Peak doctors' group backs call for #KidsOffNauru

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Australia's largest humanitarian organisation has welcomed the Australian Medical Association’s demand for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to urgently move to safety refugee children and their families trapped on Nauru. 

World Vision Australia last month launched a sector-wide #KidsOffNauru campaign with a coalition of humanitarian and refugee advocate organisations, calling on Australian politicians to remove all the children from their island prison by Universal Children’s Day, November 20. 

The AMA president Dr Tony Bartone wrote to Mr Morrison yesterday, describing a groundswell of “concern and agitation” among medical practitioners about the conditions and the escalating health crisis among asylum seekers on Nauru. 

World Vision head of policy and advocacy Susan Anderson said that groundswell of concern was replicated in the broader community.

"In 30 days, 110,000 individual Australians and 230 organisations have signed up to the KidsOffNauru campaign. It has also attracted attention from international superstar Hugh Jackman and popular Australian rock band Gang of Youths. 

“Australians and organisations that agree this offshore detention of children is inhumane should follow the AMA’s lead and add their voices publicly to the call to free these vulnerable children who are suffering daily. The clock is ticking down – as of today, there are 60 days to the deadline,” Ms Susan Anderson said.  

She said there were now 102 children remaining in island detention with their families, 17 fewer than at the start of the campaign because of forced medical evacuations.  

“But it isn't a solution for only the most critically ill children, one by one, to be moved to Australia for life-saving medical care. We must protect all those children in indefinite detention – some of them born there and knowing nothing else, others spending most of their childhood in a dysfunctional place of fences, security guards, cared for by parents drained of hope.”   

“We call on all politicians to support and end to this cruel, indefinite detention of children whose families have done nothing more than to seek safety in Australia,” Ms Anderson said. 

 

For interviews or further information please contact: 

Ruth Lamperd (news editor) 0417 765 947 or ruth.lamperd@worldvision.com.au  

Media Releases, Asia and the Pacific, Children's Rights, Human Rights, Humanitarian, Refugees

Back to all Results