HUMAN RIGHTS ALLIANCE MEDIA RELEASE:
Department of Immigration and Citizenship unlawfully steals the earned monies of impoverished children in adult prisons after their release and wrongful incarceration
The Australian Federal Police (AFP), on behalf of the Australian Commonwealth Government, as a result of an inappropriate wrist bone scan misused to determine 'age', incarcerated scores of impoverished Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons, as young as 13. Many remain imprisoned - The AFP has affirmed it recognises at least 32 remaining "age-disputes". One child called me to tell me he no longer wants to argue his age even though he insists he is 16 because of ''all the authorities".
With those children who have been and are being released, who have had charges dropped and who have been recognised as children, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship is committing more unpardonable sins. They are stealing the earnings these children have worked for in laundries, kitchens and in cleaning duties and gardening while incarcerated in adult prisons - the few or several hundreds of dollars they earned by working hundreds of hours at appalling low rates of pay are being misused to pay for their 'deportation'.
These children in effect were kept in Australia against their will, in Immigration detention and in adult prisons. In effect they were kidnapped by Australian authorities and unlawfully imprisoned and in inappropriate jurisdictions.
There is no lawful prescription for DIAC to be stealing their monies, and it is an insult to be claiming the objective is to reduce a debt. The Immigration Act does not allow them to willy nilly appropriate the assets or monies of a person to reduce or pay for any perceived debt at their discretion. These children have not committed any crime, it is the Australian government and DIAC who have committed injustices against the children by incarcerating them and stealing their childhoods.
DIAC is claiming that these impoverished Indonesian children are consenting to the forfeiture of their monies - DIAC has to say this because it is not lawful to just take their earnings. These children are not consenting to this, they are actually broken hearted that they cannot return to the poorest of villages and towns, to the poorest of families with their earnings which of course would provide some majorly difference.
Australia misspends billions on mandatory detention and now steals hundreds of dollars from children who had been wrongly imprisoned - this is appalling.
If DIAC believes there is a debt, then it has to be prove the basis of that debt in court, and only a court can instruct for any repayment. These children have committed no crime, there is no conviction, and the crime has been that the DIAC, the AFP and the Commonwealth wrongfully incarcerated these children. DIAC is getting away with this because they have not been challenged in court, and it is appalling it has to always come to this.
Early this year in Western Australia prisons were instructed to not allow any Indonesian charged with people smuggling to transfer their earnings to their families in Indonesia. However this is not the case in for instance New South Wales.
Furthermore, Sri Lankans incarcerated in Western Australian prisons on people smuggling charges were not included in this edict - I know for a fact that they were able to transfer earnings to their impoverished families in Sri Lanka.
What DIAC is doing, stealing the earnings of these impoverished children, who languished on average for a year in an adult prison, is despicable, and what is even more despicable is their outrageous claim that the children have 'consented' to this - they have not. They are distraught. It now appears they wish to extend this despicable act to all Indonesians incarcerated, children and young adults - and in effect labour provided by people while in prison will have been unpaid and therefore slave labour. This behaviour by DIAC and by the Australian government is demonstrative of discrimination and racism.
Gerry Georgatos - 0430 657 309