There are fresh calls to scrap a controversial wrist X-ray technique used to determine the ages of alleged people smugglers, with a Brisbane barrister saying his 15-year-old client was allegedly sexually abused in an Australian adult jail.
An Indonesian 15-year-old who spent time locked up in an Australian adult jail on people smuggling charges was allegedly sexually abused while in custody, a Brisbane barrister says.
Between 40 and 50 Indonesian minors are reportedly in Australian prisons on people smuggling charges.
Brisbane lawyer Mark Plunkett told AAP he believes one of the Indonesian minors he represented was sexually abused while in custody at Arthur Gorrie prison alongside rapists, murderers and pedophiles.
The boy has since been returned home to Indonesia.
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Mr Plunkett suspected the boy had been abused in prison based on his reaction while being asked about his welfare.
"We were asking him general questions about his welfare. I asked him if he was cold and how he was finding the weather he said `Unbearable, it was torture'," Mr Plunkett said.
"I asked him about the food `It's unbearable, I have no rice' ... and we touched upon whether he had suffered any abuse, physical or sexual.
"He convulsed in tears and wasn't able to answer."
Mr Plunkett said the conservation moved to another topic and then returned to the abuse question before the boy started crying again.
Mr Plunkett has called for all Indonesian suspected people smugglers whose ages were in question to be bailed immediately.
"This is a scandal of monstrous proportions," he said.
"We have lost our moral compass."
The barrister attacked the use of a controversial wrist X-ray technique to determine the ages of accused people smugglers.
The X-rays are compared to those taken from largely white middle-class children in the US in the 1930s and the technique has been discredited as by international experts, he said.
Mr Plunkett has urged authorities to conduct a field survey in Indonesian to gather "admissible evidence from parents, next of kin, villagers and Indonesian officials" to determine ages.
Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said she was appalled at the risks the Indonesian minors faced in Australian jails.
She also called for the wrist X-ray technique to be scrapped.
"They've got a lax attitude to determining the age of these children. They see them as dispensable," Senator Hanson-Young told AAP on Sunday.
She said it was hypocritical for Australians to expect special treatment for the 14-year-old Australian boy on drugs charges in Bali while boys from Indonesian fishing boats languished in jails here.
The Greens were considering action in parliament.
Senator Hanson-Young hopes the issue is raised when Prime Minister Julia Gillard meets Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono later this week.
Meanwhile, Fairfax reports an intellectually disabled 16-year-old Indonesian orphan, who was held at Sydney's Silverwater jail for two years, has became the 33rd minor to have people smuggling charges dropped because the wrist X-ray technique was discredited in court.
A spokeswoman for the Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said the government was not reviewing the use of the technique.
She said the government was in discussions with Indonesian police about "better ways to liaise to with minors' families".
The X-ray technique was the only prescribed physical test under the Crimes Act, she said, adding that Australian authorities also relied on interviews and other research.
