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scribed the camps as “inherently toxic” and “the whole<br />
system of detention is geared towards removing hope<br />
for people so they agree to go back to where they came<br />
from. The [immigration] department told us this was the<br />
objective.’’ He added, “Everyone who works in mental<br />
health knows that the main thing which makes people<br />
suicidal is hopelessness, so there was a fundamental<br />
contradiction with our professional ethics.’’<br />
‘‘When you can’t change anything,<br />
when you don’t have<br />
hope, then what’s the difference<br />
between being alive or<br />
dead?”<br />
SAFETY<br />
Allegations of sexual assault are pervasive, particularly<br />
against young women. Children are particularly vulnerable<br />
to abuse. According to the organization Save the<br />
Children, it is not uncommon for children to experience<br />
violence and sexual misconduct by guards.<br />
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International documented<br />
cases in which Nauruans, alone or in groups,<br />
assaulted and robbed refugees and asylum seekers,<br />
sometimes at knifepoint. More than 80% of those interviewed<br />
said Nauruans had attacked them.<br />
A refugee from Bangladesh suffered serious head<br />
trauma when a Nauruan man threw a large rock at<br />
him, kicked him off his bicycle, and beat him after he<br />
fell. A Somali woman reported that several Nauruan<br />
men attacked her husband, hitting him on the head<br />
with a machete. One young woman said she married<br />
for protection after being released into the community.<br />
“After I left the camp I felt very unsafe – I could not go<br />
out. I decided to marry a man who is 15 years older just<br />
to have protection.’’<br />
EDUCATION<br />
Children who attend local schools described frequent<br />
bullying and harassment from Nauruan students, who<br />
tell them to go back to their home countries. Many have<br />
stopped attending classes altogether.<br />
Save the Children Australia estimates that 85 percent of<br />
asylum seekers and refugee children on Nauru do not<br />
attend local schools, in part because of the prevalence<br />
of bullying and harassment.<br />
‘‘People here don’t have a real<br />
life. We are just surviving. We<br />
are dead souls in living bodies.<br />
We are just husks. We don’t<br />
have any hope or motivation.”<br />
101 LIFE IN LIMBO<br />
Drawing by a preschool boy, Christmas Island 2014
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