We spent a week on Christmas Island as medical consultants – we were shocked by the pervasive sadness, the despair in children and in adults, and the lack of dignity offered to detainees

The recent announcement that most Australian detention centres will close and all asylum seekers will be transferred offshore to Nauru and Manus Island confirms the fears of children currently detained on Christmas Island.



In March, we spent a week on Christmas Island as medical consultants to the Australian Human Rights Commission's inquiry into the impact of immigration detention on children. Most families and children had been in detention for six to nine months, and no processing of their claims for asylum had occurred. They were predominantly from countries we hear about every day as places of war, conflict and persecution: Afghanistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Burma, Syria, Iraq and Iran.



'Many children are symptomatic, anxious and unhappy'.

At that time there were 1,700 detainees on Christmas Island, including 356 children and about 25 babies who had been born in detention. Half of the children were aged five or under, and there were 41 unaccompanied children (under 18 and without family to care for them).



A young child draws the sadness and isolation behind the bars.

Along with three other colleagues, we interviewed 230 families. While we talked, we provided paper and pens and invited children to draw pictures that would tell us something about their lives. The drawings included here come from these interviews.



Fear on the boat trip to Australia. Nightmares about the waves and drowning are common.

The UN convention on the rights of the child, which Australia ratified in 1990, can be described in shorthand as identifying that children need:

• Provision (of food, shelter, education)

• Protection (from harmful and traumatic experiences, including abuse, torture, exploitation, arbitrary detention)

• The chance to participate in decision-making about their lives. How this should occur depends on a child’s age

This drawing by an 11 year old (read right to left) shows war at home, the boat journey and the sadness in detention of the family, including pregnant mother.

These rights seem clear and unarguable and are largely enacted in policies and services for children living in Australia. What we saw on Christmas Island suggests that immigration detention impacts on adequate provision for, protection of and participation by children at all ages and stages, from birth to 18 years old.



This is a very disturbing drawing by a young child. The figure has no mouth and is oddly proportioned. The bars are prominent.

Childhood adversity and exposure to violence, trauma and parental despair disrupt normal development and are well documented to impact on children’s outcomes. The gravest impacts come from cumulative and prolonged adversity which are not balanced or mitigated by protective experiences and relationships. Positive learning environments – such as quality childcare,or meaningful activities with supportive adults – are protective for children facing adversity.



Another drawing comparing the sad life in detention with the happy life outside.

Immigration detention on CI is an impoverished and harsh environment with little opportunity for safe play and exploration, education, physical exercise or for nurturing family time. Most children have had very little schooling and many had only been for three hours a day for 10 days out of the eight months they were detained.



Clear message from an eight year old girl.

Detention has been shown to be harmful for children in Australia and in many other countries, with worse impacts the longer the detention continues. Offshore detention with increased isolation in remote and harsh circumstances exaggerates that adversity.

It also increases the difficulties and the costs associated with providing health and educational services. It is impossible for providers, however well resourced and intentioned, to ever balance or mitigate the damaging impact of detention itself. And parents, no matter how committed or competent they are, cannot adequately provide for, or protect their children in this environment.

This drawing by a child includes a smiling Tony Abbott holding a gun. The experience of detention has been conflated with that of war and death at home. A fear of transfer to Nauru or Manus is included.

Most shocking about our visit was the pervasive sadness, the despair in children and in adults, and the extreme fears about the future. Many children are symptomatic, anxious and unhappy; some were withdrawn, had begun wetting the bed, and parents were concerned about delays in their children’ speech or recurrent games about drowning or playing at being “officers”. Some younger children were biting themselves or hitting their heads in distress, many had disturbed behaviour and sleep.

Pain and distress is showing on all faces.

Powerlessness is reinforced for parents in daily humiliations. Families line up in the sun or rain (there is little shelter) and wait, then show ID cards for food (holding their own issued plastic cup, plate and cutlery) for medicines to be handed out, or to see the nurse or doctor. For parents with little ones there is additional lining up for nappies, baby wipes and scoops of formula – only three are dispensed each time.

Use three nappies or make up three bottles of milk and you need to line up all over again. And at 11pm and 5-6 am there are knocks on the bedroom door, entry of an officer with a torch and roll calls. This adds to the disturbed sleep in children and adults, which is very common.



The poignant words of a 16 yr old boy who is in detention alone.

The way that decisions about family separations are made and enacted is another source of great fear and distress. Transfers of family members for medical reasons to the mainland sometimes result in prolonged family separation, including of children from parents. The “ageing out” of boys ( the term for turning 18) means they can be moved suddenly to the adult camp or to Manus Island, and some families have been suddenly “extracted” to Nauru. These transfers often occur in the early hours of the morning and with no warning (for “operational reasons”) and are big contributors to the pervasive fear and anxiety.

A young child's drawing.

For children in asylum seeking families who are detained on Christmas Island and will be moved to Nauru or Manus, the adversities are cumulative. They include past as well as current trauma. The children show in their drawings the issues that concern them and how this makes them feel. They are eloquent about the impact on their feelings about themselves, about life and about the future. What we see and what the drawings show is children who are scared, sad and disillusioned.

A young child (about four years old) draws himself crying. The face of the other figure is blacked out.

If they are moved to Nauru or Manus their circumstances are likely to be even worse.