Australia’s immigration policies allow for indefinite locked detention, including for children and families. Detention is mandatory for people arriving without a valid visa – all those who arrived by boat between 2009 and 2013 were held in Immigration Detention Centres in Australia, or in Australian-contracted detention in Nauru or Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Australian detention numbers peaked in mid-2013, with 2,000 children detained at this time. By mid-2014, the average duration of detention exceeded 400 days.
While the last children were released from locked detention at the end of 2018, Australian law and policy still mandate detention for children arriving without visas. While the government refers to “held” or “locked” “detention”, to be plain, these children were imprisoned for seeking asylum.
