Horrific stories of detained children
Monday, September 1st, 2008Jamie Walker; 1/9/09
Harrowing new accounts of children suffering in mandatory detention have triggered calls for a royal commission into Australia’s immigration enforcement system. A new book, Human Rights Overboard, promises to reopen old wounds - even though Kevin Rudd has guaranteed that children will never again be held in immigration detention. Using the first-hand accounts of former child detainees and their parents, the book details the impact of mandatory detention on boatpeople and other unlawful entrants before the policy was watered down. A boy, 3, was so unhappy that he “executed” his toy truck with a length of string. “He said to his mother, ‘I have killed my truck because it is tired of being sad’,” according to one witness’s account.
