Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre

The Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre (IRPC) was an Australian immigration detention facility near the village of Woomera

Woomera, South Australia

The town, or village, of Woomera is located in the south east corner of the Woomera Prohibited Area ; colloquially known as the Woomera Rocket Range...

in South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

. It was opened in November 1999 in response to an increase in unauthorised arrivals, which had exceeded the capacity of other detention facilities. It was originally intended to hold 400 people, however at its peak in April 2000 it had nearly 1,500 detainees. After ongoing public pressure in response to several well publicised riot

Riot

A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized often by what is thought of as disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people. While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are thought to be typically chaotic and...

s from 2000, accusations of human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

abuses, and capacity issues, the centre closed in April 2003.

The site was rebuilt during 2003, and then handed back to the Australian Department of Defence. It has been a Defence garrison facility since November 2003 and no longer has any links to immigration processing or detention. The facility was renamed "Camp Rapier" in 2004 and has only supported Defence activities on the Woomera Test Range since that time.

For much of its operation during the time the facility was an immigration detention centre, it was run by Australasian Correctional Management

Australasian Correctional Management

Australasian Correctional Management was a private company owned by Wackenhut, a subsidiary of multinational security giant Group 4 Securicor. From 1998 until 2003 ACM was responsible for running at least six Immigration detention centres in Australia...

(ACM), a subsidiary of Wackenhut

Wackenhut

G4S Secure Solutions is a private security company. It was founded as The Wackenhut Corporation in 1954, in Coral Gables, Florida, by George Wackenhut and three partners ....

Security Corporation, under a contract with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. ACM was criticised over various practices, including failing to staff the Centre adequately, and concealing evidence of child abuse

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

Background to the creation of the facility

Main article: Mandatory detention in Australia
Mandatory detention in Australia
Mandatory detention in Australia concerns the Australian federal government's policy and system of mandatory immigration detention active from 1992 to date, pursuant to which all persons entering the country without a valid visa are compulsorily detained and sometimes subject to deportation.In the...

During the early 1990s the Keating

Paul Keating

Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...

ALP

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

government enforced a policy of mandatory detention

Mandatory detention in Australia

Mandatory detention in Australia concerns the Australian federal government's policy and system of mandatory immigration detention active from 1992 to date, pursuant to which all persons entering the country without a valid visa are compulsorily detained and sometimes subject to deportation.In the...

of unauthorised arrivals. All non-citizens arriving by boat without a valid visa were detained until they were either granted a visa

Visa (document)

A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...

, or deported.

Towards the end of the 1990s, a large increase in the number of unauthorised arrivals exceeded the capacity of the existing Immigration Reception and Processing Centres at Port Hedland

Port Hedland, Western Australia

Port Hedland is the highest tonnage port in Australia and largest town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, with a population of approximately 14,000 ....

and Curtin

RAAF Curtin

RAAF Base Curtin is a Royal Australian Air Force base located near the town of Derby on the north coast of Western Australia. As it is one of the RAAF's three 'bare bases' no Air Force units are currently based at Curtin and it is maintained by a small caretaker staff during peacetime...

. The former, and at that time unused, 'Woomera West Construction Camp' was converted into an immigration detention facility in 1999 and the Woomera IRPC was opened to accommodate this increase.

Operation of the Woomera facility

The Centre was opened in November 1999, with a capacity of 400. This capacity was very quickly exceeded, as the boat arrivals continued. Nursing

Nursing

Nursing is a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from conception to death....

and administrative staff working there at the time have since complained that facilities were totally inadequate, and that it was impossible to provide proper medical care. Management of the centre has been criticised for not providing adequate training to staff for confrontations. This resulted in psychological problems for staff including post-traumatic stress, marriage breakdowns and in some cases suicide attempts.

Most detainees applied for refugee

Refugee

A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...

status, and had no possibility for release until their claim had been finalised. Men, women, and children were detained at The Centre. The highest number of children detained at any one time was 456, out of a total population of 1442, on 1 September 2001. As at 26 December 2003, the average length of detention for children was one year, 8 months, and 11 days. An unaccompanied child refugee had this to say:

I believe you [Australians] are nice people, peace seekers, you support unity. If you come to see us behind the fence, think about how you would feel. Are you aware of what happens here? Come and see our life. I wonder whether if the Government of Iran created camp like Woomera and Australians had seen pictures of it, if they would have given people a visa to come to Australia then.

In June 2000 there were two days of protest

Protest

A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...

s. Approximately 480 detainees broke out and walked into the township. In August 2000 there were three days of riot

Riot

s and fires. 60-80 detainees were involved, and tear gas and water cannon

Water cannon

A water cannon is a device that shoots a high-pressure stream of water. Typically, a water cannon can deliver a large volume of water, often over dozens of metres / hundreds of feet. They are used in firefighting and riot control. Most water cannon fall under the category of a fire...

s were used. 32 staff were injured during this riot. In November 2000 there was a hunger strike

Hunger strike

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...

involving more than 30 detainees, some of whom were force fed in hospital. Throughout 2001 there were repeated riots and confrontations between ACM guards and detainees. Water cannon and tear gas were used.

During 2002 there were a number of riots, hunger strikes, and lip-sewing, which included children. In January 2002 over 200 detainees started a hunger strike. Some threatened suicide in violent ways. Some swallowed poisons including shampoo. Refugee advocates (such as the Woomera Lawyers Group and RASSA

Rassa

Rassa may refer to:* Rassa, Piedmont, town in Italy* RASSA, Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia-See also:* Rasa * Raška...

), argued that this showed the desperation of detainees. The refugees complained that conditions were harsh, that it took up to three years for their claims to be processed and that processing their claims had been suspended.

There had been similar protests before. This time protests were taken up by the national and international media and by national and international organizations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , also known as The UN Refugee Agency is a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to...

felt Australia should reconsider its policy. Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson

Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...

the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was first denied access to the Woomera IRPC but later the Australian Government yielded to pressure.

The Woomera Breakout

Over the Easter holiday of 2002 about 1000 protesters gathered at the gates of Woomera to voice their opposition to the mandatory detention of refugees. About 40 refugees escaped from the centre during this protest. Most were captured over the coming hours and subsequently deported, but some made it out of the desert. Of these escapees some were reported to the police and deported. At least one former detainee has since gained a protection visa. Concerns are held for the safety of those deported. 80% of those detained over the years had been found to be genuine refugees, the majority being issued with a temporary protection visa

Temporary protection visa

A Temporary Protection Visa was an Australian visa document introduced by the Howard Government on 20 October 1999, which was issued to persons who had been recognised as refugees fleeing persecution. The scheme was controversial, with the government claiming it was a necessary response to the...

.

The Centre was closed in April 2003, and all remaining detainees were transferred to Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre

Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre

Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre or commonly just Baxter Detention Centre, was an Australian immigration detention facility near the town of Port Augusta in South Australia. It was the focus of much of the controversy concerning the mandatory detention of asylum seekers in Australia...

. With the hand back of the Woomera faciliites to Defence as part of the wider upgrade of the Woomera Test Range, Woomera will not be used again as any form of IRPC as the facility is now part of the Test Range itself.

Further controversy

The detention centre was a source of much controversy during its time of operation. There were a number of riots and escapes, as well as accusations of human rights

Human rights

abuses from groups as diverse as refugee advocates, Amnesty International

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

The Australian Human Rights Commission is a national human rights institution, a statutory body funded by, but operating independently of, the Australian Government. It has the responsibility for investigating alleged infringements under Australia’s anti-discrimination legislation...

, ChilOut

ChilOut

ChilOut is a group opposed to the mandatory imprisonment of children under 18 in immigration detention centres in Australia...

, Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...

, and the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

, although no charges have ever been laid against any person against such public accusations.

In March 2002, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Irene Khan

Irene Khan

Irene Zubaida Khan is a Bangladeshi human rights activist. She was the seventh Secretary General of Amnesty International until her resignation on 31 December 2009. She was appointed as a member of the Charity Commission of England and Wales on 1 January 2010 but resigned after a controversy over...

, said:

It is obvious that the prolonged periods of detention, characterised by frustration and insecurity, are doing further damage to individuals who have fled grave human rights abuses. The detention policy has failed as a deterrent and succeeded only as punishment
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....

. How much longer will children and their families be punished for seeking safety from persecution?

Throughout the controversy, then-Prime Minister John Howard

John Howard

John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....

and successive immigration ministers maintained that their actions at Woomera were justified in the interests of protecting Australia's borders and ensuring that immigration law

Immigration law

Immigration law refers to national government policies which control the phenomenon of immigration to their country.Immigraton law, regarding foreign citizens, is related to nationality law, which governs the legal status of people, in matters such as citizenship...

was enforced. A 2004 Liberal Party election policy document stated:

The Coalition Government's tough stance on people smuggling stems from the core belief that Australia has the right to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. Deterrence has been achieved through excision, boat returns, offshore processing and mandatory detention.

External links

Through the Wire Award winning short documenting the 2002 Woomera Breakout Pip Starr
DIMIA Detention Facilities No Longer Operational
Four Corners documentary: "About Woomera"
HREOC Inquiry - Setting the Scene - Children in Immigration Detention
Fire damage from arson on 30 December 2002 at Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre, South Australia, 8 January 2003 / Damian McDonald
Photographs of Woomera Detention Centre protest Easter 2002 / Tony Reddrop
Waking Up The Nation. Online Detention Centres Documentary 2002/2005

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