What are we doing to people? The plight of poor souls who we have locked in detention on Nauru and Manus Islands is probably inadequately documented but, even so, we have evidence of the torture to which we are subjecting these men, women and children for the crime of seeking a safe place for their families to live.
What is less well documented is the impact that torturing these people is having on those charged with getting it done. The men and women working for those companies to which our government has outsourced the responsibility for making certain these refugees serve as a warning to anyone else desperate enough to contemplate coming to this country by boat.
An article in the Age today (see http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/detention-centre-workers–suffering-their-own-trauma-in-dealing-with-asylum-seekers-20160225-gn3buk.html) provides details of some individual cases where former detention centre workers, now crippled by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are suing subcontractors and the Commonwealth Government. Through their lawyers they are claiming that these companies and the government ought to have known that there was a real risk of psychiatric and other kinds of injuries for those people working in detention centres.
If you know anything about psychology and read the article, it is not difficult to be convinced of these cases. The people describe unutterably horrible occurrences, like treating children who have sewn their lips together with thick twine. Or coming across the bodies of people who have attempted to hang themselves and having to cut them down, sometimes unaided.
But the cases rest not only on the horrific nature of such occurrences, but on the premise that the government and the companies employing detention workers ought to have known these things were likely and anticipated the impact they could have on workers. It is not hard to find evidence of that. The article explains that the department provides guidelines for staff about what to do in the event that they find a ‘transferee’ hanging (don’t waste time, cut the noose whilst giving support to the body with the assistance of a second worker if possible). So-called ‘cut-down’ knives are standard issue for staff to carry in a belt pouch.
Can the department, from the minister down, really be so distanced from their own humanity that they can write or read these guidelines without having an inkling of the impact on someone actually carrying them out? Imagine your hands going around the legs of a person hanging, trying to stop the drag on the noose. If you’re short perhaps you’d need to drag a chair or table over to even reach the noose. And holding the body you’d be so fearful that the person was already dead, or that you was killing them by doing my best to save them. And then when your knife severs the rope and the body falls – do you fall off the table with them, trying to cushion the person’s landing? Or let them go, hoping that the fall doesn’t do any more damage? Do you call for help? Or start CPR and hope against hope that the person will live?
And this happens time and time again with no possible end in sight as people grow more and more desperate and despairing. As a worker what comfort could you give? What purpose or meaning could you extract from the situation which would protect you from the worst impact of such traumatic experiences?
Minister for Immigration, Peter Dutton, last year said that he found a visit to a Syrian refugee camp ‘very confronting’. He should visit Nauru with a cut-down knife in his pocket and provide assistance next time a body is found hanging in accordance with his own department’s guidelines. Perhaps he might come to understand not only the plight of those trapped in detention, but of those he is paying to keep them there indefinitely.
This is great Heather; very moving.
Thanks, Janet. So exciting to get a comment!