Fed: Blaming asylum-seeking parents for sick child wrong: Kerr

AAP General News (Australia)
08-14-2001
Fed: Blaming asylum-seeking parents for sick child wrong: Kerr

CANBERRA, Aug 14 AAP - The federal government blaming asylum seekers for the suffering
of their child was sickening, opposition justice spokesman Duncan Kerr said today.

Clinical psychologist Zachary Steel told ABC Television's Four Corners program last
night that immigration detention centre inmates were among the most traumatised people
on Earth, with many suicidal and showing signs of clinical depression.

Six-year-old Iranian child Shayan Bedraie was so affected by his experiences, including
witnessing several suicide attempts, that he stopped eating and became comatose.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said his department was looking at placing Shayan
in foster care until his family, which had been refused refugee visas, was deported.

He blamed the parents for Shayan's predicament as they came to Australia knowing they
would go into detention.

"I find this extraordinary," Mr Kerr told Radio National.

"To blame parents for the trauma that happens if their child is placed in circumstances
where they are behind the wire for 17 months, witnessing violence, and then blaming the
victim, if that is the case, I'm quite upset about that and I think it does the minister
no credit whatsoever.

"Putting one's head in the sand and blaming it on the parents who have come to Australia
seeking protection is just something that makes me feel quite ill."

Mr Kerr was unable to say what the government should now do in relation to the family,
but said the management of the family had gone profoundly wrong.

He said risks for the family should have been assessed on their arrival.

Mr Kerr said Labor would maintain a mandatory detention system to screen people when
they first arrived, but not keep people locked up for long periods.

He said some arrivals carried communicable diseases, some had criminal records and
some could be perpetrators of violence, even war crimes.

Mr Kerr said Mr Ruddock must call a judicial inquiry into detention centres, especially
with centres being run by private operators with less accountability.

"This is increasingly becoming scandalous," he said.

AAP fh/ph/bwl

KEYWORD: DETENTION KERR

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