The spokesman for the UN High commissioner for Refugee, Adrian Edwards, says the organisation can't lend its support to the draft memorandum of understanding between Australia and Malaysia because it doesn't contain the appropriate protection safeguards.
Yesterday the federal government confirmed unaccompanied minors will be included in a plan to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing in exchange for Australia accepting about four-thousand registered refugees from the Southeast Asian nation.
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The plan has already been severely criticised by rights groups because Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention.
Meanwhile, Labor in Canberra is coming under pressure from its own side of politics over its asylum seeker policy, with West Australian Labor frontbencher Ben Wyatt saying he's appalled and embarrassed by the federal government's decision to send unaccompanied children to Malaysia.
Mr Wyatt says he's outraged by the decision and accuses federal Labor of having lost its way by deciding to brutalise and penalise children caught up in terrible circumstances.
