Former child protection workers on Nauru have detailed disturbing allegations of sexual and physical abuse of asylum seeker children at the Australian-run detention centre.
The former senior Save the Children workers allege there is significant ongoing harm to children living in the centre and in the Nauru community as refugees.
Social worker Viktoria Vibhakar left her job at the regional processing centre last year, detailing 30 case studies including sexual abuse allegations.
"I was compromised ethically," she said.
“Children have been sexually assaulted, they have been physically assaulted and even after those initial assaults were reported they were subjected, some of them were subjected to further assaults."
Incident reports have been logged but there are concerns not all cases have made their way to higher authorities.
Ms Vibhaka said Save The Children has “had some data loss.”
Her colleague Kirsty Diallo, who had also resigned, said she was “not confident that all procedures were followed by all staff” and also felt her “professional ethics” were “being compromised”.
Peter Young, who had responsibility for the mental health of asylum seekers in all Australian-run detention centres from 2011 to 2014, says the immigration department told doctors it didn't want to hear about mental harm caused by being detained.
"We were repeatedly told ... it was unacceptable to put in reports to the department that people's mental health had been harmed by being in detention in Nauru," he told a Senate committee investigating allegations of abuse at the facility.
Dr Young, who has previously accused the department of covering up allegations of sexual abuse at the Australian-run centre on Nauru, said he refused to change his reports on that advice.
His staff frequently complained their care was being undermined by pushback from the immigration department, he said.
The immigration department has referred 50 cases of abuse to Nauru police since the Australian offshore detention centre opened in 2012.
The department on Tuesday confirmed charges have been laid in five of those cases, while two people have been convicted and sentenced.
Other cases of abuse are still under investigation, department deputy secretary Cindy Briscoe told a parliamentary inquiry into allegations of abuse at the Nauru detention centre.
With AAP.
