More than half the children being held in Australian immigration detention centres will be returned to Nauru.
Of the 126 minors in detention, 68 were in Australia temporarily with their families for medical treatment.
Of the remainder, 19 will be released into the community shortly; 20 are from families whose cases are close to being finalised; while the rest are children of parents with adverse security assessments.
In some cases those parents have refused to have their children released into the community because they didn't want their family broken-up.
"In these difficult cases work continues to resolve the barriers to community placement, where possible," immigration department secretary Michael Pezzullo told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra.
There are also 116 children in detention on Nauru.
The department said those children were being progressively released into the local community as their claims for refugee status were finalised.
Police investigations are underway into about 44 sexual assault allegations involving children in onshore detention stretching back to January 2011.
The department could not provide a figure on investigations involving children on Nauru.
Assistant immigration minister Michaelia Cash emphasised the numbers of children in detention had peaked at 1992 under the previous Labor government in July 2013.
A Human Rights Commission report into children into detention found the policy caused significant mental and physical illness and breached Australia's international obligations.
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