Re: Children held on Nauru
Since 2003 I have been working with an organisation aimed at getting children out of immigration detention. Today these children have become the eye of a storm that is erupting between the USA and Australia. I want you to know one thing. These are children. They are innocents. Australia has locked them up for over THREE years, for no reason other than they sought to legally claim asylum in this country.
For several years now they have lived on an island made of bird droppings, and made to live in mouldy tents, in a place that often reaches over 100ºF. The local population are so impoverished they have accepted the conversion of their Pacific island nation into a prison. These children were part of a much larger group who came to Australia several years ago. They were chosen to be sacrificed to deter other people from coming to Australia. Media are not allowed on the island, but some have got in. Others have been let in by the government to cover the government line. In this prison environment, the children have been subjected to rape, child sex grooming, and other forms of assault.
Over three years they have watched their parents lose their minds and give in to despair. While others who arrived in Australia are now in the Australian community, these children are the subject of a political game.These children are 100% Australia's responsibility. We should give them our protection, under our obligations under the Refugee Convention. We have treated them appallingly.
Do not believe anything you hear in your media about illegals. The overwhelming majority have made it through one of the toughest refugee processes in the world, and they have been found to be refugees. We have rejected them on one count and one count alone: our politicians want to stay in power. They want to pretend we are under threat. Though no boats are streaming to our shores these children remain a clear signal that our government will beat up a child to get and keep their power.
Do you know how the children were chosen? Originally children were not sent to the island. Then politicians decided we could send children 8 years old and over. The person in charge said "Get the youngest looking child." So they sent a small child. Now despite having clearly substandard hospital staff and equipment and despite the fact that even the locals are flown to Australia pregnant women are sent there. Babies are now sent there. They learn to crawl in the dust of phosphate: it fills their lungs. A pregnant woman with pre-eclampsia was in grave danger of losing her own life and her baby's. Doctors begged Australia to allow her (and others) to be flown here.
Despite all these facts politicians stare into cameras every day and say: "There are no children in detention." They have taken the children, flown them to an impoverished Pacific nation and dumped them there.
And now our politicians have done a deal with America to dump them there.
I am beyond disgust with this nation and its second-rate politicians. I am beyond disgust with the political climate that treats human beings with such inhumanity. Every nation has a right to its sovereignty. But NO NATION HAS A RIGHT TO DESTROY CHILDREN AND DENY THEM THEIR LEGAL RIGHT TO SEEK ASYLUM no matter their mode of entry. I am not advocating for open borders. I am not advocating for illegal migration. I am advocating for a person's right to be treated according to the law and according to international conventions to which we are signatories, and our moral obligation to treat people with dignity and respect.
Up until recently people could be imprisoned for sending photos. This is the police state we have become. Keep people locked up beyond sight. So we can feel scared, like we're the victims. Look into these children's faces and see the real victims. Are you scared? It is worth a child's life? Filling their lungs with phosphate dust, locking them on an island? In a mouldy tent for over THREE YEARS. Trading them with another nation? What are their lives worth?
Please help end their suffering.
Jess
