Mon 8th Jun 2015
Child abuse in detention centres
Published in The Age on Monday, June 8, 2015
(underlined edited out by Age)
What has Australia become? An 11 year old boy breaks his arm and despite being under the care of our government as a refugee on Nauru, he receives inadequate care and is faced with a lifetime of deformity and limited function of his arm. Both the Royal Australian Colleges of Psychiatrists and of Physicians finds that detention of children is harmful to their mental and developmental health and yet we hear of a 5 month old child of asylum seekers sent from Melbourne to Nauru (Age 6/6).
11 year olds and babies do not choose refugee status. Desperate parents choose. Any one of us could be those parents. It’s only luck that we are Australians.
But it gets worse. Four weeks ago the Government with the support of the ALP, passed a law which can impose a 2 year gaol sentence on health or education providers in detention centres who reveal the truth about what is happening.
Have we learnt nothing from the Royal Commission into institutional child abuse? Will we need another Royal Commission in 20 years to reveal the true extent of crimes against children and the cover up of these crimes in detention centres?
This is Government funded child abuse, paid for with our taxes, hidden from view by draconian laws, enacted by our two major political parties led by individuals claiming the guidance of Christian values.
The Coalition, the ALP, and all Australians should hang our heads in shame.
Dr Tim Woodruff
Vice president
Doctors Reform Society
31 Davison St
Richmond 3121
0401042619