Pacific islands must call on Australia to end detention

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

MEDIA ADVISORY

16 January 2019

Pacific islands must call on Australia to end traumatic offshore detention

At the start of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s visit to Vanuatu and Fiji on 16-18 January 2019, Amnesty International calls on their governments to raise the regional humanitarian crisis triggered by Australia’s indefinite detention of refugees and people seeking asylum.

“More than a thousand innocent men and women remain locked away in Australia’s open-air prisons, in Nauru and Manus Island. By failing in its responsibility to refugees and people seeking asylum, the Australian government has created a regional crisis in the Pacific islands,” says Roshika Deo, Amnesty International’s Pacific Researcher.

“It was Prime Minister Scott Morrison who announced last year that Australia would end its detention of children in Nauru. This was a tacit admission that offshore detention is not a viable policy – in fact it is damaging to a person’s physical and mental well-being, regardless of age,” Deo said.

“In their meetings with Morrison, the governments of Vanuatu and Fiji should raise this humanitarian crisis and call on his government to end its abusive detention policy once and for all,” Deo said. “From people seeking asylum to climate change, the Pacific islands have an opportunity to show leadership in rejecting Australia’s wrongful actions in the region. This historic visit is an important opportunity to demand a change of course.”

**ENDS

BACKGROUND

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is scheduled to have bilateral meetings in Vanuatu (16 and 17 January) and Fiji (17 and 18 January). In Fiji, he is scheduled to deliver a speech at the University of the South Pacific on 18 January.

Australia’s wrongful ‘offshore processing’ policy, by which claimants for refugee status are held on islands outside of Australian territory, continues to cause enormous harm. Up to 1200 people remain in limbo on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, and on Nauru, the majority of whom have been found to be refugees. Just over 400 people have been able to seek safety in the United States under a bilateral agreement negotiated by Australia.

In Papua New Guinea, refugees and people seeking asylum have been violently attacked by locals, contractors and the authorities. In Nauru, there have been widespread reports of physical and sexual abuse, including against women and children. Nauru and Papua New Guinea are unable to provide protection for refugees and people seeking asylum and the Australian government refuses to accept responsibility for them, despite the fact that they remain under its effective control in these territories. Amnesty International has called for the urgent evacuation of all people on Manus and Nauru in order to prevent further harms.

On 19 July 2013, Australia enacted a policy that meant anyone who arrived by boat anywhere in Australia – including the mainland – would be barred from seeking asylum in the country. Instead, they would be forcibly transferred to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, or to Nauru, and even those recognised as refugees would never be allowed to settle in Australia.

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