ABOUT THE STUDY

In 2014, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s (AHRC’s) Forgotten Children report documented the devastating impacts of immigration detention on child detainees. The report generated a groundswell of community concern, contributing to the Australian government’s 2016 decision to release hundreds of minors from institutional detention.

A decade on from this landmark report, this project asks what happened to the children Australia detained?

Remarkably little is known about the long-term impacts of childhood detention. A growing body of research shows that children held in immigration detention are at dramatically elevated risk of physical and mental health problems and developmental delays. But these studies typically focus on wellbeing outcomes during detention. Internationally, very little is known about how children fare after release.

Setting the international benchmark for research in this area, the project has four main aims. It will:

• Explore how child detainees’ detention experiences impact their wellbeing and life trajectories in the years after their release;

• Interrogate the effects of child detainees’ post-detention experiences in shaping outcomes;

• Make recommendations to improve long-term outcomes for children who have been subject to immigration detention, or who are at risk of detention in the future; and

• Bring the enduring issue of childhood detention to the forefront of Australia’s national agenda, to advance long-overdue legislative reform.