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The review found many people on Nauru were apprehensive about their personal safety.
The review found many people on Nauru were apprehensive about their personal safety.

Rapes and fears for safety on Nauru uncovered by independent Moss review

This article is more than 9 years old

Report by former integrity commissioner Philip Moss also found no information to support claims that Save the Children workers encouraged asylum seekers to protest or self-harm

At least two women have reported being raped, others have been forced to expose their bodies in exchange for access to showers, an independent report on immigration detention conditions on Nauru has found.

In an 86-page report, released suddenly on Friday afternoon, the former integrity commissioner Philip Moss also found “no information which substantiates” claims that Save the Children workers on Nauru encouraged protests or acts of self-harm.

Nine Save the Children staff were summarily dismissed at the government’s insistence after a three-page security report alleged, without any corroborating evidence, they were facilitating protests and sending confidential information off the island.

Their dismissal is the subject of a legal challenge. Moss found their dismissal should be reviewed by the government.

The Moss review was established in October by the then immigration minister Scott Morrison to investigate two separate tranches of claims: allegations of sexual and physical assault of asylum seekers, including children, in the Nauru detention centre, and reports that Save the Children Staff were facilitating or encouraging protest and self-harm.

Moss found many asylum seekers on Nauru “are apprehensive about their personal safety and have concerns about their privacy in the centre”.

He said “transferees also said that they were concerned that making a complaint could result in a negative impact on the resolution of their asylum claims. In some cases, transferees told the review that they had not reported particular incidents because they had lost confidence that anything would be done about their complaints.”

The review found there were limited resources for the investigation of sexual assaults by the Nauruan authorities, including no forensic services, but it also said detention centre staff – contracted by the Australian government – acted appropriately in investigating allegations.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, said the government accepted all the recommendations in the report, and added that sexual assault was “not something that we would accept in Australia, and it’s not something that the Nauruans accept in their community”.

The review was commissioned, in part, from allegations that arose from a Transfield intelligence report that alleged Save the Children staff had encouraged detainees to protest and even commit acts of self-harm.

The secretary of the immigration department, Mike Pezzullo, said there was “no conclusive evidence” that Save the Children employees encouraged protest activity.

Dutton was also questioned about the timing of the report – which was completed in early February – which came shortly after the death of the former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and with less than an hour’s notice.

He said: “The secretary was on a plane earlier this morning to come up to Brisbane. I had wanted to make the announcement last week and I had to go to Cambodia.

“I think any suggestions frankly from you or from anybody else that this relates to Malcolm Fraser’s death, I just find quite an appalling question, to be honest.”

Transfield Services, the private contractor with overarching responsibility for running the Nauru detention centre, said it would continue to work cooperatively with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, its sub-contractors and the government of Nauru to implement all the review’s applicable recommendations.

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