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Concern for Minors Still Locked Up In Australia
Rangga Prakoso | August 22, 2011

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DrDez
6:46pm Aug 24, 2011

Gerry

I shall be in touch

GerryGeorgatos
5:43pm Aug 24, 2011

Dr Dez, they are being held as perceived people smugglers for being either cooks or deckhands on the boats assisting in the safe passage of Asylum Seekers to our shores.

However, the policy in Australia is that if the cooks and deckhands are actually under 19 years of age they are returned home to Indonesia for instance.

The Australian Government and the Australian Federal Police are not accepting their dates of births as provided by them and instead of asking Indonesian Consular officials to provide their dates of births or instead of working with the relevant authorities to ascertain this beyond a reasonable doubt they instead wrist-bone x-ray them and try to determine their age from a radiologist's opinion by measuring skeletal growth bone fissure closures. These tests are non-failsafe and instead have got at least 60 of them wrong, and hence we have at least 60 children in Australian adult prisons.

They have been as young as 13 years old, and 15 seems to be the age of most of them. A 14 year old spent one year in prison till documentation arrived to prove otherwise and hence he was released.

However the reason they remain in Australian prisons is political, the Government is trying to save face and is prepared to discriminate against them and as children to avoid culpability and other vicarious responsibility. I spoke to the Prime Minister in person in trying to highlight the need for her remedy what she is already aware of.

I am hoping more pressure from the Indonesian peoples can generate an impetus to ensure their freedom. In the end they haven't done anything unlawful in terms of UN Conventions and in assisting Asylum Seekers in terms of their safe passage, this should not be a criminal activity, however the focus here is these are in fact children and they should not languish in adult prisons where various ill can occur including the baptism and enshrining of criminal behaviours.

They should be released en masse. Dr Dez, your point that convicted murderers can be saved from Saudi Arabia however these impoverished children continue to languish in Australian adult prisons is pertinent.

Feel free to contact me to assist wherever possible. I may becoming to Indonesia in November to highlight their plight through the Indonesian news media however more so to aggregate admissible evidence to have them released. However we never would have been in this position if the Australian Government, as I have advocated, had appropriate age determination protocols from the onset and paid the due respect it should have and notified the Indonesian Consular Officials of the presence of their nationals in Australia - they did not notify Indonesian Consulates, something that has disappointed the Indonesian Consulates.

I am contactable at gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au and 0430 657 309

Kindly, Gerry.

DrDez
2:29pm Aug 23, 2011

Gerry

Why are these kids being held?

Govt

We can save convicted murderers from Saudi but not these minors... Why?


GerryGeorgatos
12:30pm Aug 23, 2011

The story of Hadi Kurniawan, born in 1995, languishing in an Australian Adult Prison - one of 100 Indonesian Children.

http://indymedia.org.au/2011/07/09/hadi-kurniawan-one-of-100-children-in-australian-adult-prisons

Gerry Georgatos - 0430 657 309

PhD Law Researcher, Australian Deaths in Custody

Convener, Human Rights Alliance

GerryGeorgatos
12:25pm Aug 23, 2011

There are now thereabouts 100 Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons. I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard about this on July 20, however as we held our handshake her smile froze into icy and flustered silence.

http://www.thewire.org.au/audio/WWindoprison.mp3

Player

(ABC radio interview)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvkSjO_byLg (DRUM interview)

The Human Rights Alliance has put out a call for a long overdue National Inquiry into the Commonwealth of Australia incarceration of children into Adult Prisons - under age Indonesians, impoverished children, near one hundred, probably more than 100, with the AFP confirming at least 60 'age disputes'.

A Forum, recently on August 15, in Sydney, at Amnesty International Offices, organised by Indonesian Human Rights Advocates, and heavily attended by Human Rights Clinics and Legal Clinics and Lawyers has generated tremendous support. I have been called by the Australian Human Rights Commission who are considering calling for a National Inquiry, by various Legal Clinics who wish to make pro-social submissions to amend People Smuggling Legislation and who like us are now calling for appropriate age-determination protocols.

I have put out a call to the Australian Greens Senators to rise to the occasion and ensure questions in the Senate regarding the fact that the Commonwealth of Australia has incarcerated children in our adult prisons. It appears that finally the Australian Greens Senators may do so - this morning I spoke at length with Senator Hanson-Young's Office and with prominent Greens around the country. The questions are long overdue. The excuses for the silences are not just thin, they are inexcusable. With the questions there must be throughcare to outcomes, the Senators and various agencies must persist ongoing questions and strong monitoring and input various demands all along the journey - including the reasonable demand to place these young folk at least in the predicament of Bail.

Only the AFP has demonstrated (to me) any forthright comment and honesty in the facts of the matters at hand, however from Ministers and Government Departments, and similarly from our political leaders and the majority of our parliamentarians, we have an endemic passing of the buck. I have called and written to the Office of the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police for the AFP and Commissioner Keelty to lead the way. I believe that the AFP wants to ensure that they are not complicit in charging children as adults. One AFP Officer from WA appeared quite distressed at this prospect and indeed hoped that protocols are tabled so as to remove this prospect.

We are working on a register of the age-disputes so as to move to the prospect, in the event the wheels of justice slow to a grind, that some of us will head to Indonesia to aggregate admissible evidence to displace the presumption of evidence from the wrist bone age scan and can work en masse rather than piecemeal to help these children towards their due freedom.

Gerry Georgatos - 0430 657 309

PhD Law Researcher, Australian Deaths in Custody

Convenor, Human Rights Alliance

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/peoplesmuggling-charges-dropp...

http://www.theage.com.au/national/gillard-criticised-for-wrist-xrays-201...

http://www.theage.com.au/national/jailing-of-boys-an-abuse-of-rights-201... (In this article both myself and Sarah Hanson-Young have been quoted about the Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons...)

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/48139 - The story of Hadi Kurniawan.

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The Australian government continues to detain Indonesian minors on human trafficking charges but none have yet faced trial, a rights activist said on Sunday.

Rafendi Djamin, executive director of Jakarta-based Human Rights Working Group, said the legal proceedings against some 70 minors were progressing slowly because they had no identification documents, meaning Australian authorities were having problems determining their ages.

“They should have been deported because they are all under 18 years old,” Rafendi said.

The children have been arrested along with some 500 adult Indonesians who are suspected of smuggling people to Australia.

Rafendi said the youths were in fact the victims of human trafficking syndicates that had escaped justice. “They were only boat hands tasked with cooking and cleaning,” he said.

Australian authorities early in July freed three minors that were being detained in maximum security prisons, sending them home to Rote island in East Nusa Tenggara.

Magdalena Sitorus, head of the Friends of Indonesian Women and Children (SAPA Indonesia), said the lack of documents confirming the detained children’s ages was hampering their release. “They do not have birth certificates,” she said. “If there is goodwill from the government, a loophole can certainly be found. It could also be in the form of baptism certificates for those who are Catholic.”

There was also a lack of information available about the children’s cases, both from the central government and the Indonesian Embassy in Australia, Magdalena said.

“The central government has already received requests for information, but the cases cannot be discussed in detail. The embassy can only say that there have been meetings with the Australian government,” she said.