CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Detention camps for asylum seekers set up by Australia under a get-tough immigration policy are degrading and terrifying, said a study released Sunday by a college of psychiatrists that called for the release of children and their primary caregivers.
Hundreds of boat people seeking asylum in Australia — mostly from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka — are being held in the camps while their applications for refugee status are considered. The process can take years.
“Children are at high risk of emotional trauma since parents are unable to provide for them adequately or to shield them from further humiliation and acts of violence in a degrading, hostile and hopeless environment,” said the study by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.
The authors of the report, who interviewed several immigrant families under detention, said that depression and despair were common inside the camps.
Their harsh assessment of conditions came just weeks after a United Nations committee slammed Australia for treating refugees worse than criminals.
Prime Minister John Howard’s conservative government toughened its stance on illegal immigrants late last year, following a standoff over the fate of several hundred mostly Afghan asylum seekers who were rescued from a sinking boat operated by suspected people smugglers.
Though the policy drew fire from the international community and sparked protests outside the camps, polls showed that a majority of Australians were in favor.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists claimed in a previous study that suicide rates in Australian detention centers are 10 times higher than in the general population.
Louise Newman, the College’s chairwoman on child and adolescent psychiatry, said earlier this month that mandatory detention was “toxic” for mental health and characterized suicide attempts at the camps as endemic.
