International human rights laws ‘ignored’ on Nauru

NAURU – Australia’s policy of holding refugees on Nauru indefinitely amounts to a systematic violation of human rights and possibly constitutes torture, international human rights organisation Amnesty has said in a damning report.

The report, Island of Despair, released on Monday night, says the failure to provide a safe environment prevents many refugees from attending school and amounts to a serious violation of children’s rights.

The report reflects the experiences of children revealed in an ABC Four Corners report this week.

In interviews that were smuggled off the island, several children said they were too afraid to attend school because of levels of violence and sexual harassment directed at refugee children by locals.

More than 750 people who have been granted refugee status are now living in the Nauru community alongside the 10,000 locals that inhabit the remote Pacific Island, which has been heavily mined for phosphate.

But many say they now feel less safe than they did in detention.

According to Amnesty senior research director Anna Neistat, most refugee children are not attending the local schools because of these fears – and she says this amounts to a serious violation of their rights.

“No matter how horrible the detention was – and the conditions in detention were – quite a few families and children themselves told me that now that they’re in the community, they feel less safe because they’re subjected to attacks from the local population,” she said.

“Of course they simply cannot go to school because there as well they are subjected to attacks and there’s absolutely nothing being done about this by the authorities.”

Neistat, who has prepared reports for Amnesty around the world, said the conditions faced by the refugees on Nauru were worse, in her experience, than in Syria and Chechnya.

Island of Despair is based on Neistat’s interviews with 58 refugees and asylum seekers during a visit to Nauru in July.

She also interviewed staff and former staff at the regional processing centre and reviewed incident reports obtained by Guardian Australia.

Amnesty accuses Australia of running “a deliberate policy to inflict harm on refugees”.

It is likely to place Australia’s policies of holding refugees indefinitely under the international spotlight.

“In furtherance of a policy to deter people arriving by boat, the government of Australia has made a calculation in which the intolerable cruelty and the destruction of the physical and mental integrity of hundreds of children, men and women, has been chosen as a tool of government policy,” the report says.

“In so doing the government of Australia is in breach of international human rights law and international refugee law.”

In particular, Amnesty was concerned about the high levels of mental health issues among refugees, and described the health services as “inadequate.”

It said the failure to provide a safe environment for the education of refugee children was another serious violation of Australia’s obligations.

Amnesty found “the majority” of refugee and asylum seeker children on Nauru were not going to school, due to bullying and harassment by teachers and students.

While Amnesty acknowledged that the physical safety of refugees on Nauru was a matter for Nauru’s Government, it said Australia could not absolve itself of responsibility because it was responsible for keeping the refugees on the island.

Amnesty was particularly concerned that serious assaults were occurring with impunity because the Nauru police declined to act.

Neistat noted that the contractor, Broadspecturm, (formerly Transfield) had given evidence to a Senate select committee that there had been 67 allegations of child abuse in Nauru, 12 of which had been referred to the Nauru police. However as of July 2015, police had not charged anyone.

Amnesty said it had since received confidential information in September that in the preceding two years there had not been a single prosecution involving refugees or asylum seekers as complainants in cases of assault, rape or theft.

“I think it is safe to say in virtually none of the cases there has been any action where any refugee or asylum seeker was attacked or assaulted and a Nauruan was brought to justice for that,” Neistat said.

In contrast, Amnesty said refugees were being detained without charge for self-harming, even though suicide had been decriminalised by Nauru earlier this year.

Over the weekend, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection dismissed the picture painted of life on Nauru by the 2000 incident reports released to Guardian Australia.

“It is clear the contention that the Nauru files represent thousands of cases of abuse of transferees and refugees cannot be supported by a review of the documents released by the Guardian,” a spokesman said.

According to the departmental review only 23 were for “critical” incidents where life and limb was at risk or where violence, sexual or some other criminal offence had allegedly occurred.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has pointed out that the Australian government provides transport, lunches and uniforms to support refugee children to attend school.

He also said there were 13 staff from Brisbane Catholic Education on the island to provide support services and curriculum advice to the Nauru Department of Education.

- ABC