Australia has violated the rights of asylum seekers arbitrarily detained on the island of Nauru, the UN watchdog ruled on Thursday, warning other countries intent on outsourcing asylum processing.
The UN Human Rights Committee published judgments in two cases involving 25 refugees and asylum seekers who endured years of arbitrary detention in the island nation.
“A state party cannot shirk its human rights responsibility when outsourcing the asylum process to another state,” committee member Mahzoub Al Haiba said in a statement.
Under a harsh policy introduced more than a decade ago, Australia has sent thousands of migrants attempting to reach the country by boat to detention centers on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru. Located in the north west.
In both cases the victims lodged complaints with the UN Committee of 18 Independent Experts, alleging that Australia had violated their rights under an international treaty, particularly in relation to arbitrary detention.
Australia rejected the allegations and insisted that the abuses in Nauru did not fall within its jurisdiction.
But the UN Committee highlighted that Australia had arranged for the establishment of Nauru’s Regional Processing Center and had contributed to its operation and management.
El Haiba said Australia had jurisdiction because it had “significant control and influence over the regional processing facility in Nauru.”
‘Not a human rights free zone’
Several European countries are investigating the possibility of similar arrangements to outsource their migration policies.
Thursday’s decisions “send a clear message to all states: where there is power or effective control, there is responsibility,” El Haiba said. “Outsourcing of operations does not absolve states from accountability. Offshore detention facilities are not human rights-free zones.”
The first case investigated by the committee involved 24 minors from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
They were intercepted at sea by Australia and transferred to the overcrowded regional processing center on Nauru in 2014.
Thursday’s statement said they were kept there with “inadequate water supply and sanitation, high temperatures and humidity, as well as inadequate health care.” “Almost all of these minors suffer from deteriorating physical and mental health, including self-harm, depression, kidney problems, insomnia, headaches, memory problems and weight loss.”
compensation
Although all but one of the minors were granted refugee status around September 2014, they remained detained in Nauru, the Committee said.
It said Australia had failed to explain why the minors could not be transferred to more suitable centers for vulnerable persons on the mainland.
The Committee separately evaluated the case of an Iranian asylum seeker who arrived by boat on Christmas Island with several family members in August 2013 and was transferred to Nauru seven months later.
The woman was recognized as a refugee by Nauru authorities in 2017 but was not released.
The committee said he was transferred to Australia for medical reasons in November 2018, but remained detained in various facilities there.
It determined that Australia failed to show that the woman’s prolonged and indefinite detention was justified.
The Committee called on Australia to compensate victims and take steps to ensure that similar violations are not repeated.
The Committee has no power to compel states to abide by its decisions, but its decisions carry reputational importance.