This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Seven women have attempted suicide, threatened suicide or self-harmed at the Christmas Island detention centre in the past two days, the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission said on Wednesday, as the immigration department met to discuss a spate of previous self-harm incidents.



Gillian Triggs said the department confirmed the number of incidents to her on Wednesday evening and told her of the meeting to address the escalating situation.

The department would not tell her how many of the seven had attempted suicide, Triggs said, but she had received separate reports that as many as 13 men and women had attempted suicide or self-harm since Sunday.

“I know nothing about their condition, but it has led to lockdown conditions on Christmas Island,” Trigg said.

Guardian Australia has confirmed two suicide attempts from well-placed sources on the island.

A spokesman for the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, said it was longstanding government practice not to confirm or comment on reports of individual acts of self harm, but there was no basis to the claims of self harm or attempted suicide.

“Separately, the minister is advised reports of multiple suicide attempts by women on Christmas Island are not correct,” he said.

“While the government understands the concern that exists on such sensitive matters of self harm, it is important to recognise government commentary on such issues takes into account privacy and the impact public commentary may have in encouraging such behaviour.

“It would be highly irresponsible and dangerous to allow government policy to be determined on the basis of such threats.”

Triggs said she had been told federal government lawyers were looking to send 153 asylum seekers still at sea to one of Australia’s offshore detention centres within days.

But with Christmas Island in lockdown after self-harm attempts among asylum seekers, they were likely to be sent to Nauru, Triggs said.

“I think the ray of light is that there is now an undertaking by government lawyers so that people on board the ship will be taken to a detention centre in the next couple of days,” she said.

“The more extravagant vision of the ship floating at sea for weeks is I think an unnecessary vision with my understanding that government lawyers have now undertaken to get this ship of asylum seekers to a destination within the next couple of days, and we have to accept that in good faith.”

Guardian Australia understands that on Wednesday morning a 24-year-old woman who had been under observation at the weekend jumped off the roof of the Christmas Island detention centre. The extent of her injuries are not known. Morrison’s office did not respond to questions about her.

In parliament, senator Eric Abetz said in response to questions from the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young on Wednesday that a “small number” of self-harm attempts had occurred on the island. He denied media reports of 12 mothers attempting suicide.

“With all of these situations it’s vitally important to get all of the factual information,” he said. “What I would say is that on the information that I have in front of me there is no basis on the [media] claims that up to 12 women have attempted suicide on Christmas Island.

“A small number of minor self-harm incidents have recently occurred and those involved are received proper and appropriate medical support.”

Triggs said Christmas Island was now volatile and detention centre staff were doing the best they could to manage the situation.

“It has become an extremely dangerous situation where the rights of asylum seekers in detention are simply being ignored and they’re in an environment where the rule of law appears not to apply,” she said.

“That’s also true of the 25,000 asylum seekers now in Australia in community detention or on bridging visas and unable to work. We’ve got a brewing, toxic environment.”

Three weeks ago Triggs urged Morrison to send asylum seekers detained on Christmas Island to the Darwin processing centre, an idea “he didn’t seem completely resistant to”, she said.

“I said it was increasingly dangerous for asylum seekers on the island and the humane policy should be to bring them to Darwin from Christmas Island for processing,” she said.

“But ultimately they [the government] don’t want their record of no boats arriving to be spoiled, they want to be able to continue to say no boats have arrived for more than six months – they are hoisted on their own petard.

“They don’t want that record sullied. But we’re seeing cracks in a clearly unsustainable legal situation and boats are still attempting to come, even if they are being turned back.”

She said the best thing for the 153 asylum seekers still at sea and under the control of the Australian government would be for them to be sent to Darwin, but added that would be unlikely. The Manus Island detention centre does not accept children.

She said their plight was a “Tampa-like situation” with the asylum seekers in limbo, because no government was immediately willing to accept them, a comparison echoed by Hanson-Young in a media conference.

“It is Tony Abbott's Tampa and together with the secrecy, you've got to wonder whether it's Scott Morrison's children overboard,” Hanson-Young said on Wednesday.

She said the government’s policy on asylum seekers was pushing people to a "point of self-destruction". She criticised Abbott for suggesting women who had attempted suicide on Christmas Island were trying to blackmail the government.

"It's pretty horrific to push a mother to a point of saying, 'Well, if I need to sacrifice myself for my children, maybe that's what I'll do,' " she said.

Hanson-Young said she had spoken to people inside the detention centre who confirmed the reports of attempted suicide.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, and Labor’s immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, also condemned the prime minister’s comments. Shorten said they were a “new low” for the government.

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