Please take the time to read this. If you agree with this message
please take the time to go to the attached website and sign the petition
to lend your support. Please send this to all your contacts and friends.
Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser
To End Detention of Children and Separation of Families in Australia
To: Prime Minister John Howard and Senator Amanda Vanstone, Minister for
Immigration
Australia currently holds 94 children in Immigration Detention in
Australia and 90 in the Pacific.
Villawood 32 children
Maribyrnong 1 child
Baxter 22 children
Woomera Housing Project 7 children
Port Hedland 15 children
Port Hedland Housing 2 children
Christmas Island 15 children
Nauru 90 children
(November 2003 figures from A Just Australia)
The oldest children in detention are living out their teens behind razor
wire and electric fences. The youngest is a baby born a month ago, who
was placed in detention in Baxter shortly after his birth. The physical,
emotional and psychological damage detention inflicts on children is
well documented and not in dispute. Some children in Australian
detention centres have been unnecessarily imprisoned for years. In
Sweden the maximum time a child is kept in custody is six days.
Detention of children is in several instances part of the enforced
separation of families. Current solutions to the detention of children
are inadequate and fail to fully protect children's needs and rights.
Mothers and children are housed under guard in houses outside the centre
while fathers remain inside. Boys older than 12 have been separated from
their mothers and forced to live in the detention centre proper.
Under the regulations of the Temporary Protection Visa some families are
split, with dependent children stranded in other countries, and their
parents unable to find a solution that will reunite the family. These
families live in uncertainty, fear and intense anxiety. Their children
suffer in ways that would terrify any parent.
The detention of children and the Temporary Protection Visa, especially
its effect on separated families, breach Australia's obligations under
international conventions and protocols.
This is not how we as Australians want to treat families. The needs and
rights of children must be put first. We the undersigned call for an
immediate end to the detention of children. We call for an immediate
change to regulations that enforce separation between parents and
dependent children. We call for changes in legislation that will protect
future children arriving unauthorised on Australian territory or in
Australian waters. Damaging children is not acceptable to us as
Australians.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/dtention/petition.html
SEARCH Foundation, Rm 610, 3 Smail St, BROADWAY NSW 2007. Ph: +61 2 9211
4164; Fax: +61 2 9211 1407. Web: www.search.org.au
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