A TV Crew Was Finally Allowed Inside Australia’s Refugee Detention Camps
This is what it’s like inside.
Australia keeps refugees and asylum seekers in offshore detention centres for indefinite periods of time.
A Current Affair / Via Channel 9
The Australian media are rarely allowed on to the tiny island nation of Nauru, just north-east of Australia, where hundreds refugees and asylum seekers who tried to reach Australia by boat are held.
But the Nine Network's A Current Affair program was recently granted unprecedented access.
There are 468 refugees and asylum seekers, including 37 children, living in detention centres on the island. Others live in the community.
A Current Affair / Via Channel 9
The wellbeing of the people held in Australia's "offshore processing" facilities has long been a concern for Australian youth, politicians, child welfare campaigners, and traumatologists.
The Nauruan and Australian governments claim conditions on the island are good. But there have been numerous incidents of sexual and physical assault of detainees, and refugee advocates maintain the island's foreign inhabitants live in inhumane conditions.