Expulsion puts girl's life at risk says lawyer

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Immigration authorities were accused last night by a lawyer for an expelled Sri Lankan teenager of endangering her life.

Philippa Cunningham, who is a trained nurse as well as one of the lawyers for the sexually abused 16-year-old girl, said she believed the authorities and a doctor who cleared her client as fit to fly "did an absolutely dangerous thing".

Associate Immigration Minister Damien O'Connor said the girl's expulsion to Sri Lanka had been done with her welfare in mind, including proper medical supervision before and during the flight.

Representatives of "highly reputable" welfare agencies would also meet her and her grandmother off an aircraft in Sri Lanka, although he had decided against referring her to a state agency which was not considered suitable for her care and protection.

Mr O'Connor also told the Weekend Herald he had reports the girl was "quiet and settled" when she was put on to a Korean Airlines flight on Thursday night, after being driven to Auckland Airport in an ambulance under police escort.

This is in contrast to her demeanour at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, where observers heard her screaming as she was carried into the ambulance.

The minister said he was satisfied her condition had improved since she was examined 10 days ago by a psychiatrist commissioned by his officials.

Former Auckland Starship children's specialist Dr Craig Immelman warned in a report from that assessment that if the girl kept refusing food and liquids, she would "develop renal problems and ultimately face the prospect of death".

But Mr O'Connor said she had since been seen eating and drinking to the point of being declared fit to fly.

Mrs Cunningham said the girl's fluid intake had been "minimal" and a report from the medical practitioner who cleared her to fly, Dr Daniel de Klerk, concentrated on her psychiatric condition rather than an examination of her hydration levels.

"She has hardly eaten or drunk fluids over 15 days and everyone who has seen her comments on her loss of weight."

Dr de Klerk, who works at Middlemore Hospital as a psychiatric registrar but undertook the examination in his private capacity, could not be reached for comment.

Mrs Cunningham said immigration authorities had not responded to her plea for a paediatrician to examine the girl, and she was being accompanied on the trip home by a male psychiatric nurse rather than a doctor.

The girl's other lawyer, Carole Curtis, said the grandmother phoned her in great distress about 1pm yesterday from Seoul to report that the girl was still refusing to drink and having water "pushed" on her.

They were waiting for a connecting flight to Bangkok before continuing to Colombo, where they were expected to land early today.

Mr O'Connor said he had an "absolute assurance" that the girl would be kept safe from any recrimination from male relatives by an agency which would accommodate her in Sri Lanka.

He said the International Organisation for Migrants had undertaken to keep the Government briefed on her welfare but had required help on the ground from another agency to provide a "safe house".

The agency is an international Catholic body nominated by the Catholic Church in this country.

"We have done more than what would normally happen with any repatriated refugee claimant to ensure they are going back to a safe place," he said earlier on National Radio.

But the Auckland Catholic communications director, Lindsay Freer, told the Herald she was surprised to be approached last week by an immigration official who appealed for the church's help in finding a haven for the girl.

"They had tried their own networks but said they had drawn a bit of a blank and wondered if the Catholic Church could help."

She nominated the Catholic agency in Sri Lanka and telephoned staff there to ensure they could care for the girl and refer her to appropriate psychological services.

But it was not until Wednesday, the day before the girl was expelled, that the Immigration Service contacted Mrs Freer again to confirm the agency's suitability.

An organisation which fights child prostitution in Asian tourism, Ecpat, is meanwhile considering asking other groups to join it in lodging a complaint against New Zealand to the United Nations for breaching its convention on the rights of children.

Auckland spokeswoman Denise Ritchie said the haste with which the girl was spirited out of the country gave her no time to pass on an appeal from a sister organisation in Sri Lanka for the girl not to be sent back because of a deficit of safe houses.

A spokesman for the Commissioner for Children, Dr Cindy Kiro, said her jurisdiction did not extend beyond New Zealand, but she intended reviewing the protection entitlement of non-resident minors who ended up here.