Rural Australians for Refugees

[Ed. Note: The following story is an edited transcript of a speech by a nurse who worked at the Woomera immigration detention centre in the South Australian desert for 12 weeks in 2000. The last two days she worked there were during an outbreak of violence.]

In March 2000, it became necessary for me to consider working away from home for a short time. I had heard about these great contracts - 42 days and very generous pay. With a small amount of effort, I had the information I needed and was preparing to leave for Woomera.

I now have many horror stories though - too many to tell now - that were personally witnessed by me or told to me. The stories I want to share with you are of the daily humiliations and indignities in the camp - the abuses of human rights and children's rights, the flagrant breaching of the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] minimum standards for detention.

I was met at the Roxby Downs airport by a guard. We travelled the 80 kilometres to Woomera slowly and arrived at this hot, dusty, arid, miserable cage in the desert. It was surreal - full of men, women and children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, beseeching the guards, "Please, we are human. We are not animals. Why do you treat us like this?" The desperation and hopelessness permeated the very air. The longest that any of these people had been there at that stage was five months, but some of these same people and their children are still there today.

There were always people hovering along the perimeter of the fence, pleading with whoever went past. Often the detainees would come to the nurses asking us to intervene with the Dept. of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) on their behalf, not really believing that there was nothing we could do. I discovered that they did have the right to request an interview at any time and got the appropriate request form from DIMA. I photocopied loads of them and put them in the medical centre so we could use them whenever we were asked.

One day in July another nurse and I filled out two of these forms on behalf of two patients - one, a mother, who had tried to hang herself while in the detention centre. I submitted these forms to DIMA. Later in the day I had to follow up some matter in the DIMA office; and while there, I noticed both request forms in the rubbish bin. "Why have you thrown these out?" I asked the officer. "Oh, they were screened out at the initial interviews," was the reply. These claimants couldn't speak any English, had no legal representation, and they had had a line ruled through their names even before they had made it to the detention centre, and no one - no one - was prepared to tell them anything. At that stage, DIMA had known for nine months that they had failed the initial interview; and for that reason, they saw no purpose in granting their request for any more.

I've seen and heard the guards laughing at the pain and suffering of the people imprisoned in Woomera. I witnessed them singing to the Iraqis who had been rejected: "I'm leaving on a jet plane, goin' back to see Saddam Hussein." I saw a guard make a detainee beg for soap. This woman spoke no English so she had learned the word soap from someone. She said to the guard, "Soap." However, it was proffered and withdrawn when she reached for it - again and again - until she said the word please. I also watched those poor women in their purdah cringe in shame as we forced them to abandon every cultural norm they knew by attending a mixed-gender clinic, sitting in a room with men and then having to ask for sanitary products. They would stuff them under their purdah or jumpers and scurry - heads down and shame emanating - to the puerile little boxes we provided for them to sleep in.

When I was in Woomera the first time, the numbers in the camp swelled to 1,435 people. Some boats arrived at Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef, and two new compounds were constructed to house these arrivals: "India" and "Sierra." Sierra was the punishment block. There the guards had total control: who goes in and for how long - it was entirely up to them. Age was no barrier. I personally witnessed a 12-year-old child being dragged there. He was a cheeky kid. The guards spoke obscenities to him and told him that if he didn't watch himself he'd be going on a holiday to Sierra. His response immediately landed him in maximum security, under guard, without his mother's knowledge and without his understanding. A complaint was filed, but no further action was taken.

Sierra became dreaded. If you resisted a room search, you went to Sierra. If you upset a guard by answering back or looking the wrong way, you went to Sierra. If a guard didn't like you, you went to Sierra. If your visa application was rejected, you went to Sierra. If you tried to kill yourself, you went to Sierra. If you upset anyone in Villawood, a detention centre in Melbourne, you would be secretly flown in during the middle of the night, without knowledge of your destination, and incarcerated in Sierra. I once asked a man to whom this had happened how Woomera compared to Villawood. His answer? "Villawood is like a five-star hotel compared to here."

As nurses, we were eyed with suspicion by the guards, management and DIMA. A few of us would advocate strongly on our patients' behalf, but we had no support whatsoever. When giving our names, addresses and telephone numbers to the people we'd gotten to know and care about, to support them on their release, we had to have them written in Persian and Arabic so the guards couldn't understand what the writing was if they saw it. More than one nurse lost their contract for this reason. In response, we were banned from saying goodbye to anyone. We were also told our phones would be tapped and ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) was watching us. The paranoia and suspicion were incredible.

The riot of August 2000 was a horror I never expected to see in my country - water cannons, guards with body armour and guns, burning buildings, smoke and stones. The day after I watched the shocked families come wandering out of the rubble - their children skirting around the debris - and the guards' recriminations started. I watched in disbelief as a loud roar shook the earth and sky as an airforce bomber flew low over the camp, practising manoeuvres, terrifying these war-shattered people. I could not believe this was Australia.

I spent most of my time there imagining things. Imagine if it was my children. Imagine how bad it must have been to make that journey here. Imagine how much pain they must feel. Imagine being intimate with your husband and have a guard burst into your room at any time, and then imagine the further humiliation when he shares his story with anyone who will listen. Imagine having such rotten teeth and being in agony and told you'll have to wait at least another two months to see a dentist. Imagine that you can only have that tooth treated if you agree to its removal. Imagine morning sickness and a rigid, regimented feeding schedule when you and your children joined a queue to receive your allocation. Imagine your kidneys are failing and the only way to save them is to eat a low protein diet and you can't. Imagine all you have to wear is a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and a pair of thongs - held together with wire and string that you've managed to scavenge off the army tents - and it's a freezing temperature in the morning. Imagine that you slowly watch your family disintegrate before your eyes. Imagine seeing someone lose their mind. Imagine leaving everything and everyone you know - your language, your culture, your family, your friends. Imagine the only thing that sustains you is the thought of safety. Imagine the courage it takes to cross oceans in dangerous boats and when you arrive you are treated worse than an animal. Imagine that you have NO RIGHTS. If you can imagine all that, then you can begin to have a small sense of what the Woomera detention centre is like, and perhaps you can feel just a little of the anguish that fills those cages.