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INTERNATIONAL

Forgotten children

  • 14 May 2006

Many children around the world live in constant fear, as members of ethnic minorities subject to continued persecution. Children may be targeted for use on the front line of civil conflicts as shields or landmine detectors. Many ethnic minorities are denied passports, so they cannot flee. In a desperate bid to protect their children, some parents smuggle them out of the country. A small number arrive on Australian shores and are taken to detention centres.

There are almost 300 unaccompanied refugee minors currently living in Australia. These children, under the age of 18 years, arrived in Australia alone and have been recognised by the Australian government as refugees. Most arrived in Australia without valid travel documents. They have been granted Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) and released into the community.

A TPV permits an unaccompanied refugee minor to live in the community, access social welfare services and attend school. A TPV does not provide a home and it does not provide the one thing most necessary for their development and well being—their family. Of the legal, moral and social concerns raised by Australia’s TPV regime, it is the denial of the right to apply for family reunification that is the most troubling in relation to unaccompanied refugee minors. These children are the most vulnerable refugees. The government is wary of them acting as ‘anchor children’; children who are purposely sent ahead to another country in the hope that the rest of the family will be able to follow.

The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) has identified a steady increase in the number of unaccompanied minors arriving in Australia over recent years. DIMIA justifies its refusal to allow unaccompanied refugee minors the right to apply for family reunification suggesting that this will serve ‘as a deterrent to the exploitation of children as smuggled anchors’. The denial of family reunification rights for unaccompanied refugee minors cannot be characterised as either a reasonable or legitimate response to greater migration concerns.

Despite Australia’s sovereign right to control its own borders, to view the issue of family reunification through an immigration lens ignores the fact that Australia’s sovereignty has been voluntarily reduced in scope by its ratification of treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC). Under the CROC, states are obliged to ensure that unaccompanied refugee minors receive protection and humanitarian assistance. States must also deal with applications for

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