The Nauru Experience: Zero-Tolerance Immigration and Suicidal Children

Source: NyTimes, 05/11/2018

A recent visit to Nauru revealed the effects of Australia’s offshore
detention policy and its impact on mental health.
Nauru �` She was 3 years old when she arrived on Nauru, a child fleeing
war in Sri Lanka. Now, Sajeenthana is 8.
Her gaze is vacant. Sometimes she punches adults. And she talks about
dying with ease.
“Yesterday I cut my hand,” she said in an interview here on the remote
Pacific island where she was sent by the Australian government after
being caught at sea. She pointed to a scar on her arm.
“One day I will kill myself,” she said. “Wait and see, when I find the
knife. I don’t care about my body. ”
Her father tried to calm her, but she twisted away. “It is the same as
if I was in war, or here,” he said.
Sajeenthana is one of more than 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers who
have been sent to Australia’s offshore detention centers since 2013.
No other Australian policy has been so widely condemned by the world’s
human rights activists nor so strongly defended by the country’s
leaders, who have long argued it saves lives by deterring smugglers
and migrants.
Now, though, the desperation has reached a new level �` in part because
of the United States.
Sajeenthana and her father are among the dozens of refugees on Nauru
who had been expecting to be moved as part of an Obama-era deal that
President Trump reluctantly agreed to honor, allowing resettlement for
up to 1,250 refugees from Australia’s offshore camps.
So far, according to American officials, about 430 refugees from the
camps have been resettled in the United States �` but at least 70
people were rejected over the past few months.
That includes Sajeenthana and her father, Tamil refugees who fled
violence at home after the Sri Lankan government crushed a Tamil
insurgency.
A State Department spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the
rejections, arguing the Nauru refugees are subject to the same vetting
procedures as other refugees worldwide.
Australia’s Department of Home Affairs said in a statement that Nauru
has “appropriate mental health assessment and treatment in place.”
But what’s clear, according to doctors and asylum seekers, is that the
situation has been deteriorating for months. On Nauru, signs of
suicidal children have been emerging since August. Dozens of
organizations, including Doctors Without Borders (which was ejected
from Nauru on Oct. 5) have been sounding the alarm. And with the hope
of American resettlement diminishing, the Australian government has
been forced to relent: Last week officials said they would work toward
moving all children off Nauru for treatment by Christmas.
At least 92 children have been moved since August �` Sajeenthana was
evacuated soon after our interview �` but as of Tuesday there were
still 27 children on Nauru, hundreds of adults, and no long-term
solution.
The families sent to Australia for care are waiting to hear if they
will be sent back to Nauru. Some parents, left behind as their
children are being treated, fear they will never see each other again
if they apply for American resettlement, while asylum seekers from
countries banned by the United States �` like Iran, Syria and Somalia �`
lack even that possibility.
For all the asylum seekers who have called Nauru home, the
psychological effects linger.
‘I Saw the Blood �` It Was Everywhere’
Nauru is a small island nation of about 11,000 people that takes 30
minutes by car to loop. A line of dilapidated mansions along the coast
signal the island’s wealthy past; in the 1970s, it was a
phosphate-rich nation with per capita income second only to Saudi Arabia.