Royal commission call on refugee abuse

A royal commission must be held into the abuse of asylum seekers held in offshore detention camps, refugee rights groups say.

Refugee rights advocates are demanding a royal commission into the abuse of asylum seekers in offshore camps in the wake of a massive document leak from Nauru.

The Guardian Australia has published a database of more than 2000 leaked incident reports from the detention centre.

The sexual abuse of women and children are among the harrowing reports leaked from the Nauru detention centre.

At a joint press conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, GetUp, the Human Rights Law Centre, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Save the Children and the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce all demanded a royal commission be established.

The groups also want all asylum seekers and refugees removed from Nauru and Manus Island in PNG.

Misha Coleman from the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce said every Christian denomination had been scrutinised during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

"We've had every denomination be the target of very serious allegations and the progressive Christian voices in Australia will not stand by again and allow children to be abused," she told reporters.

Human Rights Law Centre executive director Hugh de Kretser said given the investigations into child sex abuse, and the recently established royal commission into abuse in the NT corrections system, it was clear offshore detention should end.

"We are creating the exact same conditions that allow that abuse to thrive on Nauru where we're warehousing innocent people and children," he said.

The groups called for political and community will to end offshore detention.

"There is no moral grey here, these people are being abused," GetUp spokeswoman Shen Narayanasamy told reporters.

The Australian Greens have also called for a royal commission.

Leader Richard Di Natale on Wednesday said the Guardian reports were just as serious as abuse allegations inside youth detention centres in the Northern Territory.

"We should have a royal commission into the (immigration) detention centre network and it's impact on children in detention," he told reporters in Canberra.


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Source: AAP


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