UN watchdog faults Australia for treatment of migrants on Nauru

 

FILE – Three asylum seekers look out at protesters rallying outside in their support, from their hotel room where they have been detained in Melbourne, Australia, June 13, 2020.

GENEVA —

Australia violated the rights of asylum-seekers arbitrarily detained on the island of Nauru, a U.N. watchdog ruled Thursday, in a warning to other countries intent on outsourcing asylum processing.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee published decisions in two cases involving 25 refugees and asylum-seekers who endured years of arbitrary detention in the island nation.

"A state party cannot escape its human rights responsibility when outsourcing asylum processing to another state," committee member Mahjoub El Haiba said in a statement.

Under a hard-line policy introduced more than a decade ago, Australia has sent thousands of migrants attempting to reach the country by boat to detention centers on Papua New Guinea\’s Manus Island and the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru, which lies further to the northwest.

Victims in both cases filed complaints to the U.N. committee of 18 independent experts, charging that Australia had violated their rights under an international covenant, in particular regarding arbitrary detention.

Australia rejected the allegations, insisting that abuses that occurred in Nauru did not fall within its jurisdiction.

But the U.N. committee highlighted that Australia had arranged for the establishment of Nauru\’s regional processing center and contributed to its operation and management.

El Haiba said Australia did have jurisdiction because it "had significant control and influence over the regional processing facility in Nauru."

\’Not human rights-free zones\’

A number of European countries have been examining the possibility of similar arrangements to outsource their migration policies.

Thursday\’s decisions "send a clear message to all states: Where there is power or effective control, there is responsibility," El Haiba said. "The outsourcing of operations does not absolve states of accountability. Offshore detention facilities are not human rights-free zones."

The first case examined by the committee involved 24 unaccompanied minors from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

They were intercepted at sea by Australia and transferred in 2014 to Nauru\’s overcrowded Regional Processing Center.

They were held there "with insufficient water supply and sanitation, high temperatures and humidity, as well as inadequate health care," Thursday\’s statement said. "Almost all of these minors have suffered from deterioration of physical and mental well-being, including self-harm, depression, kidney problems, insomnia, headaches, memory problems and weight loss."

Compensation

Even though all but one of the minors were granted refugee status around September 2014, they remained detained in Nauru, the committee said.

It said Australia had failed to justify why the minors could not have been transferred to centers on the mainland more suitable for vulnerable individuals.

The committee separately evaluated the case of an Iranian asylum seeker who arrived by boat on Christmas Island with several family members in August 2013 and was transferred seven months later to Nauru.

The woman was recognized as a refugee by Nauru authorities in 2017 but was not released.

In November 2018, she was transferred to Australia in November 2018 for medical reasons but remained detained in various facilities there, the committee said.

It determined that Australia had failed to show that the woman\’s prolonged and indefinite detention was justified.

The committee called on Australia to compensate the victims and take steps to ensure similar violations do not recur.

The committee has no power to compel states to follow its rulings, but its decisions carry reputational weight.

 

By：VOA