Images drawn by children held in indefinite detention on Christmas Island:
The most alarming aspect of the pictures drawn by children detained on Christmas Island, and revealed by the Human Rights Commission’s national investigation into their plight, is what is blanked out – the children’s boat IDs. In every detention facility I have visited, children sign their artworks with this ID; they respond to this ID; they know each other’s ID numbers. The institutionalisation of these children is all-pervasive and will take a very long time to recover from if they are ever released into society.(X)
I cannot understand how more people aren’t extremely alarmed by what happens to Asylum Seekers here in Australia. People, children, are being put in indefinite detention. Not because they have committed any crime, but because they are refugees.
Children are literally being raised in “detention facilities”. They call them that because no one wants to admit they are really sending children to prisons.