Journal of epidemiology and community health
-
J Epidemiol Community Health · Jun 2008
Preventive detention: the ethical ground where politics and health meet. Focus on asylum seekers in Australia.
Australia has a history of migration, especially during the wars in Europe, but many have forgotten the difficulties underlying asylum and wars endured by their forefathers. Preventive, indefinite detention of asylum seekers, most of whom are found to be genuine refugees, impinges on their human rights. ⋯ To be fully addressed, the health implications of detention cannot be considered in isolation, but must be considered frankly and openly by health professionals in the broader historical and political context within which they occur. If we do not do this, we risk turning a blind eye to, or even condoning, human rights abuses.