Here is a shocking, first-hand account of a refugee woman being strip-searched on Nauru. This is being done in our name:
“Last night on the 11th December 2015 at approximately 23:00 pm ,the Australian security guard from opc 3 told me in front of the other male guards ” you have to take off your clothes in front of us “as we are conducting a strip search. I told the officer I don’t have anything to hide I only have my ID card in my hand . The officers told me you have to open your legs and hands so we can scan you with the wand .they were laughing and Leering at me and I felt I was being treated like criminal. I kept telling that I have nothing but they told me ” you must take of your clothes in front of everyone,in front of all the security men. I felt like a piece of meat ,these men continued to laugh they made me feel very uncomfortable and scared .the look in their eyes were they were undressing me ,I was so scared .I was crying and shouting at them to please not make me take my clothes of ,they kept insisting that I have to do what they tell me ,its the new rule .there was small Baraks in that area and then they told me to go there and take off my clothes while I was crying and in fear . I didn’t go there with them as I was too scared and intimated by them and at all times they continued to laugh and mock me and ridicule me . Security said this is the new rule. Everyday security are telling the women they need to take off their clothes in front of men. They are forcing young teenager girls to do the same things ,they are being violated while security leer at them . I am suffering from gynological problems which affects my mental health and forcing me to undress continues to bring on more torture and traumas. I took of my T-shirts i wear a bra there is a metal in the bra so of course it will set off the detector . While this was occurring security continued to laugh ,leer ,stare ,and make fun of me . This is abuse at the highest standard . Why is there no female officers conducting these searchers ? How much more humiliation do I need to stuffer at the hands of your Australian policies. Where are my human Rights to being treated with dignity and respect when you empoly and empower these filthy abusive power hungry ,perpetrators ,to treat women like this . This is like another example of perpetrators /male of violence. I thought Australia was bringing in laws abuse women ,but you have sent them here to Nauru .”
Shocking and unacceptable
Shame on our government for doing this in our name. Isn’t this like a story out of Nazi Germany? I didn’t vote for LNP never will. Makes me sad and angry. How can we stop these abuses?
What a disgrace. Theses camps must be shutdown.
Someone must be held accountable for theses actions.
Absolutely shocking. I can’t believe that this is happening to innocent women. Nauru has to close now. We need to welcome refugees. They are refugees not criminals. These officers need to hang their heads in shame. They have shamed themselves and Australia. We need to follow Canada’s path and celebrate their arrival. We need more letters like this and other positive stories about refugees to be in the public domain Australians need to be educated and not be full of fear. Radio jocks need to stop the anti Muslim propaganda this is their chance to unite Australians and Refugees from any country and religion, that
is what a democracy is about. Please don’t disappoint these desperate people they have lost so much and been through so much. We should be the open arms to gather them up and keep them safe. Walk a mile in their shoes and you may understand their pain and circumstance.
I am sickened, disgusted at this place and what is being done in our name.
This govt must face the intl criminal court in the Hague. This inhumanity must cease immediately.
This is an outrageous violation and should cease immediately.
I am ashamed to call myself Australian, if this is being done in my name!
How is it possible that this kind of behaviour can take place and go unchecked?
I’m constantly disgusted by and ashamed of the way in which the scum (I can’t refer to them as people) that authorise and run the Manus and Nauru refugee prisons behave. That it is done in my and my fellow Australian’s names and is paid for by us distresses me immensely.
Is this as low as we can go yet, Peter Dutton? I am beyond disgust at this outrageous abuse. What can we do to stop it Julian Burnside.
If this report is accurate the behaviour of the security guards mark a further escalation in the abuse of refugees’ human rights & yet another new low in Australia’s much tarnished reputation as a supposedly civilised country. While our nation agonises over the epidemic of domestic violence against women and children in our homeland, comparable violations of women are happening in these concentration camps set up by our successive governments. The veil of secrecy hiding the grim reality of our ‘offshore asylum-seeker policy’ compounds this evil.
Not in my name…
I am beyond humiliated to call myself Australian- my heart is aching for these women children and men on Nauru – you are, as politicians even beneath contempt allowing these abuses to continue.
Julian I heard about this as it happened. My to be adopted daughter went to the aid of this poor woman, and helped her to write a complaint
What can we do?
I am so ashamed of being Australian right now.
The treatment of these women is outrageous, humiliating and degrading. It MUST stop immediately and the abusers must be punished.
How can this strip search treatment in front of men be justified ! In the name of Australia .
Our government with ALP senators legislated last July to jail whistleblowers in refugee gulags which as a consequence then protects sadists and abusers of all calibres who are hired to work there. This behaviour is absolutely unacceptable and bodes ill for our whole society.
Disgusting. Surely these creeps are breaking laws and must be accountable.
There is no legitimate reason for this to occur . The wand should itself preclude any reason for a strip search. An all female guard only team should have been in attendance if there was any legitimate security reason whatsoever to search this woman. They are security guards not health staff so it is very difficult to imagine any pretence. This appears to be blatant abuse, intimidation, violation and humiliation. It can only have been meant to further break the spirit of innocent women stuck in the hell that is detention on Nauru. Surely this is a criminal and prosecutable offence. How much more horrifying abuse can this government allow before camps are closed and those imprisoned brought to Australia as International Law has always dictated? I feel for these women stripped of all dignity. Such treatment is degrading and disgusting and surely illegal.
Australians in the future will look back upon todays government with its casual disregard for basic human rights and wilful neglect of its international obligations with disbelief and shame as they struggle to comprehend the publics collective idealogical shortcomings in the abandonment of decency and conscience when instead of taking to the streets and standing together as one to rail against the cruelly conceived and dehumanising policy of incarcerating refugees of all ages in concentration camps we opted instead only to offer a complicitious silence and so lent our tacit support to a morally bankrupt government who’s ideologies are at a great disconnect from public opinion or anything that can even remotely be described as having integrity befitting a developed society.
OMG we have to do something NOW!!! this has to stop!!! IMMEDIATELY I am ashamed to be an Australian!!!!! I was proud all my life of my country and NOW I feel as dirty as those poor girls!!!!!
As a society we have condoned the appalling treatment of wimin everywhere, although hideous I am not surprised. We must change the way we treat wimin everywhere including detention centres
Another heart-rending and horrific report from our inhumane detention centres. Let’s vote for the party that will end this torture of people seeking our help (The Greens).
Julian, what can we do to put a stop to this?
Wouldn’t this constitute sexual assault?
Is this being done as a result of legislation or is it at the initiative of the corporation?
Shut down Naru now and bring those people to Australia for processing
I am ashamed. Asylum Seekers should receive our hospitality and kindness, not abuse and neglect.
I notice there was a fundraiser online to provide phone credit to women in Nauru. Does anyone know where I can find it and if it’s legit?
Julian, a credible alternative policy framework must be established, to ensure these women and children are on the mainland safe, processed and protected. I am infuriated that our tax dollars are the direct contributors to the abuse particularly given Australia’s attitudinal shift in preventing Violence against women on our soil, but turn a blind eye when the skin colour changes and the religion isn’t of Christian descent. We will not be silent about this!
This story and these comments need to go straight to the Prime Minister. This shocking behavior apparently approved by Australian authorities not only degrades the victims but degrades all Australians.
Jill Thorsborne
The world is shocked by the treatment of women as marketable commodities by ISIS but immediate action must be taken to stop this violence toward women posing as a security measure. Stop these violations,stop the humiliation and terror inflicted on women and children in detention.
All these people going on about how sick it is blah blah blah open your eyes you truly think that the government hasn’t had an eye on this place you truly think that people hired by the government wouldn’t go through background checks and personality checks to see whether they are fit for work. All these stories and accusation have only increased since they were told australia is closed. The government spends billions of dollars on these people and yet there is an average of 125,000 homeless people right here in our streets with no food no medical no shelter beaten by strangers and police yet you see no media coverage. Think about that think about the things they are given on nauru and manus open your eyes to the world think about why refugees would be getting these ‘stories’ out to the press what is the goal what are they looking for. I cant believe that a place like these would let constant abuse and ill treatment go on for as long as it supposedly has.
Shocking. How can one justify treatment that one self wouldn’t want to undergo? I am deeply ashamed that this hostile treatment is part of a wealthy and developed country. What conscience can carry this?