Australia’s island immigrant centers ‘unsafe’

A senate committee Monday lambasted the government's detention centers on the remote Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. It offered fuel for aid agencies calling for independent review by a Royal Commission to look into allegations of abuse and neglect.

"For people in Australia to be satisfied that the human rights of children in the Nauru detention facility are being protected, it is vital that Commonwealth action, or lack of action, on child abuse be investigated by an independent commission," the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), an umbrella body for welfare agencies said in a statement.

The committee has heard testimony concerning the rape and assault of asylum-seekers, including that sexual favors were exchanged for contraband between detainees and guards.

The government disputes the findings of the Senate committee, in which opposition Labor and Green members outnumbered the ruling coalition.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told Sky News that the committee was "a witch hunt" dominated by opposition parties.

Tessa Boyd-Caine, from ACOSS, said the repeated child abuse uncovered by the senate inquiry was deeply disturbing and should be referred to an ongoing Royal Commission looking at child sexual abuse in institutions.

"We are not satisfied that the situation of children in the Nauru detention center has improved; nor that they are being adequately protected from abuse or repeated abuse," she said.

But Dutton said the allegations were unfounded and defended the practice of outsourcing detention centers to Pacific island nations.

"We need to provide people with a dignified setting, we need to provide them with support and we don't tolerate any instances of sexual offences at all," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

He added that his ministry has renewed the contract for the private firm that is running the two camps.

"I think what we need to recognize though is that regional processing is there because we are not going to allow these people to come to Australia," Dutton added.

More than 630 people are currently held on Nauru, including 86 children. They are housed under the government's policy of refusing asylum-seekers arriving by boat resettlement in Australia and instead sending them to facilities on Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

jar/jm (dpa, AFP)