Australia locked up Indonesian children-report
AUSTRALIA: Australia breached the rights of Indonesian children it
jailed as adults after they came as crew on people-smuggling boats and
should apologise, the nation's human rights chief said Friday.
Australian Human Rights Commission president Catherine Branson said
180 Indonesians claimed to be under the age of 18 when they arrived in
Australia between late 2008 and late 2011, but some were not believed
and put in prison.
"The fact is that a significant number of Indonesian children have
been incarcerated in adult correctional facilities, including maximum
security facilities... in some cases for very long periods of time," she
said.
Branson, releasing a report on the treatment of the minors, said
while obviously young Indonesians -- including a boy who claimed to be
eight -- were sent home, authorities often relied on wrist X-rays to
determine their age. The accuracy of wrist X-rays, an age-profiling tool
which compares an individual's bone growth against a standard "atlas"
developed in the United States in the 1950s, was now "discredited", she
said.
"We now know that a significant number of young Indonesians assessed
to be adults on the basis of X-ray analysis were in fact children, or
were very likely to have been children, at the time of their
apprehension," she said.
Asked whether Canberra should apologise for the treatment of these
minors, who were mostly poorly educated and came from impoverished
fishing villages, Branson said: "My feeling would be that they probably
should. AFP |