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ov 9, p. 7

A few weeks ago, ABC News reported that about 100 Indonesian boys were incarcerated in adult prisons in Australia for their alleged roles in people smuggling.

The boys were allegedly employed as crew members of ships carrying illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, from Indonesia to Australia.

As a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Australia has a duty to ensure all children are not deprived of rights set out in this convention.

This convention contains the full range of child rights promotion and protection — not only civil and political dimensions, but also economic, social and cultural rights.

Some of the core principles of the CRC include the right of all children to survival and development; respect for the best interests of the child as a primary consideration in all decisions relating to children; the right of all children to express their views freely on all matters affecting them; and the right of all children to enjoy all the rights of the CRC without discrimination. (By Hafid Abbas, Jakarta)

Your comments:

Although this situation is clearly in need of improvement, I would say that the treatment they get, the accommodation and the food would be a great improvement on anything one could hope for in any Indonesian prison.

Prisoners are not even adequately fed in most Indonesian prisons and rely on friends and relatives to supplement their meals.

Not to mention overcrowding and poor sanitation.

Ask these children would they prefer to stay where they are or be transferred to an Indonesian facility, and I wonder what their answer would be?

Rastaman

This article, and the story by Ross Taylor earlier in the week, was highlighted in Perth when an Indonesian boy, Ali Roni, had the case against him thrown out of the district court.

Roni had been a kitchenhand on a boat traveling to Christmas Island. When arrested in 2009, he was only 14.
Roni has spent two years locked up in an adult maximum security prison waiting for this court decision.

In any civil society, you would have to ask why do we need to lock up a child for two years pending age determination?

If in doubt, have him held in community detention as Taylor has
argued. These children don’t threaten anyone.

The Australian Embassy here says they have sent home 77 children already.

Well, now it’s 78. And most of the children have gone home after being jailed in adult prisons for up to two years. They are shattered and traumatized.

There must be a better way?

Rob

These children from Indonesia being put in our adult prisons is wrong as we have juvenile prisons for those that under 18 and the government is wrong to place them with adults as they would be given better treatment and opportunities if they were in the juvenile system.

As they can’t arrest asylum seekers, they arrest these children whilst the real perpetrators go free as they are safely far away from these boats and make all the money.

The public in Australia are fed up with these asylum seekers apparently sneaking in via our back doors and therefore the government detains these children and the public thinks the Indonesian government is not doing enough to stop them from leaving your shores for ours, but detaining the children is not the answer.

We, the public, get only what part of the story the media want to tell us and as the old saying goes “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”, the media here likes to stir things up a lot between our two countries.

Glenn
Sydney

Indonesia does not have a child-oriented justice system. Under 17-year-olds get the same treatment as adults.

Apparently, while you are concerned about the plight of the children in Australia, thousands are suffering from the brutish legal system in Jakarta.

Sasha