A letter to Mr Luke Donnellan, Victorian Minister for the Protection of Children.
From: June Factor
Sent: Tuesday, August 6, 2019
To: luke.donnellan@parliament.vic.gov.au
Subject: Child Protection
August 6, 2019
Dear Minister Donnellan,
In February 2017, the Victorian Supreme Court made what your government declared ‘a landmark ruling’. The then Victorian Minister for Families and Children noted with considerable satisfaction that the ruling confirmed that the State of Victoria ‘has jurisdiction to intervene when children in immigration detention are in need of protection’. (Media release 20 February 2017)
The media has for some time been reporting on the desperately poor and harmful circumstances that are the daily experience of two very young children (one four years old, one just two) held with their parents by the Commonwealth Government at Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) since March 2018. The damage to these children’s health, both physical and mental, is illustrated by but not limited to the most recent tragedy requiring the removal of four infant teeth from the younger child because they had rotted during detention. This toddler was in great pain and unable to eat properly for months before the long delayed dental intervention. Both children have vitamin deficiencies and exhibit clear behavioural distress as a direct consequence of their lengthy detention.
I am the convenor of Befriend a Child in Detention, a community project that began in 2013, is centred in Melbourne, and has thousands of supporters in this State and across the country. We cannot understand why the Victorian Government has not already removed this small family from the environment that is so seriously damaging the children. The Victorian Commissioner for Children and Young People was reported in Friday’s media as deeply distressed at the situation of the two children held in MITA, and opposed to the detention of children. We share her distress and her opposition to the detention of children, but such words need to lead to deeds. Victoria has the legal right, and we believe the moral obligation, to rescue these children immediately.
Dear Minister, we depend on you to save the children and the good name of the Victorian Government. This is a clear matter of harm reduction – these children are in urgent need of your protection.
If we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely
Dr June Factor
Convenor, Befriend a Child in Detention Project
P.O. Box 1282, Elgin St, Carlton 3053
project@befriendachild.com
Befriend A Child In Detention supports this rally!
THESE TWO CHILDREN ARE STILL IN DETENTION
On Sunday, Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten wished the Australian Tamil Community a Happy Tamil New Year. The same day, Biloela’s beautiful Tamil family spent their 406th day imprisoned in Melbourne’s detention centre.
This family needs more than wishes. Please, can you click through to bit.ly/emailyourMPnow and tell our politicians to bring them home to Bilo?
FREE AT LAST?
On February 27, 2019, the last four children imprisoned by the Australian government on Nauru left with their parents for the USA. All the imprisoned children should finally be free to live a normal, decent, peaceful life, to go to school, to grow, and learn, to laugh and play and rejoice that their unjust and cruel imprisonment is over. Ended.
When Befriend a Child in Detention began in 2014, there were approximately 800 asylum seeker and refugee children held in closed mandatory detention – across Australia, on Christmas Island, and finally on Nauru. Their crime – that their families had escaped from war and tyranny to seek refuge in a prosperous and humane country, a country that had in the past offered asylum to many generations from many countries.
It has taken five long, miserable, destructive years before this freedom was won. Won by tens of thousands of Australians who resisted politicians’ lies and propaganda and insisted on reaching out to the children with compassion, love and practical assistance. Among those many were the adult Befrienders who sent us beautiful books and playthings for the children, and the schoolchildren Befrienders who sent letters of friendship and hope.
Thank you to every man, woman and child who found, through Befriend a Child in Detention, a means of making a powerful difference, and like so many Australians, refused to countenance injustice, prejudice and discrimination.
Now we Befrienders must maintain a watching brief over the future of the children brought to Australia from Nauru. Both major political parties have policies which refuse to allow these children and their families to rebuild their lives in this country. What will become of them? What new dangers threaten them?
Until they are truly free, safe and secure, we will continue to advocate in their interests. We ask all our Befrienders to do the same. Watch our Facebook page for further information.
(Dr) June Factor
Convenor, Befriend a Child in Detention Project
To all the wonderful Befrienders:
Since the refugee and asylum seeker children and their parents were marooned on Nauru by the Australian government, we have been sending them beautiful books and other gifts sent to us by generous Befrienders from every part of Australia, as well as wonderful letters of friendship and hope from Australian children.
Now – at last! – almost all the children and their parents have been brought to Australia.
That is why we expect to no longer need to send books, gifts and letters to Nauru.
We hope that there are never again innocent families held unjustly on that tiny Pacific island – but we remain alert. And so should everyone who cares for these children.
While there are children held in detention centres in this country, we will continue to try to help them as we do now, with the gifts and letters we still have. If we need more, we will send out a call.
We hope that soon they will be able to live in the community, go to school, and begin to have a normal child’s life.
While we do not need gifts and letters for the children, we do ask you not to forget them. Our government needs to know that there are millions of Australians who want these children and their families to live in peace and safety in this beautiful country of ours. We encourage you to remain engaged!
Dr June Factor
Convenor, Befriend a Child in Detention Project
Befriend a Child in Detention is a community project committed to seeing an end to the detention of child asylum seekers. We aim to inspire and support compassionate Australians to make a positive connection with the children and families living in detention: to ameliorate their experience, to raise awareness of their circumstances, and to advocate for positive change.
There are currently approximately 17 refugee and asylum seeker children still detained on Nauru.
Latest News
30.10.18
The suffering of refugee and asylum seeker children on Nauru is close to crisis point. We must make our voices heard by all Federal politicians. There is a new government, and we urge all the politicians to insist that this government releases the children and their parents from Nauru to safety and security in Australia or New Zealand.
PLEASE read the letters below and send them on. Old-fashioned handwritten letters are surprisingly effective.
And ask your friends, colleagues, family members and neighbours to write or ring or email the Prime Minister and your local Member of Parliament. We must end these children’s suffering!
Signed:
Dr June Factor, Convenor, Befriend a Child in Detention Project
News: Critically ill refugee child flown from Nauru to Australia with family
In Robert Manne’s review of Behrouz Boochani’s book “No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison”, he finishes by agreeing with Richard Flanagan that it is “possibly the most consequential” Australian book to be published for many years. A poetic book, it details the suffering and the deliberate and systematic destruction of people who sought our help, mistakenly believing we were a humane and generous nation. Everyone should read this work and be ashamed. Some politicians will read this and be satisfied that their cruel policies have destroyed lives and the personalities of innocent men and women.
About 2000 men, women and children have been used as tools to frighten some Australians and to gain electoral advantage by ruthless, greedy politicians. Let us stop this torture and bring asylum seekers here.
By Gael Barrett (First published in The Age, August 12, 2018)
Robert Manne’s book review was published in The Age’s Spectrum Section, Saturday August 11, 2018.
A cartoon by First Dog on the Moon has reflected the fact that ‘There are children of asylum seekers born on Nauru who have been there for their entire lives.’ View the cartoon at the Guardian here.
Andrew Hamilton suggests that ‘These events are sometimes attributed to a failure of political leadership. But they may also reflect a deeper cultural change in the Western attitude to strangers.’ Read his full analysis here.
A recent photograph of the refugee and asylum Seeker children being held on Nauru, taken by Former Save the Children teacher Gabby Sutherland. Find more information from source GetUP here.
News: Children being held in MITA
News: Close the camps and stop the posturing
“It is worth considering who else is dead to Peter Dutton. Their names are a reminder of the worth of that criticism.” Read more here.
News: Judge orders Nauru refugee girl’s transfer to Australia over suicide risk
Thank you for all you are doing! Sometimes it seems such a long, hard battle to get these children out of detention. One day we will succeed, but in the meantime, projects such as this at least bring a little pleasure and hope into their lives.
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Thank you for sending all these books and letters for, all the other kids who need a better life!
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But so what, it was still worth it!
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