Juvenile offenders being held in a Victorian adult prison could rape and assault each other if they are moved elsewhere, a state government minister says.
Families and Children Minister Jenny Mikakos has accused lawyers for youths being held at the Grevillea unit within Barwon Prison of ignoring the "obvious risks" of transferring the teens to facilities where they must share cells.
"@RuthHRLC and whey they assaulted & raped each other, what then Ruth? You don't care about the obvious risks" Ms Mikakos said in a tweet to Ruth Barson, from the Human Rights Law Centre, on the weekend.
The minister went on to say "the safest places for them to be is actually in Grevillia (sic)".
Ms Mikakos made the comments in response to a tweet by Ms Barson on New Year's Day.
The lawyer had tweeted: "Let's hope 2017 sees a change of heart by this Gov, in favor of upholding children's human rights" with a link to an opinion piece for Fairfax.
In the op-ed, Ms Barson and fellow lawyer Alina Leikin criticised the state government's "merciless attitude" over its continued detention of juveniles at Barwon Prison.
A group of 11 youths remain at the prison in single cells despite two courts ordering they be moved to more suitable facilities.
The youths were moved to Barwon Prison after riots damaged the Malmsbury and Parkville youth detention centres in November.
Human rights lawyers challenged the transfer in the Victorian Supreme Court, which ruled in the youths' favour on December 23 and found the move was unlawful.
The government appealed and lost, with the Court of Appeal last week upholding the earlier ruling.
The court ordered the government to move the teenagers to a juvenile remand centre, but they instead rebranded Grevillea as a youth justice facility and remand centre.
A spokesman for Ms Mikakos on Tuesday said her Twitter comments highlighted the risk of sexual assault in custody, which had already been raised in court.
