Pregnant Somali woman sent back to Nauru

Transcript

A Somali woman who became pregnant after she was allegedly raped on Nauru and brought to Australia for an abortion has been suddenly flown back to the island.

Australia's immigration minister, Peter Dutton, says the woman decided not to proceed with the termination and has been returned to Nauru.

But refugee advocates say she was whisked away having not yet had any treatment, in a move by the Australian government to escape a court injunction.

The spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul, told Jamie Tahana the woman is now in an extremely vulnerable situation.

IAN RINTOUL:  We got a phone call from inside Villawood detention centre around nine o'clock Friday morning that said that CERCO staff, immigration staff had come and packed up all her things, so there was no formal notification until very late in the process.  As it turns out she was put on an airforce plane and flown very quickly out of Australia to Honiara. I think it's very clear that the haste and the secrecy associated with that flight, the government was absolutely determined to get her out of Australia and away from the jurisdiction of any Australian court.

JAMIE TAHANA:  Because an application had been placed into the federal court for a hearing...

IR:  Into federal court.  Yes.  The lawyers got, and I think it should also be made clear that the woman, known under the pseudonym Abyan,  made numerous pleas to make contact with her lawyers.  They were assiduously ignored and as soon as we understood that she was being removed we put legal things in place to try and get to the federal court as soon as we possibly could but by the time we got to the court the government simply said she's already out of Australia and we will have no jurisdiction to deal with the matter at that stage.

JT:  Do you see a link in this, that she was hastily removed to avoid such a court proceeding?

IR:  Look there is no question in my mind, I think to any objective observer's mind.  The fact that she was denied contact to the lawyers.  The fact that there was no notification of the intent to remove to give the lawyers time to actually consider either contact with the department or contact with the court is all indication that the government wanted this surrounded with the maximum of speed and the maximum of haste and the minimum with any kind of accountability or scrutiny.  The fact is that this is what has surrounded the way that they have dealt with Abyan right from the beginning.  She's appealed for medical help, for assistance.  She lost 10 kilogrammes in a month with a complete lack of medical attention.  The government has known all this.  They've known her predicament.  They were only forced to bring her from Nauru to Australia because of the massive public outcry.  She is back in Nauru in exactly the same predicament and all the compelling reasons for Abyan to be in Australia to get the care and attention she needs that applied last week when the government took the decision, they apply this weekend, even though they've removed her.

JT:  She was brought to Australia for medical attention.  Did she receive any of that?

IR:  We know she never got the abortion, nor did she get the counselling that she requested. We are in the process of trying to get independent counsellors for her even as that removal process was actually taking place.  The government knew that.  She's quite insistent that she did not get the counselling.  She saw an nurse at Viliawood, they had no interpreter.  The thing that she is clearest about is that she continued to ask for the lawyers, for the department to talk to her lawyers and for her to be able to talk to her lawyers.  Those things were ignored.

JT:  Have you had any contact with her since she was returned to Nauru?

IR:  Ah yes I have.  We've had a couple of conversations and a few messages.

JT:  And what's her situation now?

IR:  She is extremely distressed.  She feels that she has been insulted and abused by the government authorities and she can't seem to understand why they have been dismissed they way they have.  Having been brought to Australia, but her requests for lawyers, her requests for counseling, none of those things were fulfilled.  She's been returned to a place where all the reasons for the anguish and distress that brought her are now magnified.

JT:  You've met her.  What is her situation?  How fragile is she right now?

IR:  She has been through extremely desperate circumstances on Nauru.  Physically, she's lost the 10 kilogrammes, she's continually vomiting.  She had no medical assistance from the 3rd of September when she was brought to Australia.  She still has not got the medical attention that normally would be afforded to someone who had been sexually assaulted.  The kind of counseling, care and medical attention that would normally take place.  Her anguish has really been magnified.