A 23-year-old \u201cvulnerable and traumatised\u201d Somali woman who was raped on Nauru is pleading with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to allow her to come to Australia to have an abortion.<\/p>\n
The woman, \u201cAbyan\u201d (not her real name)\u00a0is one of two female Somali refugees who have requested help from Australia after being raped on the island.\u00a0Last week the ABC\u2019s\u00a07.30\u00a0broadcast distressing footage\u00a0of the other victim, a 26-year-old woman known as \u201cNamja\u201d (not her real name), calling police for help after her rape \u2013 she says it took police four hours to answer her plea.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old woman is 11\u00a0or more weeks pregnant as a result of her rape and is begging to be allowed to come to Australia for an abortion.\u00a0Lawyers acting on her behalf wrote to Turnbull and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton demanding a response by 5pm AEDT Tuesday.<\/p>\n
George Newhouse, special counsel\u00a0at Shine Lawyers, has been making representations to the Commonwealth on the woman\u2019s behalf for one week but has had no response.<\/p>\n
\u201cFive o\u2019clock has passed, we\u2019ve had no response from the government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s wrong with the system but their failure to respond comes across as cruel and heartless.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime is quickly running out, this is not a joke, a traumatised and vulnerable woman\u2019s health and safety is stake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newhouse called on Turnbull to\u00a0back his condemnation of violence against women\u00a0with action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Prime Minister wants Australia to be known as a country that respects women, well, we can start with start with this poor soul,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked for comment on Tuesday the Prime Minister\u2019s Office referred the matter to the Immigration Minister\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Dutton said the Immigration Department was aware of the allegations of sexual assault but would not discuss individual cases because of privacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll pregnant women receive professional and coordinated health care,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Immigration and Border Protection is aware of an allegation of sexual assault. \u00a0Various supports are provided to alleged victims through the government of Nauru Sexual Assault Unit and service providers. Alleged victims are also supported to provide a report to the Nauruan Police Force.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday the government of Nauru issued a statement which said: \u201cThe government of Nauru says refugees in the country are in no physical danger and stories of locals attacking them are largely fabricated to further political agendas and influence the Australian government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turnbull has previously described the rape allegations as\u00a0\u201cvery alarming\u201d\u00a0and has said Australia is working closely with Nauru to ensure the safety of refugees living on Nauru.<\/p>\n
Under Australia\u2019s harsh border policies, which are supported by both\u00a0the Coalition and the Labor Party, asylum seekers who travel to Australia by boat are banished to offshore detention camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n
Even if found to be refugees they will never be allowed to resettle in Australia because the Liberal and Labor parties say this would encourage more people to get on boats.<\/p>\n
The last recorded boat arrival was June 2014, according to Department of Immigration statistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 23-year-old \u201cvulnerable and traumatised\u201d Somali woman who was raped on Nauru is pleading with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to allow her to come to Australia to have an abortion. The woman, \u201cAbyan\u201d (not her real name)\u00a0is one of two female Somali refugees who have requested help from Australia after being raped on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":892,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}