Child abuse claim at asylum centre
MOSCOW: Over 2 000 leaked files on the state of affairs in the Australia-run asylum-seeker centre on Nauru Island have revealed largescale abuse, with 51.3 of cases involving minors, The Guardian reported yesterday, after publishing the documents.
A total of 1086 of the reported incidents at the immigration processing facility concern children, while they constituted only about 18% of those held on the remote island during the time covered by the documents, from May 2013 to October last year, an analysis of the 8 000page documents by the newspaper shows.
The incidents at Australia’s offshore centre vary from a guard allegedly grabbing a boy and threatening to kill him to cases of when guards allegedly slapped children in the face.
The period covered by the incident reports coincide with the findings of the Australian Human Rights Commission that warned the country’s government of high risk of self-harm cases and abuse of children in its offshore processing centres.
The Nauru facility was opened in 2001 and ran until 2008.
In 2012, it was reopened following a surge in the number of maritime arrivals of asylum seekers.
Rights groups have sharply criticised the detention camps for their inhumane living conditions and incidents of sexual and physical abuse. – Sputnik