A 10-year-old Vietnamese girl who has spent 12 months detained at the Darwin Immigration detention centre has written a heartfelt plea asking the public for help, writes Zijun Li.
The girl is one of 50 detainees waiting for their refugee claims to be assessed.
Before the unaccompanied minor arrived in Australia by boat in March 2011, she was detained at three different centres, in three countries, without parents, without family.
In her letter, she writes: “Our lives in this place are extremely depressing, we are suffering and lack any sense of a future. We don’t know who will help us.
“All the Vietnamese living here have done so for over one year, they feel very sad, and do not know what else they can do.”
This sadness has had a severe impact on the people inside the centre, especially the children. One child has cut his hands three times.
Fernanda Dahlstrom, of the Northern Territory branch of the Australia Medical Association, said child asylum seekers were presenting to Darwin Hospital after self-hurting.
“Australia detention centres are rift with self-harming and suicide attempts.”
Refugee Rights Action Network activist Victoria Martin said these attempts were not due to the conditions of accommodation.
“They are due to the uncertainty of their situation combined with arbitrary, capricious interfering in daily living by untrained, ill-equipped, over paid security guards,” she said.
Ms Martin said she regularly witnessed verbal abuse at the Darwin detention centre, citing an example of a guard in charge of Muslim children being overheard expressing racial hate.
Her claims are echoed by Children out of Immigration Detention spokeswoman Sophie Peer, who cited another guard at the centre who posted on his Facebook page, “non-Christian children didn’t deserve Christmas presents”.
The centre is run by private company Serco which in February signed a $1 billion contract with the Federal Government.
Ms Martin said Serco was being paid a lot of money “to do a very bad job that destroys people’s mental health”.
“Children should be released from any kind of detention centres to live independently while their status is being assessed, without stigma, without Serco officers’ abuse and control,” she said.
The Australian Greens agree, with Sarah Hanson-Young saying the young girl’s letter highlighted the need for all children to be removed from detention centres.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has failed to carry out his guardianship responsibilities properly, she said.
And Darwin Asylum-seeker Support Network spokesman Rohan Thwaites said the Minister should be replaced as the guardian of children in detention by an independent person.
