UN pressures Canberra to end detention of migrants

The United Nations Committee Against Torture has urged Australia to end mandatory detention for all illegal arrivals, including children.

The committee also called for Canberra to raise the legal age of criminal responsibility in the country, currently set at 10.

It voiced concerns that detention continued to be mandatory for all unauthorised arrivals and that “the law does not establish a maximum length for a person to be held in immigration detention, reportedly resulting in protracted periods of deprivation of liberty”.

The UN committee called on Australia to abolish all legislation “establishing the mandatory and indefinite detention of persons entering its territory irregularly” and ensure unaccompanied minors as well as families with children were not detained “due to their immigration status”.

In a review, the committee also slammed Australia for the practice of handling asylum claims offshore, and called for all migrants to be transferred to mainland Australia.

It voiced serious concerns over the country’s “low age of criminal responsibility”, set at 10 years of age, and called on the government to raise it as well as ending the practice of solitary confinement for children. Indigenous children and children with disabilities were disproportionately affected, according to the review.

Indigenous people in Australia in general are significantly more at risk of being incarcerated, making up some 30 per cent of the nation’s prison population, while only representing 3.2 per cent of the total population, according to the committee. It urged the country “to identify the root causes of the over-representation of indigenous people in prisons and revise regulations that led to the high incarceration rates”.