Courts should remove Chris Bowen's Guardianship status
August 5, 2011
"The fact that the 'arrangement' between Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and Malaysia to 'remove' asylum seekers to
that country has no legal standing or legal power should be a serious enough reason for the Family Court to instruct the
Federal Court to remove his legal Guardianship for children of asylum seekers," WA Human Rights group Project SafeCom
said this morning.
"As always suspected, the Minister is unable to legally guarantee any form of protection for children - or for that
matter, adults - under his arrangements with Malaysia, and this makes him liable for many future court actions,
including class actions, by those children or their representatives, in an Australian court. Simply speaking, for the
children and unaccompanied minors the Minister is an "unfit parent" who cannot absolutely guarantee that the children he
intends to deport to Malaysia will not be tortured, abused, raped, subjected to extortion or taken into slavery
conditions by individuals or rackets in Malaysia who seek to exploit them in their workplaces in child labor conditions
representing slavery," spokesman Jack H Smit said.
"Not only is this of extreme concern, the Minister's parenting role as the official guardian for the minors also cannot
guarantee that they will be - as agreed under the world's most basic human rights charters, receive an education
environment. While the Minister has been selling his spin about "education", closer scrutiny confirms that they do NOT
have access to Malaysia's education system, but that refugee and human rights organisation are allowed to arrange some
form of amateur teaching of the type exemplified in the recent SBS Television series 'Go Back to Where You Came From',
where 'education' is similar to keeping children occupied in mouldy warehouses, singing with them and playing with them,
not in a structured learning environment, but in a volunteering project by organisations that make the ghastly living
circumstances for asylum seekers more bearable in Malaysia."
"The Minister will be an abusing parent, who fails to protect his children, if he has the ghoulish determination to send
his own children into the hellish environment of Malaysia. The 19 children, under the Migration Act, ARE his children,
under the guardianship concept as defined under law in Australia. He is an unfit parent, and he should be stripped off
his guardianship".
For more information, visit www.safecom.org.au/
ENDS