjini which leaves her and her boys with no visa status and no way out of their predicament. Like 46 other refugees in Australia's immigration detention facilities, Ranjini cannot challenge the findings made against her, neither she nor her lawyers can even know what the claims against her relate to. Like other children at VIDC, this means indefinite detention for Ranjini's young sons. 

The 'solution' according to our Government is to lock up these people, including children, for the rest of their lives. They are refugees, they cannot be returned to their country of origin, they have an adverse security finding -  Australia has effectively blacklisted them, what other country will take them? Other nations have methods of oversight for their peak security agencies. There are random audits of decisions affecting refugees, there are independent monitors who can view decisions. In Australia there is nothing. Ranjini, Ganesh and her sons are left not knowing what they are being punished for and realising that their punishment is for life. Perhaps literally for life. 

As a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as a nation that celebrates something called National Families Week -  how can Australians stand for the indefinite of a child as being a 'solution' to anything? 

Perhaps there are issues of national security, but perhaps there are not. Agencies have been known to get things wrong, including ASIO; remember the case of Dr Haneef? Shouldn't the basic principle of innocent until proven guilty stand? Courts can manage sensitive information, lawyers can adhere to court guidance, there has to be a reasonable way for Ranjini and the 46 others in her position to have access to a fair trial and to natural justice. Surely there are degrees of 'adverse' findings? Not every adverse finding indicates someone is a terrorist. Surely arrangements around living in the community and reporting to authorities can be reached in some cases? 

Sophie Peer, Campaign Director, ChilOut

SMH piece from 16 May 2012 'the person may have had a cousin involved in some minor thing. An adverse assesment from ASIO doesn't make someone a terrorist'. 

Piece on Ranjini, The Age 14 May 2012

Here's the NSW Council for Civil Liberties and Liberty Victoria open letter to Federal Attorney General, Nicola Roxon from 18 Jan 2012 on this topic. 

The first thing about going to Leonora is the sheer remoteness of the location. I flew in from Perth via Laverton and it really left me completely baffled as to why the Government would choose this location to detain 140 boys, or anyone for that matter. I really am in the middle of nowhere.

Despite having arranged this trip over 2 months ago, many obstacles have been in put in place to my speaking with the boys. I arrived at 11:30am yesterday and it wasn't until 1pm that I was able to meet with any of the boys. The new rules I am forced to adhere to are that the meetings are to be group ones and with a Serco guard present. This is not at all what was agreed prior to my making the 32 hour journey to get here.

First impressions of a site vist were mixed. The soccer pitch is impressive, small but nice. There is a rec room with some ping pong tables, other activities and the demountable dedicated to art class was full. On the other hand, the floor of the prayer room was covered in doonas where you would expect to see carpet, the library was locked and the shelves were far from well stocked, most of the telephones were in public areas and there was no shade over the soccer pitch or the volleyball court. Today is about 25 degrees and sunny, I can't imagine January!

Meeting the boys was great but the environment certainly challenging. Building any kind of repore is very difficult in a hot room with a guard and 7 other boys all seated around a table. I did find out a few day to day details:

• To see a nurse a form must be completed or a referral made. If you are in pain, you cannot simply knock on the medical office door. I met a 16yr old boy who had been taken to Kalgoorlie for an operation one month ago, was in pain now and hadn't been seen by any medical professionals since the operation.
• 6 of the 10 computers work and each child is only permitted 30minutes of internet per day. It can take 15 minutes to log on.
• Skype used to be available but is no longer permitted. This means the only possibility for those who can have contact with their families to do so, is for boys to use their points to 'buy' phone cards at the canteen 
• Dinner is at 6pm if the boys are hungry after this the only option is to use their points at the canteen. The canteen is stocked with non-halal items containing gelatine. One child described being very upset when he found this out and had trusted that what was 'sold' would be appropriate.

More boys had just arrived at the centre and those who had been there a while told me this was welcome as it was more fun than if the centre was half full. Most described their time on Christmas Island as better than in Leonora.  

I am going back in tomorrow to meet more boys. The trip is certainly not as planned but I think it has pleased the boys to know there are Australians who do care about them and if nothing else, it is great to see first hand the physical conditions that the boys are in.

ChilOut acknowledges the creation of the creation of the office of Naitonal Children's Commissioner as an important step towards protecting the rights of many, many vulnerable children in Australia. However, from our persepctive and in terms of Australia meeting its international obligations under the International Convention on the Rights of the Child towards childre seeking asylum this announcement is inadequate. 

The information provided by the Attorney General's office to date is not detailed and makes no reference to the situation of children in immigration detention. 

ChilOut's main concerns with the announcement are: 

• Within the Attorney General's announcement there was no mention of a guardianship role for unaccomapnied asylum seekers. We presume this to mean the Minister for Immigration will remain guardian of those children who arrive without a parent or guardian. ChilOut and many other groups have long advocated for an independent guardian and we are disappointed to see the issue ommited from discussions of the new office of National Children's Commissioner.
• The office appears to be focused on a policy / education role. These are important aspects of change and protection in Australia however they do not equate to increased rights protection for children in immigration detention. 
• We do not have detail on whether the Commissioner's office can receive complaints from people in immigration detention, how long issues take to be reolved or what the resolution and accountability processes are.

We very much hope that the Commissioner's office is infact a positive step for the protection of the myriad of vulnerable Australian children who have been without this office for so long. However, at this point it is difficult to see the improved rights protection for asylum seeking children with the degree of information provided thus far.

A ten year old girl has managed to get a letter out to the public from her 'home' in Darwin's Airport Lodge. The little girl is one of 26 children who arrived to Australia by boat in May 2011, there were no parents on board the boat. Nearly 12 months on the girl and her companions are in their third detention centre and have no idea if, when or where they will be released. 

"We don't know what else we can do. We don't know who will help us."

The guardian of this little girl is the Minister for Immigration, the very same person with the power to lock her up. A guardian by definition is meant to 'act in the best interests of the child'. This has not happened in the case of these young children. 

There has been much speculation in the media about these children.

• The children are from Vietnam, not a usual source country of asylum seekers by boat to Australia in recent years. 
• The children are very young. The youngest was six years old when she arrived (she spent her 7th birthday in detention)
• Some of the children have gone missing from various detention arrangements- some since located, others still missing. There have been reports suggesting abduction (from Sandi Logan of DIAC) and of absconding (The Australian).
• Conflicting reports talk of the children's applications for asylum being in the process of determination, being denied and reports that they don't have asylum claims. 
• There have been suggestions of trafficking.

I know that around the ChilOut table we have thought about our country's asylum policy in this somewhat philosophical way but I was surprised to see this question in the foreword of a Joint Committee report into Australia's Immmigration Detention system. The exact words were:

At its heart, this inquiry poses fundamental questions about our national identity. How does Australia treat people seeking asylum? What weight do we ascribe to human rights on our own borders? Is there a standard for how a civilised, humane society responds when people arrive uninvited asking for protection, irrespective of who they may be, their mode of arrival, or the challenges they pose? Whether discussing policy in Parliament or around the kitchen table, we each have to ask ourselves: does Australia pass this test?

Locking up children, including unaccompanied children in remote locations for indefinite periods is surely a fail of that test? 

Particular areas of interest in the report are:

Expansion of community detention (CD) Seems to be the week for this discussion (see our piece in the Punch on Monday). The report gives the budget facts of this $629 million in 2011-12 to run our detention facilities vs $150million to run the CD program over the same period. Even expanding CD to accommodate hundreds more people would be more cost effective by far. 

Use of metropolitan locations The Committee stated that children and families in particular should not be in remote detention. 

Minister should not be guardian The Committee called for an independent guardian of unaccompanied minors. Many of the 3,500 submissions to the Inquiry raised concern with the fact that the person who can lock up a child is also the person meant to act in that child's best interests. 

Child protection. Human rights. For so long the issue of children in detention has been the victim of ridiculous political point scoring. The Committee firmly placed the discussion as being one of child protection acknowledging the need to include Children's Commissioners in the processes. 

The Committee's report made a number of recommendations specific to children: 

Recommendation 19  5.95 The Committee recommends that relevant legislation be amended to replace the Minister for Immigration as the legal guardian of unaccompanied minors in the immigration detention system. 

Recommendation 20  5.109 The Committee recommends that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship develop and implement a uniform code for child protection for all children seeking asylum across the immigration system. 

Recommendation 21  5.110 The Committee further recommends that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship adopt Memoranda of Understanding with children's commissions or commissioners in all states and territories as soon as possible.

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ChilOut welcomes the Committee's report but is keen to see action and implementation. As the IDC report released last week clearly stated, there is no need to detain a child for 3 months in any type of facility. ChilOut welcomes legislated maximum periods of detention for children and adults but would want to see legislation particular to children and a very clear commitment about where children were being accomodated during any necessary checks.