Australia's asylum policy is 'barbaric' - priest

Mark Yapching Christianity Today February 16, 2015
A priest in Australia has spoken out against the Australian government's policy towards asylum-seekers, calling it ‘barbaric’ and a sign of the government's failure in its responsibility to provide care for children in its jurisdiction.
‘The world's most vulnerable children are being deliberately detained and harmed for seeking asylum,’ Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office Director, Fr Maurizio Pettena, told the Catholic News Agency.
‘It is with deep sadness that we read the findings of the (Australian Human Rights Commission's) report on children in detention,’ he lamented.
Fr Pettena was referring to the recently-published report by the Commission, titled ‘The Forgotten Children,’ that reviewed the conditions of child asylum-seekers who were detained for 15 months in detention camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea……….
The priest said that the policy was a clear violation of children's rights under the Convention for the Rights of Children and urged the government to examine its policy and release the 800 children currently in detention.
‘All eyes are now on Australia, to see how we as a nation respond to this inquiry,’ the priest said.
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