Immigration department officials seized pregnant Somali refugee Abyan from Villawood detention centre and flew her to the Solomon Islands on October 16, with the plan to fly her from there to Nauru.
Abyan had been flown in from Nauru four days earlier to see doctors regarding the planned termination of a pregnancy that resulted from her being raped while in detention on the island.
Nauru Regional Processing Centre
Fears are growing for the health of a 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker on Nauru who has been flown to Australia for medical treatment.
Nazinan was allegedly raped in May while on day release in the community from the detention centre. Her physical and mental health have deteriorated badly since the attack: her family says she has not been eating or drinking for the past few weeks and has attempted suicide.
Early this month the federal government transferred its first infant back Nauru.
The five-month-old baby girl known as “Asha” (not her real name), her mother and father were forcibly transported from Melbourne's detention centre to Darwin detention centre and then to Nauru.
Refugee activist Siobhan Marren has been campaigning for Asha and her family’s return.
She told Green Left Weekly: “Asha is the first baby to be transferred back to offshore detention since the amendment to the Migration Act last December.
Former workers from the Nauru detention centre say the Australian government has “tolerated the physical and sexual assault of children, and the sexual harassment and assault of vulnerable women in the centre for more than 17 months”.
Refugees who have been released from the detention centre to live in the community have also faced ongoing violence. A woman reportedly called the Nauruan police on April 8 after being sexually assaulted by men in a car.
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