Inhumane detention of asylum seekers in Australia's floating prisons

A floating prison consists of a ship in an area enclosed by containers to imprison people. These ships are considered temporary detention facilities with no beds or sheets, hot water and no privacy.

Details of this have recently been revealed in a report. The report concerns one of the ships used by the federal government to detain people at sea. Among those detained on this ship are people who arrived in Australia by boat and are seeking asylum.

It has been reported that two groups of people have been held in these prisons for the past 18 months in inhumane conditions that violate international human rights guidelines.

Omar, who fled persecution in his home country and arrived on a boat near Darwin early last year, said he believes he was detained on this boat for a week.

“We had to stay in one place and we cannot go anywhere else,” Omar tells. “The food was not enough for us. The healthcare was so bad. So many people were sick. We needed medicine, but they don’t give us medicine.

“There was no space for everyone, no separate room or bed, just the floor for sleeping. There was no privacy, nothing. It’s a small room, we cannot go outside, we can’t see anything.”

As part of his duties under the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT), an inspector inspected two naval auxiliary vessels assigned to the Australian Border Force in late 2024.

The inspector, Iain Anderson, said the detention facilities on both ships inspected breached Australia’s obligations under the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Mandela Rules.

Anderson said: “The key finding is that the ships used should never have been used for that purpose. Putting people in an open area on deck, sleeping there, eating there, in a relatively small space for an indefinite period of time was not appropriate.

There is no set maximum period for how long people can be detained at sea on one of these ships.

The detention area consisted of an enclosed space at the back of the ship, featuring heavy-plastic-grating floor bordered by shipping containers on two sides and solid metal bars on the others. Detainees were provided with four-centimetre-thick foam jigsaw mats.

There were four portable toilets, which were not connected to the ship’s waste treatment facility and sewerage, with the wastewater instead regularly emptied directly into the ocean. The ombudsman said that there had been a number of sewage spills on the deck, posing a health risk to all held there.

There were two showers for men and another shower for women at the rear of the detention area, which was “very exposed” and only had a drop-down camp shower providing privacy. No hot water was available for either shower, in breach of the UN’s Association for the Prevention of Torture guidelines.

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre deputy chief executive Jana Favero says the report was “shocking reading” but not surprising.

“It’s a damning indictment of our policy of holding people on vessels when they’re seeking safety in Australia,” Favero says. “It’s absolutely outrageous this is the way we’re treating people who seek safety by sea, and it’s a reflection of our policy based on punishment and deterrence. “It’s one part of a very cruel puzzle.”