An inside view from Woomera

— putting  a price on conscience

In 2002 I was employed as a psychologist at Woomera Detention Centre. I witnessed riots, hunger strikes, escapes, attempted suicides (including by children as young as ten) and depression that was so profound as to render the sufferer mute and inert.

I sat in the dust with detainees and heard acounts of war, persecution, torture and loss. It was clear that the environment was retraumatising and toxic. No treatment could neutralise this impact. What was needed by detainees was ‘normal’ life.

I realised I had a profound ethical dilemma.There was a deep conflict of interest. In being compliant to the administration and its political allegiances, I was unable to ensure the protection and my duty of care towards these vulnerable people.

To reconcile the situation with my conscience I became a kind of mole. I appeared to toe the line with management and perform my normal duties as requested. These included ineffective, box-ticking welfare checks, and paperwork documenting that psychological assessment/treatment had occurred.

Dependent like children upon their

captors, they become hostages

I also wrote off-the-record reports for lawyers on behalf of detainees, whose stories I listened to.

The arguments over the relative merits of location and of onshore or offshore detention mask the awful truth. All prolonged mandatory detention of those fleeing persecution is catastrophic for detainees, violates human rights, and demeans those who inflict and have oversight of the system.

Is this the opinion of a fringe of unrealistic soft on border protection, bleeding hearts? Actually no. The Australian Medical Journal has added its voice to the call for an end to prolonged mandatory detention, warning that time in detention is associated with poor mental and physical health.

Sadly it seems little has changed since the Howard era when voices of concern were raised regarding the alarming rates of self harm in detention centres and the damage done particularly to children.

If anyone had set out to construct a place that replicated the original trauma of those fleeing war, tyranny and persecution our detention centres would be perfect.

Australia’s detention system detains without trial or charge for indeterminate periods of months and years. Remote and offshore centres are out of sight and out of mind and beyond accountability.

There is little stimulating activity for children or adults, who become bored and institutionalised. The inmates are under 24 hour surveillance. There is separation from family, friends and culture, and uncertainty of reunion. Procedures are unclear and inconsistent. Detainees hover in limbo, their fate manipulated for the political ends of the government of the day.

Within high fences, they are confined with distressed fellow detainees. There are systems of punishment that include physical restraint, isolation cells and separation.

Dependent like children upon their captors, they become hostages, experiencing a form of Stockholm Syndrome. They perceive that they must be submissive to enable emotional survival or release.

Loss of hope and dammed-up tension and despair then erupts as riots and self harm. The prisoners live in fear of being sent back to their persecutory or war torn country and of torture and death.

The paperwork required is a Kafkaesque joke, and a test many are doomed to fail.

Driven to save their lives and those of their children, asylum seekers display uncommon resilience and courage. They need to be accorded their legal rights under the Refugee Convention, and to receive justice and respect rather than ill treatment.

After release, psychological treatment can help with the management of previous trauma that now includes the detention experience. Most become valuable Australian citizens.

I recently heard an interview with a 20-year-old former Afghani detainee; a boy in Woomera during my time there, he was now studying at university and sounded really happy.

Brief assessment and release into a receptive community would eliminate many moral psychological and financial problems.

However, being part of the current detention machinery remains ethically untenable. Psychologists are used to mask and deny the systemic damage to the hearts, minds and souls of vulnerable people.

The system also demeans and harms the staff and the community who become complicit.