The mental health plight of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in detention

Children are at risk of physical and psychological injury due to the escalation of war and conflict across the globe. Consequently, children often become refugees with their families, or worse, alone as orphans. Asylum is sought across a diverse range of nations, sometimes close to home and sometimes far away in nations of different language and cultural identity to their own. Many nations impose incarceration in detention centres, and other interceptive immigration practices on asylum seekers (Dudley, Steel, Mares, & Newman, 2012). As refugees, they may then become forcefully displaced and detained as immigrants in a milieu that may be far from the safe, loving, nurturing environment they require for their development. Indeed, persistent symptoms of psychiatric disorders have been reported subsequent to resettlement (Marshall, Schell, Elliott, Berthold, & Chun, 2005), which highlights the protracted impacts of stress, loss, and trauma that face child asylum seekers.