National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention
Click here to return to the Submission Index
Submission to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
The Sabean Mandaean Association of Australia
The Sabean Mandaeans as a Religion and Ethnicity
SM Children with Depressed and Desperate Parents
Conditions Specific to SM Children
SM Children Isolated in Incarceration
SM Children Persecuted by Muslim Adults
17th July 2002
By E.J. Hattom – The Association Spokesperson
Introduction
The Sabean Mandaeans as a Religion and Ethnicity
The Sabean Mandaean Association in Australia was founded in 1982. The Association’s financial and non-financial membership is around 2,000 persons. Inter alia, the Association looks after the humanitarian, spiritual, and social needs of Mandaean asylum seekers who have settled or who wish to settle in Australia.
All the Association’s members are Mandaean, both ethnically and spiritually. The Mandaean faith is the last surviving Gnostic religion. Although it is monotheistic, it is also dualist, believing in the existence of a World of Light and a World of Darkness. Mandaeans believe that the faith’s first prophet is Adam and that its greatest teacher is John the Baptist. Thus, baptism in running water is of pivotal importance to Mandaeans.
As Mandaeans have remained unmixed with any other race or religion for thousands of years, academics consider them as both a religion and an ethnicity.
SM Children in Iran and Iraq
In order for the Commission to accurately ascertain the psychological, emotional, and physical condition of Mandaean children in Immigration Detention, the Association feels that it is necessary to give a brief account of the children’s backgrounds.
In Iran, the children are forced to study the Qur’an and the Islamic religion, knowing full well that it is not the faith of their parents. They are bullied incessantly by Muslim children: Muslim children pick on them for being Mandaean, calling them ‘nejis’ which means ‘defiled’; they are not allowed to play with Muslim children and are ostracized in school playgrounds; disputes and disagreements between children are almost always resolved in favour of the Muslim child; they are not allowed to drink from the water founts utilized by Muslim children as they are told they would contaminate the water due to their Mandaeanism.
A number of Mandaean children have been abducted by Islamists and forcibly converted to Islam. A larger number have been threatened with abduction and forced conversion. This is often but not exclusively used as a tool by corrupt authorities and criminals to extort money from well-to-do Mandaean jewelers.
An even more serious occurrence is the sexual assault of Mandaean children. Even in these instances, Mandaeans have no recourse under Iran’s Islamic laws and complaining only serves to exacerbate the situation for the Mandaean child and his or her parents. There is at least one Mandaean child currently in detention who we know has been sexually assaulted, as verified by the Department’s own child psychologist.
In Iraq, children live under what is arguably the most diabolical political regime in the history of human civilization. The entire population survives in a state of constant alert, always fearing and preparing for impending war. There is not a single Iraqi child alive today who has not seen war or the devastating effects of the combination of Saddam Hussein’s despotic rule and the UN’s crippling sanctions.
Being a tiny minority, Mandaean children in Iraq are extremely vulnerable to the excesses of the regime, and particularly to the effects of witnessing the oppression and persecution to which their parents are subjected.
Not unlike their peers in Iran, Iraqi children are also bullied on the basis of their Mandaeanism and are constantly subjected to ostracism and degrading comments that have a long-lasting detrimental psychological effects.
The Journey to Australia
The hazardous journey to Australia also takes its toll on Mandaean children. Even on the boat on the way over to Australia, children suffer discrimination by the Islamists. On average, the journey takes 36 hours and is very perilous. Often, the children experience the fury of the Indian Ocean and feel that their end is imminent.
What exacerbates their situation is that on many journeys, Mandaeans are forced by the Islamists to sit away from the rest of the Muslim passengers. On one occasion, Mandaeans were threatened with violence when a dispute over food occurred. This, without doubt, compounds the impact upon the mental state of the Mandaean child even before he or she is placed in Immigration Detention: the extreme persecution by the treacherous circumstances and the religious persecution from their fellow travelers. It is difficult to gauge the precise impact of these circumstances upon Mandaean children but there is plenty of behavioural evidence to indicate that the impact is very negative.
General Conditions
Incarcerated SM Children
In general, Mandaean children suffer at least as much as any other child in detention. According to parents who have contacted the Association, Mandaeans who have visited detainees and their children and have subsequently contacted the Association, and members of the Association’s leadership who have personally visited detainees and their children, the situation for Mandaean children is rather grim.
The Preamble to the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that “the child…should grow up in…an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding” Needless to say, parents who are incarcerated and are highly uncertain of their future, are inclined to be very unhappy. Furthermore, it is likely that their capacity for loving their children and for understanding them in such conditions is greatly diminished. From a number of accounts, both the Mandaean parents and their children are very unhappy in Immigration Detention.
What follows for a lot of the Mandaean children of whom the Association is aware is an inclination to under eat, to not engage in playtime, to lack enthusiasm for any educational activity, to rebel against any figure of authority, especially the parents, to begin developing anti-social behavioural traits, and to either over-sleep or be sleep-deprived.
SM Children with Depressed and Desperate Parents
A Mandaean girl [age removed] has been in detention for over two years. Her mother is extremely depressed and [has] attempted suicide [date removed]. She regularly writes letters to family members who are outside of the detention centre of such an emotionally wrenching nature that she has been repeatedly admonished by her mother for writing them. The latest one was written by her [date removed] and was obtained by the Association; following is a translation that deliberately neglects the names of persons.
Dearest Sister,
I wish to buy (my nieces and nephews) beautiful things. Sometimes I annoy (my sibling). Mother is very kind. I would love to buy you a present. God willing, when I am out of here, sister, I would like to die. In the very last minute, you would yell at me and punish me. Sister, today, my mother and (my sibling) yelled at me and told me not to write such letters every day anymore. (My sibling) told on me. Sister, I wish I were never born in this world. It is better that I ask God to let me die. People don’t usually say things like this, but I want to ask, sister, if someone commits suicide will they go to Hell?
This particular girl obviously sees no hope. Her mother has been rejected several times and is facing deportation and, she believes, severe persecution or death once she is returned to her homeland. The Association believes the mother is trying to take her own life to force the Australian Government to save her children. This girl is well aware of the situation and it seems to have destroyed her life and her will to live it.
[Identifying details removed]. She does not know when her suffering and her incarceration will end. Undoubtedly, she feels betrayed. If she were more politically aware she would fully understand the hypocrisy of a society and its institutions that claim the moral high ground on issues of human rights while treating desperate children so nonchalantly.
Another girl of [age removed] who remains incarcerated, drew a picture of herself being crucified and explained that she was “stuck”, that she was nailed to the place she is in and that she was “caught in this suffering”. Further, she described the crown of thorns on her head as representing the “pressure she feels in her head”. She is said, by those who know her, to have suffered extreme bouts of depression where she becomes “sullen, non-communicative, and withdraws into the corner of the room”. She has also seen people subject themselves to self-harm and was once fearful of being burnt alive when she was left in a compound that was set alight by rioting adult detainees. Needless to say, her situation remains acutely dismal.
Mandaean children as young as 14 and 12 have felt so despairing that they have voluntarily gone on hunger strike, according to those who have been close to their situation.
SM Children Alone
A Mandaean child [age removed] been alone in Immigration Detention for nearly one year. He arrived in Australia with no money whatsoever. Thus, he began working in the detention centre’s kitchen and earning a small amount of money. However, soon thereafter, he was threatened by a number of Islamists in the centre to stop handling their food. Being a Mandaean, he was seen as an infidel and unworthy of handling food to be consumed by Muslims. When he refused to do their bidding they assaulted him and then had the temerity to complain and get him fired from his $1 an hour job. It is our understanding that sometime later he was assaulted once again and threatened against complaining about them to authorities. Every time he has had a visitor, Islamists watch him aggressively and make threatening gestures at him.
This boy stated that he believed those who cause trouble have a better chance of being accepted and released than those who abide by the rules of the centre. He believes that those who are persecuting him are going to get away with their malign actions while he “rots” in detention.
Conditions Specific to SM Children
SM Children with Parents Persecuted in Detention
Almost all Mandaeans who are or have once upon a time been in Immigration Detention claim to have suffered persecution at the hands of Islamists. This persecution, usually witnessed by or directed towards Mandaean children, has included but is not limited to the following:
1. Verbal abuse of Mandaeans by Islamists
2. Physical abuse of Mandaeans by Islamists
3. Islamists defecating on Mandaeans
4. Islamists defecating at the doors of rooms occupied by Mandaeans
5. Islamists prohibiting Mandaean children from playing with their children
6. Islamists prohibiting Mandaeans from eating with them
7. Mandaeans prohibited by Islamists from being involved in food preparation
8. Islamists prohibiting Mandaeans from playing sports with them
9. Islamists prohibiting Mandaeans from washing their clothes in the same washing machines that they use
10. Islamists ignoring the verbal and physical abuse by their children of Mandaean children
11. Islamist clergymen in detention issuing ‘fatwas’ stating that killing Mandaeans is sanctioned in Islam
12. Islamists threatening Mandaeans against complaining to authorities about them
13. Islamists setting fire to the residences of Mandaeans and Christians
14. Islamists turning the water off for Mandaean and Christian ablutions blocks
15. Islamists preventing Mandaeans and Christians from using certain toilets
16. Islamists forcing Mandaean women to observe the strict Islamic dress code including abusing a young Mandaean woman for wearing shorts
17. Islamists abusing Mandaean children and adults whilst standing in meal queues
18. Islamists conducting a concerted campaign of vilification against Mandaeans
Mandaean children thus exist in the midst of conditions that are a significantly similar facsimile of those they fled from. Only here, there is nowhere to flee to and the only option available is isolation in a confined space. Thus, children and their parents who have escaped persecution are persecuted once again in Immigration Detention and are given the option of even worse confinement for their troubles.
SM Children Isolated in Incarceration
There has been at least one instance where Mandaean children and their parents have been isolated from the Islamists in Immigration Detention. In that particular case, the Association learned that Mandaean children complained of even more feelings of despair at the horrendous injustice of being punished for being Mandaean. They rightly felt they were being treated unfairly at being made to bear the result of ill-treatment by a group of idiotic, backward, and hostile men who should have been punished for their physical and verbal violence and for their intolerance of other faiths. Instead, Mandaean children had to make do with fewer facilities, and even less space and have to witness their troublemaking oppressors being released into the Australian community while they remained incarcerated and were told the Australian Government was incredulous of their claims of being persecuted in their homeland.
SM Children Persecuted by Muslim Adults
The Mandaean Association is aware of a great number of claims made by Mandaean children that they suffer persecution by Islamist adults because of their faith. Some of these claims were investigated by the media. In his article published in The Age on May 10 of this year, Mr. Russell Skelton stated that “Mandaean girls are harassed by Muslim men who see them as “infidels” not worthy of respect.” This has a profound effect on the mental and emotional health of Mandaean girls who have no means by which to bring to an end the unacceptable behaviour of fundamentalists bent on forcing their spiritual viewpoint on everyone.
There have also been incidents where Islamist adults have verbally abused Mandaean children of both sexes when they engaged in play or sport with Muslim children. To the best of our knowledge, this is still going on today and all the efforts by ACM and the Department to correct this oppression of unfortunate children have been fruitless.
SM Children Harassed by Muslim Children
Situations where there are very few Mandaean children and a large number of Muslim children have resulted in the prevalence of severe forms of bullying. Whilst parents of children who bully often frown upon such behaviour, Islamist parents seem to encourage or, at the very least, ignore the conduct of their children towards Mandaean children.
Often, Mandaean children who have endured and survived arduous and terrifying journeys to reach Australia find that the playground of the place wherein they are incarcerated is essential no different in the treatment it affords them from the playgrounds of the countries they have escaped. Often, also, there are only Muslim children to play with and as this is itself unpalatable to Muslim children of extremist parents, Mandaean children are physically and emotionally secluded within detention.
A witness statement given on the 10th of January this year, cited at the Refugee Review Tribunal stated: “Mandaian (sic) children are constantly subjected to verbal harassment by both adults and peers. Sometimes it happens that Mandaian and Muslim children develop a friendship. On these occasions, it is not uncommon for the Muslim child to be instructed by his or her parents to inform the Mandaian child that the Mandaian is not to touch the Muslim, nor share food, or (sic) to be in any sort of contact, as this would render the Muslim child “unclean”. This has a serious psychological impact on the Mandaian child, amounting substantially to persecution.”
And whilst raising the same issue with Minister Philip Ruddock on the 14th of May this year, Amnesty International said that “(b)earing in mind that the Mandaean children may already be traumatised, such Islamist mistreatment seems likely to be psychologically very damaging to the Mandaean children.”
Conclusion to SM Children in Immigration Detention
There are limits to human endurance. There are even smaller limits to the endurance capacity of children. Immigration detention has and is exceeding those limits and is doing so under the guise of the law.
Children have escaped man’s lawless inhumanity to man in Iran and Iraq only to find man’s legally-sanctioned inhumanity to man in Australia.
Children whose parents come here illegally are not at fault. Children can never be responsible for their parents’ actions. Nor should they ever be punished for their parents’ ill-advised decision to seek protection in Australia. It is ridiculous to take the policy position that children should suffer so that they would be made an example of in order to discourage people smugglers and so called forum shoppers from journeying illegally to Australia.
The general community has suffered a “dumbing down” on the issue of refugees for political expediency. To that effect, they are innocent of what is being perpetrated against children in detention. But for those who are in the know and for those who have the means to correct this abuse of children, there is no excuse. There is little more abominable to basic decency than the exploitation of children as fodder in the ferocious political bombardment of hapless refugees.
Many of us are guilty of allowing this to take place rather than to suffer notoriety for going against ill-informed public opinion. It is astounding to the Association that there is even a need to conduct an inquiry into children in Immigration Detention, that somehow we have to investigate whether incarcerating innocent children is wrong.
The Association has no hesitation in forthrightly demanding the immediate and unconditional release of all Mandaean children from Immigration Detention and that no Mandaean child ever be placed in detention for seeking the protection of a country that regards itself as civilized and humanitarian.
In the words of the poet W.H. Auden: “About suffering they were never wrong,/ The Old masters: how well they understood / Its human position; how it takes place / While someone else is eating or opening a window or just / walking dully along”
(Musee des Beaux Arts – December 1938)
Children are suffering right now while we all go about our business. We implore you to act swiftly in recognising and ending it.
Thank you.
Last Updated 14 July 2003.
