Children protesting on Nauru. Image via
A landmark report was released by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) on August 2 documenting the conditions asylum seekers detained on Nauru are living in. Working undercover on the island, human rights representatives secretly documented widespread “abuse, inhumane treatment, and neglect” inside Australia’s controversial offshore detention centre.
HRW researcher Michael Bochenek visited the Pacific island in July, without informing the Nauruan government of his affiliation with the peak human rights body. Along with other researchers, he was able to infiltrate the island’s refugee community and speak to more than 80 people about their experiences in the camp. His damning findings are reported in Australia: Appalling abuse, neglect of refugees on Nauru.
Videos by VICE
One of the key issues highlighted in the report is that access to health services on the island is severely inadequate. “Refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru, most of whom have been held there for three years, routinely face neglect by health workers and other service providers who have been hired by the Australian government,” the report reads.
The undercover researchers also found that frequent assaults on refugees and asylum seekers by local Nauruans often go unpunished. The physical and mental fallout was obvious to the researchers: “Australia’s atrocious treatment of the refugees on Nauru over the past three years has taken an enormous toll on their wellbeing.”
Amnesty’s report specifically accuses the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection of complicity. “The Australian government’s persistent failure to address abuses committed under its authority on Nauru strongly suggests that they are adopted or condoned as a matter of policy,” it reads.
Bochenek and his fellow researchers paint a very different picture of life on Nauru than the one presented by A Current Affair last month, when the program became the first Australian TV show granted access to the detention centre. ACA’s report focused on how conditions for asylum seekers had improved over time, and suggested that protests staged by those living on the island were staged for the media.
Amnesty International says the situation is far more dire, arguing that many of the things it uncovered on Nauru constitute human rights abuses. “By forcibly transferring refugees and people seeking asylum to Nauru, detaining them for prolonged periods in inhuman conditions, denying them appropriate medical care, and in other ways structuring its operations so that many experience a serious degradation of their mental health, the Australian government has violated the rights to be free from torture and other ill-treatment, and from arbitrary detention, as well as other fundamental protections,” it reads.
“Few other countries go to such lengths to deliberately inflict suffering on people seeking safety and freedom.”
The Australian government has come out in criticism of the report, which it had no knowledge of before Tuesday’s release. “There was no consultation with the Department from Amnesty International in preparation of this report,” a spokesperson from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection told VICE this morning.
“The Department strongly refutes many of the allegations in the report. We would strongly encourage Amnesty International to contact the Department before airing allegations of this kind.”
Follow Kat on Twitter.
