News of the imminent closure of the Manus Island detention facility could not have come soon enough.
But now, as the Turnbull Government tries to make sense of the mess and weigh up its options, close to nine hundred men on Manus Island – some who’ve been locked up for over 1000 days – must be fearing what comes next.
Australia’s stance on asylum seekers is mixed. We’re often quick to express overwhelming sympathy toward female refugees but can sometimes feel disconnected when it comes to the men. The government capitalises on this, by demonising and dehumanising male asylum seekers, positing them as “illegals” and keeping them in detention facilities.
No doubt the danger for women inside these facilities is extreme — no one would try to argue otherwise. In 2015 a female worker at Manus Island reported she had been drugged and gang-raped by a group of male guards. There were earlier cases of harassment and violence and it’s a safe bet that many more of these incidents would have emerged if women hadn’t been removed from the facility in 2013.
But let’s not be so quick to forget the hundreds of men who have endured traumatising ordeals as well. In just over two years, two men have died at Manus Island. In February 2014 a riot broke out killing 23-year-old Reza Berati. The autopsy showed that Berati has suffered severe head trauma after being repeatedly hit with timber, fists and rocks. A few months later another man, Hamid Zehazaei, died from preventable septicaemia.
There have also been a number of reported assaults, sexual and otherwise on male detainees. A report by the Human Rights Watch and Human Rights Law Centre found that gay men in the facility, “said they had frequent nightmares, were extremely depressed, and isolated themselves, often not leaving their rooms.”
Backing this claim, Salvation Army worker Nicole Judge told a senate inquiry that she was aware of a room called “the rape dungeon” inside one of the compounds, and was also told to wear a “rape whistle” during her time on Manus Island to report the frequent occurrences.
Despite all this, and despite PNG’s Supreme Court declaring the facility illegal and in breach of basic human liberty, the Australian government is still floundering on what happens next for these men.
Meanwhile, more than half of the men on Manus have already been found to be refugees.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday addressed the situation, warning Australians not to become “misty eyed” — is it wrong to care about the men trapped in this situation?
If we’d care about the men in our own lives being caught in the same horrific circumstances, we need to care about the men of Manus Island too. Australia should not evade responsibility and the damage it’s caused to largely innocent lives. Bringing these men to Australia for processing will be the first step towards a national redemption.