More than 1,400 children detained in immigration depots, says group

A total of 1,467 children were confined in 20 immigration detention centres nationwide as of last September, said Human Rights Watch.

In a report released today, the international rights organisation presented a chilling eyewitness account detailing the beating of a nine-year-old for requesting more bread.

The witness, known only as Ali, said when he tried to stop the assault, he was tortured instead.

The 44-year-old United Nations-registered Rohingya refugee was held in a water tank overnight and got assaulted when he tried to stand up.

Human Rights Watch said children in the detention centres, commonly known as depots, frequently faced the same abuses as adult detainees - including denial of medical care, inadequate food and ill-treatment.

“Of the total number of children detained, two-thirds of them were unaccompanied or separated from their families and were at times deported alone,” the group said.

The government has acknowledged the alarming rate of child mortality statistics within detention, citing seven deaths in 2022.

However, specific details regarding the causes were not disclosed.

Children most victimised

Children in detention suffer due to poor conditions, lack of nutrition, education and space.

Women have given birth at the depots and remained detained with their newborns without postpartum care or necessities such as diapers and formula, the report said.

Former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that some mothers were punished for their children crying and found it difficult to get essentials for their babies and toddlers.

“Rather than developing non-custodial, community-based alternatives, the government launched the Baitul Mahabbah programme in late 2023, moving a few dozen children to two new temporary centres, where they will remain under guard until their deportation,” the group said.

Citing a case, an Indonesian mother of two girls aged 13 and 16 revealed that they all suffered scabies, which is a skin disease, during their three-year detention at the Menggatal depot in Kota Kinabalu.

Last August, children as young as eight were among the 425 undocumented migrants caught in a government dragnet in apartment buildings in Cheras.

Recommendations

Due to the absence of a legal limit on immigration detention duration, migrants face the risk of being detained indefinitely.

“The Malaysian government’s immigration detention of children is an outright violation of international law and stands in opposition to global efforts toward its full elimination,” the report read.

Human Rights Watch urged the government to immediately halt the detention of refugees, children, trafficking victims and vulnerable migrants for immigration reasons.

The report’s list of recommendations also calls on Putrajaya to enact legislation to eliminate immigration detention for children and families, irrespective of nationality or citizenship while establishing safe screening processes for their identification and release.

In the meantime, it urged the authorities to avoid separating family members until family detention ends and adopt noncustodial alternatives to detention, prioritising the best interests of the child.

“In addition, preventive steps should be taken to avoid commingling detained children with unrelated adults.

“Children should also be provided age-specific education in detention until alternatives are implemented. Birth registration and documentation for children born here should also be ensured,” it added.

The government, it said, should also withdraw reservations to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically Articles 7, 28(1)(a), and 37 related to birth registration, education and detention of children.

For its latest report, Human Rights Watch interviewed 43 former detainees from Myanmar, Indonesia, Syria and Palestine between January and March last year.

The interviews were held in Malaysia and Indonesia and research was carried out with former Suhakam commissioner Jerald Joseph, a consultant with Human Rights Watch.

Some detainees had been held multiple times and the most recent detention was from 2019 to 2023, for periods ranging between three months and three years.

Government reports revealed that 45,000 undocumented migrants have been detained since May 2020.

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