An eight-year-old Australian girl with rotten teeth, trapped in a desert camp, did not make her own bed

When Julian Assange was finally repatriated to Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated unequivocally that “my job is to advocate for Australian citizens”. That principle, apparently, does not extend to innocent children who have spent most of their short lives in a northeastern Syrian desert camp.

Unlike the politicians on both sides who have had much to say about these families, I’ve been to the camp where they are trapped. I’ve met them face to face.

When I travelled to Roj camp in 2022 I looked into the eyes of an eight-year-old Australian girl, whose frame was so small and frail that she looked much younger than my own daughter, who was five at the time. Many of her teeth were rotten or missing and she was showing signs of stunting from poor nutrition.

Behind the debate about these families, this is the reality. Australian children living in tents exposed to baking hot summers and freezing winters, denied adequate healthcare, their education disrupted.

It was then that I vowed to redouble our efforts to support these families to return to Australia.

Save the Children does not fund or conduct repatriations, nor do we ever intend to play such a role. We have not been involved in any extraction of Australians from camps in Syria. But for more than six years we have engaged in sustained advocacy, calling on the Australian government to bring these children home. This has not always been a popular choice, but it is the right choice, in keeping with our mission to fight for every child’s rights, no matter who they are.

When we acted as a litigation guardian in a Federal Court appeal in 2024, the full bench of the Federal Court found that it would be a “relatively straightforward” exercise for the Australian government to bring these children home if it “had the political will”. But that political will is nowhere to be seen.

Although the Morrison government repatriated eight orphans in 2019 and the Albanese government followed suit by repatriating three families in 2022, official channels slammed shut once this was deemed too unpopular to continue.

I care deeply about Australia remaining a safe place for all of us. But keeping Australian children trapped in a displacement camp does nothing to achieve that.

The view of numerous national security experts, and indeed the US government, who have been urging Australia to repatriate, is that managed repatriation under our robust judicial and security architecture is the safest option for all Australians. The alternative – leaving citizens to make unregulated journeys home, is more dangerous for everyone.

Australia has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Those rights do not disappear because of the actions of parents, or because acknowledging them is politically inconvenient in the shadow of a national tragedy.

We know that those who have been repatriated previously, both to Australia and internationally, have largely adapted well and are going to school, playing sport, and spending time with friends.

We have always maintained that if any of the women who return have committed crimes, they should be held to account. There is no better place for that to occur than in Australia, where we have a robust judicial and national security architecture. Indeed, in 2022 the women volunteered to be subject to onerous terrorism control orders in 2022 if it would help get their children home.

The application of temporary exclusion orders simply kicks the can down the road, potentially leaving vulnerable children exposed to significant risks for longer, and abdicating Australia’s responsibility for the actions of its citizens.

The failure of successive governments to act has prolonged the suffering of these innocent Australian children, many of whom were either taken to Syria as very young children or born in the camps. They had no say in where they found themselves, and I hold grave fears for their health and wellbeing every day that they remain trapped.

These Australian children have lost years of their childhoods, but they haven’t lost their right to a future. Australian citizenship has got to mean something. And every child deserves a fair go. It’s past time these Australian children were given one.

Mat Tinkler is chief executive of Save the Children, Australia.

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