Ask the children - NSW Commission for Children and Young People

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ATC - Immigration detention PDF Document (115 KB)
04 Mar 2003
We spoke with the children as part of our submission to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity's Inquiry into children in immigration detention. All the children we spoke with have been recognised under Australian and international law as refugees. They spent an average of 140 days in detention during 2000 and 2001.

The children have described their experiences of coming to Australia, immigration detention and their views on how detention could be improved. Their experiences in detention have been compared against Australia's obligations to them under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The focus of the interviews was the experience of detention. However, many of the children interviewed referred briefly to the reasons for their flight and gave accounts of their travel to Australia. Each said that his or her departure came after close family members had been imprisoned, disappeared or been killed.

Their departures occurred in a climate of trauma and uncertainty. Few knew where they were going and none had any clear idea of what would await them on arrival here.

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