Australia 'may have jailed Indonesian children'

Australia's human rights agency said Monday there was a "high risk" Indonesian minors were being held in adult prisons in the country, questioning the accuracy of using wrist x-rays to determine age. Lawyers for Indonesians hired to crew asylum-seeker boats say mistakes about their clients' ages, combined with the government's tough stance against people-smugglers, has resulted in children being placed in adult jails. "The use of wrist x-rays for determining age may have led to errors in age determination with the result that children are being held in adult facilities," said Australian Human Rights Commission president Catherine Branson. "I have been corresponding with the Commonwealth Attorney-General about the use of wrist x-rays for age determination and the need to address the high risk that Australia is holding children in adult facilities since February this year." Branson said it was ritically important to determine suspects' correct age because minors were generally sent home rather than charged with people-smuggling offences, whereas adults face a minimum five-year jail term if convicted. "To hold a child in an adult prison is a breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child," she added. Lawyer Mark Plunkett has called for a royal commission into the treatment of Indonesian minors held in jails on people-smuggling charges, after representing teenage boys who had been locked up with adults. "This is a terrible blight on Australia," Plunkett told AFP. "There are children at risk in our jails. They are uneducated, they are illiterate, they don't speak the language, they can't eat the food, they are in an incredibly foreign environment and very, very vulnerable." Plunkett said it was not known how many Indonesian children were being held in Australian jails after being misjudged to be adults, but it was well known that minors were often used as crewmen and cooks on people-smuggling vessels. He said he had represented three boys aged 15 and 16 who had been held in an adult prison and released after he travelled to Indonesia and spoke to their families, collecting evidence to prove their correct age. "There are so many of these children, that's why this is a national scandal," he told AFP. "You cannot have children in adult jails alongside paedophiles, murderers and serious adult criminals," he said. The government has defended the treatment of crew. "If proof of age is inconclusive they are given the benefit of the doubt and sent home," a spokeswoman for Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said. The controversy comes as a 14-year-old Australian boy is facing up to six years in prison in Indonesia after being caught in Bali last month with nearly seven grams of marijuana while on holiday with his parents.