During the past 11 years, Australia’s policy of offshore processing has caused at least 14 deaths and significant physical and mental harm to the thousands of refugees and people seeking asylum subjected to unimaginable cruelty in detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island (PNG).
The policy has proven to be a cruel failure, not only due to the significant costs to operate the contentious detention regime – over $12 billion from July 2012 to June 2024 – but due to the widely-documented cases of medical neglect, sexual violence, suicide attempts, mental and physical abuse and countless other human rights violations that have occurred offshore.
Today, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) continues to advocate alongside medical experts and those still held offshore, for the Australian Government to be held accountable for the safety, medical care and welfare of approximately 47 refugees and people seeking asylum held in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and 96 people detained in Nauru.