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Australia controversially convicted as people smugglers Indonesian minors who had been cooks and deckhands on asylum seeker boats from Indonesia to Australia and jailed them in adult prisons.[1] The practice was believed to have come to an end in 2011[2] but in 2015 allegations were raised of Indonesian minors who remain in adult prisons.[3]
The children's claims to their ages were dismissed by Australian authorities who instead relied on a discredited wrist-bone "age-scan" to determine their age. The children soon became known as the "age-disputes" but they were nevertheless convicted. Whistleblowers and human rights campaigners such as Gerry Georgatos[4] brought their plight to the nation and encouraged journalists such as Walkley awarded Stephen Pennells[5] and the former editor of The Age, Lindsay Murdoch,[4] to publish stories about the children.[6] Georgatos first broke the story through journalist for The West Australian newspaper, Jane Hammond.[7] Lawyers, Terry Fisher, Mark Plunkett, Edwina Lloyd came to the fore and argued to the Courts that were relying on the wrist-bone age scans as the determination of age that indeed they were children.[8]
In mid-2011, after Georgatos and Lloyd hosted a number of forums[9] around the nation and procured the assistance of the Australian Human Rights Commission the majority of the "age-disputes" were released from prison and deported to Indonesia.[10][11][12]
