Vietnam Daily News

Lifeline for jailed Indonesian children

Written by Dailynews.vn Tuesday, 13 December 2011 18:44

Advocates for Indonesian children jailed in Australia as adults for crewing people-smuggling boats have welcomed the decision to strip the Australian Federal Police of its role in determining the age of the teenagers.

The minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Connor, made the announcement after talks last week with Indonesian officials.

It also followed revelations in The Sun-Herald and The Sydney Morning Herald about the treatment of the dozens of Indonesian children in maximum-security adult prisons and the use of a controversial wrist X-ray by the AFP to determine age. A spokeswoman for O'Connor said the Department of Immigration would be responsible for the assessment of age and details of the new protocols would be announced next week.

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The head of the Indonesia Institute, Ross Taylor, said it was a positive move but one that should have happened last year when it was discovered the AFP was using the widely discredited wrist X-ray technique to decide whether crew members were over 18 years old.

''We had one boy in a maximum-security adult jail for two years who has just been sent home. I don't understand why couldn't his age be determined in two months instead of taking two years,'' he said.

Taylor, the founder and president of the non-government organisation in Western Australia, said the government had also committed to speeding up the process of determining the ages of those claiming to be children. Amid growing concerns about the treatment of teenage boys, the Office of the Commonwealth director of Public Prosecutions also said it would no longer oppose bail for Indonesian crew who claim to be children.

The government's policy was not to prosecute children crewing asylum boats but the AFP subjected those it believed to be adults to wrist X-rays. The AFP built cases against dozens of young boys as adults on the strength of the X-rays analysed by Perth radiologist Dr Vincent Low and continued to rely on his evidence despite the rejection of a series of recent cases by the courts. In a judgment last month, West Australian District Court Judge Philip Eaton said: ''The method employed by Dr Low and the assumptions upon which it is based render his opinion unreliable.''

The Office of the Commonwealth director of Public Prosecutions has had to drop more than 40 cases because it could not prove the boys were adults. Officials at the Indonesian embassy believe there are as many as 50 Indonesians who claim to be children being held in adult jails awaiting trial across Australia.

More cases are expected to be abandoned as lawyers for the Indonesians travel to their homes to gather evidence about their ages.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/lifeline-for-jailed-indonesian-children-20111210-1oons.html

Source: www.intellasia.net/news/articles/society/111350577.shtml