Australia's asylum-seeker policies have been slammed by a new Amnesty International report into the global state of human rights.
The reintroduction of offshore processing and concerns over the treatment of refugee children were of particular concern, the organisation said in its annual report, released today.
Amnesty International Director Claire Mallinson warned Australia is “going backwards” when it came to the treatment of refugees.
“The numbers we get are incredibly small,” she says. “Turkey gets in three days what we get in a year, but yet we've managed to revert back to failed policies.”
“We've set up new bad policies like the no-advantage policy, we're processing people offshore, we've got over a thousand children in detention now, and we know what it means for those children.”
“We've got lots of evidence over the years of what mandatory detention, particularly in offshore places, does to people, and there's already evidence of children self-harming as well as adults self-harming.”
There are more than a thousand children being held in 'alternative places of detention', transit accommodation and residential housing, according to figures released by the Department of Immigration on February 28 this year.
Sophie Peer from the refugee advocacy group ChilOut says that despite the government's naming conventions, there is virtually “no difference” between detention centres and alternative places of detention.
“There are less security procedures, but there's no difference in terms of freedom of movement,” she says. “Detention is detention.”
She names the “indefinite nature” of Australian refugee detention policy, as well as the remoteness of many locations including Christmas Island, Manus Island and Nauru as the biggest concerns.
“Essentially, our response to all these facilities is that they're really inappropriate for children and because of the type of camp that it is,” Ms Peer said.
“You've got people living in temporary accommodation and in tents, and of course, access to health and education in that location is just not possible in the way it should be.
“We could possibly live with short-term detention if it's in a metropolitan area and if it were managed in a different way that wasn't secure, locked detention.”
A spokesperson for the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Brendan O'Connor, said Australia's approach was "compassionate and generous", with the Gillard government increasing its humanitarian program from 13,750 to 20,000 in the past year.
"The Federal Government shares the desire of many Australians who want to see people detained for as short a period as possible," the spokesperson said.
"After initial health, security and identity checks, families with children are released into the community as soon as practical."
