Safety fears cause bed wetting at Nauru

A Sydney paediatrician says some children and mothers at Nauru are wetting the beds at night because they are too scared to visit the bathroom.

A female asylum seeker at the Nauru detention centre told a visiting Sydney paediatrician of the harrowing night she was raped on the way to the bathroom.

In a written submission to a Senate inquiry, Professor David Isaacs said the woman wept uncontrollably for 10 minutes as she detailed the ordeal but had chosen not to report it to police.

"Many children and some mothers had nocturnal enuresis (bed-wetting at night) rather than run the gauntlet of a night-time toilet visit," Prof Isaacs said.