Barbed-wire playground
By Tony Stephens
Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, December 15, 2001.
Concern for the well-being of 582 child asylum seekers is bringing
increased opposition to the policy that keeps them locked up. Tony Stephens
tells some of their stories.
While the Minister for Immigration, Philip Ruddock, fought in Geneva this week
to have Australia's hardline policy on refugees understood as part of a global
problem, a growing number of Australians were fighting on the home front to
help the asylum seekers in Australian detention centres.
In particular, the battle is for the children. Until quite recently, the
defenceless and exposed children had been lost among the newspaper headlines
and the political rhetoric. Now there is a growing focus on them.
Groups of people are springing up to visit the children, bearing gifts,
encouraging them to draw pictures and to engage in other distractions from
their debilitating existence behind barbed wire. The churches and other
organisations are putting their hands up to help.
The latest available figures, from the end of November, showed there were 582
detained children, about a fifth of the total. Of the 582, 53 were
unaccompanied minors.
Jacqueline Everitt, an advocate for asylum seekers who is working towards a
master's degree in international law, says: "Some come on battered boats,
others by air. Most children who arrive in Australia are part of a family
unit. But sometimes they are alone, pushed into the hands of people smugglers
by parents desperate to buy them a chance of safety in another land. Many
arrive already seriously traumatised."
Many of the children have what Dr Aamer Sultan, an Iraqi detainee at Villawood
detention centre, calls immigration detention stress syndrome. Sultan says the
illness can lead to an almost catatonic depressive state.
Professor Louise Newman and Dr Michael Dudley, of the Royal Australian and New
Zealand College of Psychiatrists, told a conference on refugees last weekend
that many of the children had witnessed trauma, torture and other horrors. Now
they were seeing self-immolation, destructive behaviour and attempted
suicides. The psychiatrists said conditions at the centres violated the United
Nations convention on rights of the child.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is investigating present and
past practices in the privately run detention centres. The commission is also
investigating the question of Australia's adherence to international
obligations, such as the convention on the rights of the child.
Everitt says: "Is there any other country prepared to lock up,
open-endedly, children who have not been charged with any crime? These
children, who have already suffered in their own country, who have made a
frightening and perilous journey to get to Australia and are possibly already
among the most traumatised of the world's children, have their trauma
compounded by being taken to a forbidding place and locked behind the razor
wire, their rights neatly incised.
"They are out of sight of the Australian people. If we don't see them, we
don't know they're human. They can't be real.
"It's an irony that Australian law provides for mandatory reporting of
suspected child abuse by professionals - and mandatory locking up of child
asylum seekers. We call both these practices government policy. One protects,
the other destroys.
"These children are suffering behind the wire at the hands of government
policy. Just think of the wasted humanity."
CASE ONE
Zahraa Badraie, back behind the razor wire at Villawood after visiting her son
Shayan, tells how hard it is to leave him in Hornsby. "He clings to us
when our two hours are up and it is time to leave him," she says through
an interpreter. "It is hard."
Zahraa and her husband, Mohammad Saeed Badraie, are heartened, however, by the
fact that Shayan has grown stronger since moving in with members of the
Iranian community.
Dr Aamer Sultan, the Iraqi who fled persecution in his home country after
providing casualty medical care to Shi'ite Muslim rebels and who is detained
at Villawood, says Shayan has witnessed his parents' helplessness and started
to lose faith in them as a source of security.
A psychologist who sees Shayan says the boy now needs his parents' presence if
his recovery is to continue. The problem is that he sees them only twice a
week at Hornsby, for two hours each time, and in the presence of detention
centre officers. Then the parents are driven back to Villawood with their
three guards.
The Badraies are appealing to the Federal Court against the order to deport
them. They fled Iran, claiming persecution, and arrived in Darwin in March
last year, when Shayan was four years old. They were taken to Woomera, where
Mrs Badraie gave birth to a daughter, Shubnam.
Staff, former staff and detainees say that Shayan witnessed in detention a
number of events that would terrify adults - a detainee shutting himself in a
room and setting fire to it, another threatening to slash his chest with
glass, a third threatening to jump from a tree. They say he saw
self-immolation and the use of tear gas and water cannons.
The Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, has denied that Shayan witnessed
such events.
In any case, the boy stopped eating and drinking and became mute. He was
hospitalised eight times. Staff at the New Children's Hospital, Westmead,
diagnosed him as suffering "acute or chronic post-traumatic stress
disorder", developed "in the context of a physically restraining
environment" in detention.
The hospital recommended a more normal environment and that he should remain
with his family.
His parents decided, however, that the boy had a better chance of recovering
his health away from Villawood.
CASE TWO
Reports this week suggest an Afghan child as young as seven years is being
detained at Woomera, having been sent, unaccompanied, by a relative who
thought it the best way to give the child a chance of a future. Another
resident is a girl of 15, whom we'll call Qamar.
She wears a hand-embroidered headscarf and spends her time with her brother,
aged 11. The children are orphans.
Their mother died some time ago and their father was taken by the Taliban.
They believe he is dead. The brother and sister had been living with
grandparents, who feared for their lives and futures and decided to get the
children to safety. The grandparents handed the children, with money, to
people smugglers. The children had no idea where they were going.
Jacqueline Everitt, an advocate for asylum seekers, says: "When they
arrived in Australia they had one interview with the Department of Immigration
and Multicultural Affairs. After this, each morning this girl would dress
carefully and wait to be called for another interview like all the other
people. But she and her brother were never called. They hadn't said the magic
words, 'I was subjected to convention-based persecution in my own country, I
have a great fear of returning, I am seeking the protection of your country
and I want a lawyer'."
Everitt says the children's applications are now being considered, after six
months' wait.
A tearful Qamar told Everitt she was desperately worried. Her grandparents'
last words as she and her brother left were: "We will try to raise the
money and follow you, so we can take care of you in Australia."
Qamar had heard that a boat had sunk and she was certain her grandparents had
drowned. She had no way of finding out if they were still in Afghanistan. She
sobs in bed every night, while trying to comfort her brother.
CASE THREE
A boy of 16 in Port Hedland left Rwanda because of the war between his Hutu
people and the Tutsis, which ended in the genocide of an estimated 800,000
Tutsis and the slaying of thousands of moderate Hutus. We'll call him
Benjamin.
"In 1990 the Tutsis came to our village and burned our house, killing my
parents," Benjamin has written in English. "We [he has, or had, a
twin sister] survived because we were with our grandmother but we saw what
happened.
"We fled to another village and lived with our grandmother until she
died. Then we heard the Tutsis were approaching. We were afraid that, if they
caught us, they would kill us.
"Together with some other young people, we asked an old person, who had a
truck
and was travelling to Mozambique often, to save us."
Benjamin got his lift. His twin sister did not. "I don't know her
whereabouts," he says. "Last I saw her in Mozambique."
His application for asylum is being heard.
CASE FOUR
Hossein Avesta, his wife Susan and their children, Parviz and Shana, fled
political persecution in Iran. They arrived on Christmas Island in November
1999. "The whole family had great hope and felt great happiness that we
were finally free from danger," Avesta says in an affidavit still to be
sworn.
They were taken to Curtin detention centre. "The children were shocked at
being sent to jail," Avesta says. "They didn't understand. Susan and
I tried to reassure them that everything would be all right."
Parviz was then 15 and Shana 13. And, the Avestas maintain, everything was far
from all right. Hossein's affidavit and another from Shana claim they had to
wear the same clothes for two months, washing and wearing them wet until they
dried. They say the family was separated. Parviz and Shana joined a hunger
strike.
"Parviz has been very depressed and his hands shake constantly," the
father says. "He no longer associates with other people his age and
spends most of his time alone in his room ... Shana lost about 11 kilos and is
still very weak.
"Our children have both changed completely in the last two years. Before
we came, they were bright, intelligent and active. In Australia my children
have forgotten how to laugh and forgotten how to smile."
Shana says: "I believe in Jesus and pray to him every day and night. I
don't want this life where there is no meaning for love, care, peace, Jesus
and God."
The Avestas are appealing to the Federal Court against their rejection.
CASE FIVE
Afnan Al-Abaddy this week drew pictures of two different girls. One stands
under a cloud, with rain falling about her. The other, who is blonde, stands
under a shining sun.
Afnan, an Iraqi asylum seeker who lives at the Villawood detention centre,
wants to send her drawings to her father, who is in jail in Western Australia.
It would be wrong to read too much into Afnan's work of art. She is, after
all, only six. It is clear, however, that one of her pictured girls is having
fun. The other isn't.
When would she get out of the detention centre? Afnan shrugs, and dashes off
to draw some more.
Humam, her 15-year-old brother who is also in Villawood, has a book in which
he draws. At one end are romantic drawings of young couples. At the other,
grim depictions of people in jail, of giant fists of authority bearing down on
groups of detained people, of limbs entangled in barbed wire and hanging
bodies. Another drawing shows a bird in a cage, with two other birds on a
nearby branch.
"That's me," Humam says, pointing to the bird in the cage. "The
other birds are my friends. They're free."
Where? "Oh, in Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand ..."
When would he be free? "Who knows? Never?"
Their father, Jasim Al-Abaddy, has written from Roebourne jail in Western
Australia. The envelope carries his drawing of a hand, restrained by barbed
wire, reaching towards a group of candles which show human faces in the
flames.
There's not much hope in these drawings. Yet Jasim has written a message in
Arabic on the back of the envelope. It says: "Certainly the sun will
rise."
Jasim was a tailor when he, his wife and six children fled Saddam Hussein's
regime. The mother, Nahtha Al-Raheem, says they paid a people smuggler, whom
most refugees call agents because they see them as saviours. Their boat landed
at Christmas Island two years ago.
The Al-Abaddys spent five months at Curtin detention centre before moving to
Port Hedland, from where Rami, the oldest son, escaped. While the parents were
jailed for their parts in a riot, the four youngest children were sent to
Villawood in June. Their mother joined them in September.
Their father has been charged with people smuggling. The family and their
lawyers deny the charge and claim it arose from an argument over money.
The family's claims for refugee status have been rejected but, because
Australia has no diplomatic relations with Iraq, they cannot be sent back.
They have no idea where their future lies.
Nashwan, 17, who tried to look after the younger children while they were
separated from both parents, says: "If I knew Australia would be like
this, I would have taken my chance with Saddam Hussein's torture."
Dr Michael Dudley, senior lecturer in psychiatry at the University of NSW,
told a conference on refugees last weekend of his concern for the Al-Abaddy
children and others in similar situations. He says they have witnessed or
experienced deliberate self-harm, suicide attempts, beatings, the use of tear
gas, water cannons and handcuffs. They endure multiple daily musters, nightly
head counts and a persistent public address system.
Nashwan stitched his lips together during a protest at Port Hedland. Humam has
twice threatened or attempted suicide. Dudley says: "The older boys have
high levels of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. The younger ones
want to scream and hide and suffer major separation anxiety."