TERROR ISLAND

Reports Detail Child Refugee Abuse at Aussie Detention Center

2,000 files reveal extensive horrors at Nauru camp.

A large cache of documents obtained by The Guardian details Australian officials’ rampant abuse of child refugees at a detention facility on the Pacific island nation of Nauru. The young asylum-seekers at the camp suffer poor medical treatment, violence, and abuse, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch observers. The 2,000 reports obtained by the newspaper, covering May 2013 to October 2015, detail cases of sexual abuse, self-harm, and physical assaults. In 2014, a teacher wrote that when a young child asked for a few minutes extra for a shower, “her request [was] accepted on condition of sexual favours... The security officer wants to view a boy or girl having a shower.” In some cases, guards allegedly slapped children in the face and threatened to kill others. A September 2014 incident detailed officers laughing at a child who’d had her lips sewn together. According to The Guardian, the files contained seven reports of child sexual assault and nearly 60 reports of assault on children.