7
not started at Argyle, though people have been here for over a year. TH have been told nothing about the screening process nor given an approximate timetable. Therefore, everyone listens to rumors and tensely anticipates the interviews.
Sek Kong Detention Centre
Sek Kong Detention Centre's physical setting distinguishes it from other camps. -At Sek Kong, detainees are housed in tents on a former airstrip.
Again, poor living conditions cause many health problems. Living in tents, asylum seekers are more affected by the weather, especially rain. Tents flood easily and rubbish floats, which is unhygienic as beds lie barely off the ground. Whenever there is a typhoon warning, residents must be moved to another temporary shelter. Mosquitoe breeding and rats from the high grass around edges of the camp also present a problem. Like most camps, skin problems are widespread in the heat of summer and medical service limited. Furthermore, Family Planning Association ("FPA") took a very long time before setting up at Sek Kong and even now, to see the FPA is quite difficult, resulting in many unwanted pregnancies. Asylum seekers at Sek Köng also do not receive all the food items on the UN menu. For example, there is no congee (rice soup) and only one egg in about every two weeks for young children. Pregnant and nursing women do not receive a special diet. Food has also been known to be inedible or spoiled.
Education for children also has problems. Schools are in a separate guarded section at one end of camp, where all classes are held together in romney huts, and, like at High Island and Whitehead Detention Centres, have inadequate partitioning so that the constant noise disturbs both the teachers' and students' concentration. These huts get especially hot in summer, even hotter than in the tents. Some young children found it so unbearable and miserable that parents keep them home. Moreover, the schools themselves are not open consistently. For example, besides closure due to weapon searches or other events in camp, Pre-School cannot open when the Coordinator has a meeting or is off-site, because she would not lend the school key to anyone else.
The Primary-Secondary School hut serves also to hold Catholic masses. There have been reports of restriction of worshippers' movement to attend these religious services as they must go through few gates where the guards regularly give them difficulties. A member of the Catholic Association has said that he feels like the Police who run the centre do not like the group to conduct any activities whatsoever.
/
Usually, gates of Sections 2, 3 and 4 are opened so that people are free to move about. (Section 1 schools, Police, UNHCR and clinic are all separated by locked gates.) However, there have been occasions where detainees were forced to stay in their section. reasons or explanations are given.
Νο