The true number of children being held in Australia's immigration detention network is being withheld by the government, with details of those held at offshore facilities left out of official reports.
More than 1,600 children are being detained at various facilities on Australian soil, a figure regularly updated in immigration department reports which also detail gender and nationality.
But none of this detail is published for the controversial 'regional processing facilities' at Manus Island and Nauru, with only the total number of detainees available, not the breakdown of adults and children.
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Sandi Logan, National Communications Manager at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, told SBS via Twitter that those facilities “are the lawful responsibility of governments of Nauru, and Papua New Guinea,” when asked about the omission.
He said “about 25” children were currently detained on Manus Island out of a total of 302 detainees. It's believed no one under 18 is currently detained at Nauru.
A spokeswoman for the department says the overall number of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island were updated daily within the department, and could be obtained on request.
"They're not completely in the Australian detention centre network, but in saying that, you can always call our media centre to get the statistics."
However, more detailed information of those asylum seekers, including how many men, women and children were detained at each facility could not be provided.
"We would have a database somewhere, but that's not the information I have on hand," she said.
Jana Favero from the Asylum Centre Resource Centre said the Australian government was using a “convenient excuse” in deferring to foreign governments for details about asylum seekers sent offshore.
“We're sending the people there, we are putting them on planes and we're moving them out,” she said. “So I think it's absolutely realistic to expect the figures to be reported.”
Child refugee advocate Sophie Peer from ChilOut says her organisation has tried repeatedly to get clear statistics about Manus Island from the Department of Immigration.
"We just don't know what's going on over there," she says.
"One of the things we really want to see clarity on and we haven't is whether there's unaccompanied minors [over] there."
Critics claim Australia's offshore processing policy makes it harder to administer legal and medical care to detainees.
Dr John Vallentine, who worked at the detention facility on Manus Island between November and December last year, told ABC's Four Corners program the facility was "too remote" and under-resourced to properly support the children there, a claim which was refuted by Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor.
Earlier this month, Human Rights Commissioner Professor Gillian Triggs told Fairfax she was unable to investigate the conditions without an invitation from the respective governments of Nauru and Manus Island.
"I cannot go there to have a look at those facilities unless I'm invited. It certainly seems to me as the national human rights body I should have some capacity to go, but I would certainly need to go with the consent of those sovereign governments," she said.
Go inside Australia's asylum detention centres with our interactive documentary.
Click on the image above to explore Australia's detention data.
