Asylum seekers … and Dan Ryan

Dan Ryan visits Miranda Gibson, here

On 3/8 I attended the United Nations Youth Tasmania Q and A panel event in Hobart.

One of the most impressive panelists was Dan Ryan who is Australia’s Youth representative to the UN General Assembly.

The issue of mandatory detention of asylum seekers was discussed.

Ryan spoke of a conversation he had had with a young refugee in the Villawood detention centre. The unfortunate man had told Ryan that 18 months ago he could play chess but he could no longer because of the (mental) effects of his incarceration. I have heard similar stories of loss of cognitive skills from others who have spoken to long term detainees.

Ryan made an impassioned call for humanitarian principles to be considered paramount in asylum seeker policy formulation.

Clearly both scientific evidence and compassion must be inherent in public policy if it is to be judged favorably.

Who would deny that war and turmoil in your home country, such that you fear for your life, and the lives of your family members, constitutes unbearable stress? An indefinite stay in a refugee camp or detention centre with no clear idea of what the future

might hold is also an unbearable situation. Lack of understanding of, and sympathy for, people beset by such trials must compound the hardship.

Scientific research and published literature tells us that severe chronic stress and loss of control over one’s life of this degree has serious detrimental effects on physical and mental health. This type of stress is associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease, of impaired immune function with consequent risk of infection, of impaired memory and decision making, and of depression with higher rates of suicide.

Mandatory detention of asylum seekers good public policy? I don’t think so.