Australia says its tough immigration policy is saving lives. But asylum seekers are being banished to camps in Papua New Guinea. Critics say Australia is breaching human rights.

Australia is one of the most popular destinations for asylum seekers escaping their home countries. But Australia doesn’t want them. Since 2013, the country has toughened its immigration policy. Any asylum seekers trying to reach Australian shores by boat without a visa will either be turned away by the coastguard or put into detention camps in Papua New Guinea. The plan is then to re-settle them in Papua New Guinea.

Over the past two years Fariba Sahraei has been in contact with asylum seekers from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, including those now locked up in a detention centre on a remote island of Papua New Guinea, one of the poorest nations on earth. She has heard of terrible conditions, of violence and desperation. So is Australia’s tough immigration policy a way to stop the people smugglers – or a policy which is breaching human rights?

(Photo: A detention camp on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Credit: BBC)