Children as young as 9 are among regular cases of attempted suicide by asylum-seekers, a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's mandatory immigration detention system has heard.
Peter Morris, of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), condemned the detention of asylum-seeker families and their children as "a form of child abuse".
Morris, from the AMA's Northern Territory branch, told a sitting of the inquiry in Darwin that he knew of a 9-year-old boy who had recently tried to kill himself, and he was not an isolated case.
"Mandatory detention is medically harmful, violates human rights, has no known beneficial effects and is a waste of money," Morris said.
A federal select committee is conducting hearings into the treatment of asylum-seekers around Australia.