Asylum-seeker mothers 'attempt suicide' to get kids to Australia

SYDNEY // A dozen mothers in an camp for asylum seekers have reportedly attempted suicide so their children can be settled in Australia, piling pressure on the prime minister, Tony Abbott, who said he would not be morally blackmailed.

The Sydney Morning Herald said the women tried to kill themselves this week after being told they would be taken from a detention centre on Christmas Island to Papua New Guinea or Nauru.

Any boatpeople who arrived in Australia after July 19, 2013, cannot be resettled in the country, regardless of whether they are eventually judged to be genuine refugees.

They are instead sent to detention facilities or for resettlement on islands in the Pacific.

The Australian Human Rights Commission said it was aware of “seven women who have either attempted suicide, threatened suicide or self-harmed on Christmas Island” in the past two days.

“In recent weeks we are aware of 13 asylum-seekers who fall into those categories,” a spokeswoman said.

The claims come as Australia faces growing pressure over its immigration policies, with high court action under way over the fate of 153 Sri Lankans being held in custody on the high seas.

They are currently detained on a customs boat as lawyers argue that any transfer back to Colombo would be illegal, with concerns about the way they were screened.

Another boat carrying 41 Sri Lankans has already been returned. The adults on board were charged on Tuesday with trying to leave Sri Lanka illegally.

Some of those sent back claimed they were abused, given little food and treated “worse than dogs” by customs officials, allegations that Autralia’s immigration minister denied on Wednesday.

“I find those allegations offensive and reject them absolutely,” Scott Morrison said during a trip to Colombo to meet officials from President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government.

Mr Abbott described the Christmas Island claims as “harrowing” but said his government would not be held hostage.

“This is not going to be a government which has our policy driven by people who are attempting to hold us over a moral barrel. We won’t be driven by that,” he told Channel Nine television on Wednesday.

Christmas Island Shire Council president Gordon Thompson said the women believed that if they died their orphaned children would have a better chance of being settled in Australia, the Herald reported.

“They are saying ‘the babies have a better chance at life if I am dead’,” he said.

The women, whose nationalities were not known, reportedly either tried to hang themselves or cut themselves with glass.

* Agence France-Presse