Asylum-seekers transferred from Australia to Pacific island detention centres, including survivors of torture and trauma and unaccompanied children, are living in arbitrary detention and harsh physical conditions that do not meet international standards
In his recent Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis calls for generosity towards migrant people. He says, “Migrants present a particular challenge for me, since I am the pastor of a Church without frontiers, a Church which considers herself mother to all. For this reason, I exhort all countries to a generous openness which, rather than fearing the loss of local identity, will prove capable of creating new forms of cultural synthesis.” #210
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has published two reports of Australia’s offshore detention centres and one covering Nauru and one covering Manus.
The reports conclude the policies regarding treatment of asylum seekers breach international law and offer inhumane treatment to people subject to harsh deterrence policies, including transfer to Nauru or Manus Island within 48 hours.
Both reports conclude that the offshore processing of asylum seekers constitutes “arbitrary and mandatory detention under international law”; that no offshore processing centres offer “safe and humane conditions of treatment in detention”, and none provide a “fair, efficient and expeditious system for assessing refugee claims”.
Both reports are particularly critical of the Abbot government’s new 48-hour target turnaround time to send asylum seekers offshore, which one report says does not allow “an adequate individualised assessment of health concerns or vulnerabilities”.
They are both critical of plans to resettle genuine refugees offshore, saying that Nauruan and Papua New Guinean officials tasked with making refugee determination tests number too few and have not been trained properly. The reports also observe cramped conditions and little access to privacy and recreation in all regional processing centres.
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