'Burial Rights' author, Hannah Kent, on motherhood and powerlessness

In January of this year I had a little girl. It is an event I recognise as mundane to the wider world,
but nonetheless miraculous and incandescent to me and my partner. Life-changing, in fact.

There are many things having a child has taught me. I’ve learned all the usual and expected
lessons: how to survive days on the thinnest smearing of sleep; how to clean up the impossible,
Jackson Pollack emissions of an irascible newborn; how to drink a cup of tea whilst also keeping
it an inch out of the reaching grasp of the baby on your lap. I’ve learned about myself (I’m an
optimist). I’ve learned about love (it is no less precious for its abundance).

But my greatest lesson has been of power and powerlessness.

Throughout my daughter’s eight months of life, I have marvelled at her vulnerability, her needful
and unequivocal dependence. I have been overwhelmed, in tandem, with my own power – and
powerlessness – as a parent. I have learned that I would sustain and protect my daughter to the
best of my abilities and circumstances, no matter the cost.

But I have also become acutely aware that, while my love for her is limitless, my power to secure a future of joy for her is not: it is, indeed, limited by ability and circumstance. Her future will be filled with opportunities to play, to learn, to discover the world and find the beauty and wonder in it, largely because of the circumstances of her birth – as a child born into a peaceful and prosperous country – and the power my own privilege grants me to provide her with such opportunities.

It is humbling to realise, then, that had my daughter been born or brought into detention, I
could do everything in my power to try to make her feel safe and loved, and still not protect her
from its cruelty. It is sobering to know that the same country that allows my daughter her right
to physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development, is actively denying these rights to
other children without her privileges.

Eighty-nine children are currently imprisoned on Nauru by the Australian Government. They have done nothing wrong, and yet they are living out a prison sentence without an end date on an island the size of Melbourne Airport. Unlike Nauruans who live there by choice, these children and their
families are not free to come and go at will, nor do they have their own homes, or the comfort of extended family and wider culture.

By keeping these 89 children on Nauru, the Australian Government is in direct violation of the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a convention the Government itself
ratified in 1990. There is overwhelming evidence provided by the Australian Human Rights
Commission that “prolonged detention [has] profoundly negative impacts on the mental and
emotional health and development of children”.

Many children on Nauru have been there for the greater portion of their lives, and the
profundity of their abject misery is clear. This year a 14-year-old girl doused herself in petrol and
attempted to set herself on fire. A 10-year-old boy attempted suicide multiple times. Children are
refusing food and drink, suffering from what is known as ‘resignation syndrome’.

Two years ago, Minister Peter Dutton attempted to criminalise health professionals who spoke about the inhumane conditions suffered by the children and their families on Nauru through the Border Force Act. Had a High Court Challenge and an amendment consequently not been made,
doctors who spoke out risked two years imprisonment.

Earlier this month is was discovered that, when Nauru tightened its media policy and repeatedly refused access to Australian outlets, the Australian government lied to the Australian public by saying that they had not been involved in the restrictions. They had.

Our government has locked up children, attempted to silence the doctors speaking out about
their concerns for these children, and actively prevented our media outlets from reporting on
what is happening.

Power and powerlessness.

You don’t have to be raising a child to empathise with the families on Nauru whose own
children are refusing to eat, drink, or speak; who are powerless to protect their kids from
suffering so acute they would rather set themselves on fire than continue to endure the
degradation, interminable uncertainty and hopelessness of the existence inflicted upon them by
our Government. You don’t have to be a parent to recognise that something must be done.

I may not be able have the kind of power to protect my own daughter from the various
challenges of the wider world that will surely come her way. But I do have the power to teach
her, to the best of my ability, that her good fortune to be born in Australia is exactly that:
circumstantial fortune. I have the power to teach her that all the things she deserves, are
deserved by all children.

The disregard Australian Parliament is showing for the lives and wellbeing of the children and
their families on Nauru is unconscionable. They must bring every child and their family to
Australia by Universal Children’s Day, on November 20. They must act.

Please explain

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