General News Detaining children illegal and inhumane: UNHCR to Australia

Aussie792 · Nov 27, 2014

ABC said:

The United Nations refugee agency is urging Australia and other countries to end the detention of child asylum seekers, saying it is against international law and breaches the rights of children.

This month marks 25 years since the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was created, and Australia is a signatory. It is considered the most widely ratified human rights treaty.

But the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Indonesia, Thomas Vargas, said Australia's detention of asylum seeker children is a breach of it, and international law.

"We would urge any government, any government in the world, not to use children as pawns to solve a problem that is, by the way, not going to be solved by a unilateral approach," Mr Vargas said.

"Children do not belong in detention and it is clear under international law that states should not detain them."

He urged Australia to provide community-housing options for underage asylum seekers who arrived by boat.

Mr Vargas said Australia had more than 600 child asylum seekers in detention.

"The impact, the negative impact that it has on a child's life at the very beginning of their life, to put them in this type of horrible situation, you can just imagine the negative consequences that it has on their psyche, on their wellbeing," he said.

"Not only is it not humanitarian, but it's illegal under international law."
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Asylum seekers: UNHCR urges Australia and other countries to stop detaining children - World - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Again, Australia is being censured for our brutality toward refugees. This serves as a reminder that a) these actions are morally and legally illegitimate, b) they directly counter (false) claims that the illegality of refugees is a reason to detain or prevent their entry into a country, and c) Australia's government consists of an undoubtedly inhumane and certainly hypocritical group.

I've seen quite a few foreigners, primarily Britons, champion Australia's refugee policies as a model for their own. Arguments about illegality fall flat, and supporting inhumane treatment of children and adults alike should never be acceptable.

600 children and thousands of adults are being held as prisoners for seeking a better life.

RainDreamer · Nov 28, 2014

Article 14, Universal Declaration of Human Rights by UN:

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
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General News Detaining children illegal and inhumane: UNHCR to Australia

Aussie792
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General News Detaining children illegal and inhumane: UNHCR to Australia

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