Sarah Stephen
On her first day of life outside the Villawood detention centre, three-year-old Naomi Leong was disoriented and distressed by the sight of cars, confused by all the trees.
Dr Louise Newman, a psychiatrist who assessed Naomi when she was in Villawood, said she would need long-term psychiatric care. "The sad and tragic thing of this case, I think, is this child has already suffered", Newman told the May 25 Melbourne Age. "She's had considerable emotional distress and certainly has developed mental problems."
Dr Michael Dudley, a psychiatrist at Sydney Children's Hospital, revealed in early May that Naomi banged her head against a wall when her mother became distressed and was often mute and unresponsive, preferring to lie for hours and watch TV rather than play with other children.
Naomi's distress was not simply a product of the detention environment. It was also a product of what she witnessed there. In July 2004, Green Left Weekly reported that Naomi and Virginia Leong were among a number of families threatened with transfer to the Baxter detention centre. In desperation, Virginia was part of a rooftop protest to prevent her transfer.
Detention centre management responded by singling her out for punishment. She was forcibly separated from Naomi and held overnight in solitary confinement, then force-fed Valium pills. The next day, she was accused of having mental health problems, taken to the psychiatric ward at Bankstown hospital. As guards forcibly injected Virginia, Naomi was snatched by a community services department officer and taken into foster care "for her own good".
Leong was returned to Villawood on July 19 having been diagnosed as free of any psychiatric condition, but forced to spend another night in solitary confinement before she was reunited with her daughter. This experience would have been deeply traumatic for Naomi and helps to explain her separation anxiety.
As further punishment, Virginia and Naomi were separated from other families in Villawood detention centre for much of the past 10 months, housed in the women-only "Lima" block, under constant surveillance for some of that time.
Virginia has until June 20, when her bridging visa runs out, to lodge an application for a visa to stay in Australia. If she doesn't lodge an application, she and Naomi could be re-detained.
At exactly the same time that Virginia and Naomi Leong were released, Vietnamese asylum seeker Nguyen Hoai Thu gave birth to a little boy, Michael Andrew Tran, bringing the number of children in detention back up to 68. The maternity ward at Perth's King Edward Memorial Hospital was guarded by Global Security Limited officers who wouldn't allow visits, even to deliver gifts for the baby.
Hoai Thu and her husband Tran Minh Dat have been held in detention on Christmas Island since July 2003, along with 35 others who arrived aboard the Hao Kiet. Nine of them are children.
So nervous about a new round of public outrage and front-page media coverage at the birth of another child in detention, PM John Howard announced on May 25 that the family would not be returning to detention on Christmas Island, but would in fact remain in Perth and be held in "community detention".
Of the 68 children who remain in detention, the six Afghans on Nauru have suffered the most. Aged between two and 15, they have been there for well over three-and-a-half years. The two-year-old boy has been there his whole life.
A Chinese girl called Bonnie, who was detained with her parents in Villawood before being transferred to the Port Augusta Residential Housing Project, turned three in April and, like Naomi Leong, has been detained her whole life. Mother Yu Lia Xia pleaded on ABC radio on May 26 for her family's release, explaining that Bonnie was suffering just as Naomi had.
Immigration minister Amanda Vanstone continues to defend the detention of children, arguing that it is necessary to deter people smugglers.
From Green Left Weekly, June 1, 2005.
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