MQ-funded researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia have uncovered evidence of the negative psychiatric impacts of Australia’s onshore and offshore detention systems in the largest study of its kind.
A study into immigration detention in Australia has shown that refugees detained overseas for any period of time face a 20 times higher risk of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems compared to asylum seekers who were detained on land for less than six months.
UNSW Sydney researchers say the same debilitating effects on mental health were also evident in those who had experienced prolonged stays in ashore detention facilities. These impacts were evident years after leaving detention to live in the community.
in a letter to the editor published in the British Journal of PsychiatryThe researchers detailed their survey of 990 adult refugees and asylum seekers who lived in the Australian community between 2011 and 2018. This group included 215 people who had experienced some form of detention before eventually joining the Australian community.
The researchers say the survey offered “a unique insight into the long-term psychological effects of overseas processing.”
MQ academic Dr Philippa Specker is the lead author of the study and a researcher and clinical psychologist at the UNSW School of Psychology. She says the study represents the largest known available data set related to foreign processing and mental health.
“Due to legal and logistical barriers to contacting people detained in Australian offshore detention centers on Manus Island and Nauru since 2012, research can only be conducted with detained people once they have been released,” says.
“Data from this survey allowed us to test for the first time whether previous experiences of detention abroad impacted someone’s risk of suffering from long-term serious mental illness once they were living in the community, comparing them to people who had been detained. abroad for less than six months. .”
Emphatically, the investigation found this to be the case.
“We found that if you had been detained on land for more than six months, or detained abroad for any period of time, your risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or subsequent suicidal ideation was significantly higher, and of a magnitude that It really surprised us.
“People were 17 to 20 times more likely to report PTSD symptoms if they had spent a long time in detention on land, or if they had spent any amount of time in detention overseas.”
Other statistics revealed that people who were detained in any way were twice as likely to have probable post-traumatic stress disorder, two and a half times more likely to have probable depression, and almost twice as likely to have suicidal ideations, in compared to refugees and asylum seekers who never encountered immigration detention. When comparing offshore and land detention experience of any duration, offshore detainees were 2.71 times more likely to have probable PTSD.
The increased mental health risks were evident despite comparing with a control group of refugees and asylum seekers and despite controlling for age, gender, time in Australia and marital status. This suggests that exposure to detention affected mental health above and beyond other important factors.
Negative impact
Researchers say it has long been established that detention on land has destabilizing effects on the well-being of asylum seekers, but recent analysis of data shows that these negative effects are even greater for detention abroad.
“Being expelled to another country by the government from which one seeks asylum can undermine one’s sense of security, agency, and certainty about the future. It is understandable then that such practices can also have serious and long-term psychological consequences,” says Dr. Specker.
“With more than 117 million people forcibly displaced Due to war, persecution and human rights violations – and 38 million of them are refugees – there have never been more people displaced in the world due to wars and persecution. At the same time, we are seeing first world countries adopt increasingly restrictive immigration policies with the goal of deterrence.”
But Dr. Specker says there is now an opportunity to address the problem of displaced people seeking shelter with measures that are practical, rather than punitive.
What can be done?
“We understand that when someone arrives in a new country and applies for asylum and makes an asylum application, of course, that requires some degree of administrative processing,” Dr. Specker says.
“What our findings tell us is that the way a person is treated while their asylum claim is being processed can make a big difference.”
Researchers call for rethinking asylum seeker policies that rely on the use of detention.
First, they say, the use of foreign detention needs to be reassessed. The researchers note that Australia is one of 145 signatory nations to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, which outlines the humanitarian obligation to provide protection to people fleeing persecution and human rights violations. Given data suggesting high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and suicidal ideation among people who have experienced detention abroad, it would be difficult for a government to argue that such a policy is humanitarian.
“Our findings highlight the psychological costs of foreign detention and add to broader research that has also revealed other shortcomings in immigration detention and processing policies,” says Dr. Specker.
“For example, analysis of migration patterns has revealed that immigration detention and extraterritorial processing are ineffective in deterring people from seeking asylum. Beyond this, the The UNSW Kaldor Center for International Refugee Law estimates that keeping someone detained overseas is 5,550 times more expensive than allowing them to live in the Australian community while their application is processed.”
Secondly, the processing of asylum applications must be timely. The researchers found even worse mental health outcomes among those who spent a longer period detained on land, compared to those who were released within six months. Considering that, as of July 31, 2024, the average detention time of people on land was 545 days (1.5 years)There is an urgent need to significantly speed up processing times and ensure that people are not detained while their applications are processed.
Lesson to learn
Researchers note that this year the British parliament passed Rwanda’s immigration bill for overseas detention, which the new Labor government has promised to repeal. With Australia being one of only a few countries to practice immigration detention overseas, the researchers hope their recent study will provide timely evidence to other nations about the serious psychiatric impacts of such practices.
“It is not too late for Australia and other governments seeking to establish similar models of extraterritorial processing and immigration detention to consider evidence-based alternatives,” says Dr Specker.
Can Read the full findings in the British Medical Journal here.
