YAREN DISTRICT, Nauru (Sydney Morning Herald / The Guardian / Pacific Media Watch): Documents leaked to The Guardian newspaper show that security guards in Australia's deportation centre on Nauru have been sexually abusing children for several months.
The documents include a leaked intelligence report and minutes of meetings where the welfare of detainees is discussed.
The documents revealed that apart from being sexually abused, children detained on the island had been attempting suicide by cutting themselves with razors and strangling themselves. In several cases, children had either stopped eating, begun "pulling clumps of hair" out of their heads, had been attacked by other detainees and had medication withheld from them.
"Several children, the youngest aged four years, had had both parents arrested for taking part in protests, and were left with no family to care for them," reported The Guardian.
Some teenagers and adults had gone on a hunger strike and had stitched their lips together in a bid to prevent force-feeding, Refugee Action Coalition Sydney reported.
Non-profit organisation Save The Children has brought some of the accusations to light but has since been accused by Australian Minister of Immigration, Scott Morrison of inciting child detainees to protest and encouraging detainees to harm themselves. About 10 Save The Children employees have been either removed from the island or barred from the deportation centre.
The organisation says the charges are trumped up.
“Self-harm happens in the centre on a weekly basis and we would never encourage self harm as a means to get to Australia,” a Save The Children anonymous source told The Guardian.
Greens immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, told The Guardian that "Morrison’s reaction amounted to 'shooting the messenger'":
“These reports make it clear that the minister has known for a long time that Nauru is toxic. The fact that this trauma is so clearly documented and the minister did nothing is shocking. Why didn’t he act and initiate an investigation before this week when he was dragged to one, kicking and screaming, by extremely serious allegations?”
In June this year, The Guardian published an internal Transfield Services document marked strictly confidential, which detailed an investigation into a sexual assault on a teenage detainee by a cleaner at the centre.
According to The Guardian, "Morrison has declined to answer questions on either of these instances and has provided no answer to why working-with-children checks are not undertaken on local staff". However, he has now announced "an independent review into allegations of sexual abuse of women and children", according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Meanwhile, Refugee Action Coalition Sydney reports that three protests were held last week after a 16 year old who had stitched his lips together and not eaten or drank for three days had his lips forcibly unstitched before being "dumped back" into the deportation centre without being given any medical treatment.
The coalition reported that "five people still have their lips stitched shut".
The organisation will hold a demonstration at on Saturday, calling on the Australian government to immediately release all detainees and shut down their offshore deportation centres.
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