Leaked documents published on Wednesday reveal comprehensive details about the harsh conditions faced by asylum seekers who have tried to reach Australia by boat and are being held on the remote Pacific island of Nauru.
More than 2,000 incident reports, written by detention-center staff members and published by The Guardian, describe episodes of violence, including sexual assault, and self-harm. Most of the cases involved children, the newspaper said, although children made up just 18 percent of the people in detention at the time of the reports. The files extend from May 2013 to October 2015.
The Australian authorities say such tough measures are necessary to discourage attempts to make the risky voyages by sea, which have sometimes ended in mass drownings. The number of attempted boat arrivals has declined sharply since the Labor Party government of Julia Gillardrevived a program of offshore detentionsin 2012, and the policy is maintained today under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of the conservative Liberal Party.
Human rights advocates and some Australian politicians say the policy is unnecessarily harsh and puts vulnerable people at further risk of physical and mental harm.
A report by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said Australia appeared to be subjecting migrants to abuses at an offshore processing site as "a deliberate policy to deter further asylum seekers from arriving in the country by boat."
In May 2016, two asylum seekers, a Somali woman and an Iranian man, set themselves on fire on the remote Pacific island of Nauru and it made headlines.
Source: New York Times
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