Rachel Rose Withers

Australia’s asylum policies—which see asylum-seekers languishing for years under inhumane conditions in offshore detention centers in Papua New Guinea and Nauru—are already a source of great shame for many Australians. Widely condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations, the policies contravene various human rights charters, including the 1951 Refugee Convention and even the Convention Against Torture. A U.N. report called on Australia to close the offshore centers, finding “inadequate mental health services, serious safety concerns and instances of assault, sexual abuse, self-harm and suspicious deaths; and about reports that harsh conditions compelled some asylum seekers to return to their country of origin despite the risks that they face there.” Just last week, a former detainee who spent six years on Manus Island begged the U.N. Human Rights Council to hold Australia to account, calling the centers—not just the circumstances they were fleeing—a humanitarian crisis.