Spotlight on children’s plight
As Nauru gears up for a Pacific Island Forum meeting, there are calls for New Zealand to resettle more than 100 children detained on the tiny island.
During the first week of September, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, along with Australian and other Pacific Island leaders, will descend on Nauru – an island about the size of Auckland’s Rangitoto – for the Pacific Island Forum leaders meeting.
The lead-up to the meeting has been marred with controversy, with the Nauru Government banning some media, and tension mounting over the asylum seekers and refugees being detained on Nauru, on behalf of the Australian Government.
There are about 119 children detained on Nauru – this number fluctuates, as children are often taken from the island for emergency medical treatment.
World Vision NZ national director Grant Bayldon said Australia’s ‘‘turn back the boats’’ policy had left these children in ‘‘harsh and basic’’ conditions, which had led to a sense of hopelessness. People detained on the island were experiencing severe mental health issues, with repeated suicidal attempts, and other life-threatening illnesses.
Ardern and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have spoken out strongly against Australia’s detention of asylum seekers in the past, and Ardern has repeatedly reiterated New Zealand’s offer to take up to 150 detained asylum seekers. A call Malcolm Turnbull’s Government has rejected thus far.
World Vision has launched a campaign calling on Ardern to accept all the children detained on Nauru, and their families, into New Zealand, as a special one-off refugee intake. This intake would sit outside New Zealand’s annual refugee quota of 1000, which the Government has promised to increase to 1500.
Last month marked five years since Australia implemented its policy, which sees asylum seekers attempting to seek refuge in Australia stopped, or turned away, to be detained in offshore processing centres.
So far, 3127 people have been sent to offshore processing centres. A deal between Australia and the United States – struck during Barack Obama’s presidency – has resettled 183 people, including 15 children, according to Australia’s Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
The rest remain in detention, and Bayldon said the majority of the families on Nauru had little hope of resettling in the US due to President Donald Trump’s travel ban. The ban covers seven countries, including Iran – the nationality of the majority of the refugees. ‘‘No child should have to live there, and have a sense of ongoing hopelessness,’’ Bayldon said. ‘‘It’s an opportunity for New Zealand to step up.
‘‘The Pacific Island Forum provides a really good opportunity to focus on the issue.’’
Nauru and Australia had been reluctant to talk about this issue but during the meeting no-one would be able to escape the fact those children were being held there, Bayldon said.
Some children had been on the island for the full five years, and some had been born in the detention centre. ‘‘For some children it’s all they know.’’
Numerous international reports found children were feeling increasingly desperate, and the Guardian has reported a 12-year-old boy on hunger strike is at risk of dying.
‘‘While for many the conditions are harsh and basic, what’s really caused a lot of the children’s suffering is the hopelessness, for themselves and for their families.’’
There was a lack of medical care, and refugee children were scared to go to school outside the compound, due to numerous assaults on refugees.
‘‘So it really adds up to a toxic mix of hopelessness for the refugees there.’’
Bayldon said World Vision’s request to resettle all 119 children and their immediate families was realistic. And there was precedent, thanks to the resettlement of 133 refugees in 2001 by Helen Clark’s Government.
Clark has referred to this as her proudest moment as prime minister. ‘‘Really all it would take is a bit of creativity for New Zealand to go above and beyond its normal, very small, refugee quota ... there’s no reason we can’t settle all of these children and their families, either all at once or over a really short period.’’
Ardern’s previous pushes to get Australia to accept New Zealand’s offer of taking up to 150 of the refugees have caused some trans-Tasman tensions.
But behind closed doors, Turnbull had asked Ardern to keep the offer on the table.
And New Zealand officials have been preparing systems and processes, in case a deal is approved. Ardern made a point of saying it was more important to do what was right, than what was popular.
The situation had changed since initial trans-Tasman discussions on the issue, Bayldon said.
Australia no longer had the excuse of waiting for the US deal.
‘‘It’s an opportunity for New Zealand to step up.’’ World Vision NZ national director Grant Bayldon