Children in Detention
In leaked documents the Guardian got hold of earlier this week, there are over 1,000 allegations of self-harm, sexual assault, beatings and trauma involving children alone from the detention centre on the remote Pacific island of Nauru. These asylum seeking kids are so vulnerable, who we have responsibility for, but we are allowing this to happen.
Our current government has given an unbelievably callous response to these revelations.
For info on local responses see this blog – Rural Australians for Refugees Bellingen and Nambucca Districts
How to write to a a detainee – info here
I am a poet, writing is commonplace for me, but poems are not enough. I have written to a refugee and my local MP. I wish everyone would bombard their local representatives with their concerns.
From the ABC, March 2015
What did you expect? You, hypocrite reader,
et cetera? You want some opiate, a poetic abracadabra
so your ordinary responsibility for our ordinary political failure
can be charmed away?
Douglas Oliver, Penniless Politics.
