Community detention best for kids

On October 18, 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that the majority of asylum seeker children and their families would be released by June 30, 2011, prioritising unaccompanied minors and vulnerable children. At the time of the announcement, there were 738 children in detention. Of these 276 were unaccompanied minors.

In the months after the announcement, a record high of over 1,000 kids were in detention, including over 400 unaccompanied minors. As we reach June 30, 2011, many of us were hoping to celebrate the end of our policy of detaining children. Unfortunately, this is not so as the policy of mandatory detention demands that children are still detained as a first resort.

As Ms Gillard’s self-imposed June 30 deadline arrives, figures show that 531 children are in community detention. This is 58 per cent of the Government’s promised majority of children out of detention. However, this leaves 329 children and over 6,000 adults still in detention under our mandatory indefinite detention policy. There are no figures to show how many of these kids still in detention are unaccompanied minors.

What is clear is that the community detention program has worked. Children interviewed two weeks after being released into community detention shared their feelings of freedom and we have seen a ‘significant visible improvement in their mental health … children have gone from being suicidal to being normal, happy adolescents’.

The children themselves have also recorded a change.

“When I was released into community detention, the first thing I did was to go for a long run as I could go for as long as I liked and as far as I wanted in wide open spaces.” 

“As we walked home from school my friend and I kept turning to each other and pinching each other to make sure we were awake and not dreaming, as we were walking without SERCO [security contracted by Department of Immigration and Citizenship].”

To have such simple access to space and freedom has made all the difference for many families and children – many suffering from torture and trauma. The community sector has risen to the challenge and given the care and support which immigration detention failed to provide. We have seen miserable, depressed teenagers change into optimistic hopeful kids the day they walked out of the locked doors detention. The change was nothing short of miraculous.

While the Government has moved the ‘majority’ of children and families into community detention and the program has been successful, the Government’s policy of mandatory detention continues. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has a number of concerns which are yet to be answered. There are no national standards for children being released into community detention – it is up to each agency to define the level of support the children will receive. Furthermore, there has not been the promised evaluation of the program and the Government has removed Community Detention Factsheet 83A from their website.

The Government needs to provide transparency into the community detention program, detail how many children are still in detention and their plan to release them. It is heartbreaking for children who are seeking protection to feel that, “in Afghanistan, I am free but not safe: in Australia, I am safe but not free”. We should ensure that those seeking protection in Australia are free and safe.

The success of community detention is clear – at a human rights level and a financial level. The cost of community detention is a fraction of the two billion dollars spent on Immigration detention policy in 2009-2010. When the teenagers get their visas they know their way around and are involved in school and looking for work after hours. This is a more intelligent and compassionate way to care for refugee teenagers and children than locking them up in the “factories for mental illness”.

The Government has not outlined a plan to release those remaining in detention or provided any details of an extension of the community detention program beyond June 30. There is capacity within the community sector to provide for more children and families entering community detention. Human rights groups, such as the ASRC, will not stop advocating until the Government promises to release all children from detention.

By Pamela Curr: the campaign coordinator at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

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