Unsurprisingly, the Federal Government’s Malaysian solution has ended up in court. This week, a High Court judge referred the matter to the Full Bench which will now convene in two weeks to hear the legality of the policy, just as the first boats to which it applies arrived on Christmas Island (for a summary of the matter, see here).

In the meantime, the whole program is in abeyance.

This messy policy is the last rabbit-out-of-the-hat option for a government that is trying to manage bulging detention centres, ignored the possibility of a return to Nauru, and embarrassed itself over suggesting that Timor Leste could open a new facility without consulting its government.

Many questions have been raised over Malaysia’s capacity to deal rightly with returned refugees. The local office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has given cautious support for the deal, but they too have raised many questions (see here and here for media reports).

The Minister, Chris Bowen, has been long on rhetoric and short on detail.

Worrying is the apparent lack of special consideration for unaccompanied children, a number of whom have allegedly arrived on recent boats. It seems inconceivable that our government could initiate an action to send unaccompanied children to Malaysia, thereby potentially placing them into the hands of traffickers and an uncertain future. More concerning is the revelation that the Federal Government is the legal guardian of children arriving on boats, in part by virtue of being a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

But one must also question the parents who place their children alone on rickety boats to make the long journey. Anyone who saw newspaper photographs showing the faces of refugees can only sympathise with what they have escaped, especially those coming from Afghanistan, a country wracked with war, corruption, drug dealing, arms-running and human rights abuses. No wonder people want to leave. Sending unaccompanied children is a mark of desperation, but children are safer in the care of their parents in Indonesia, than in a leaky boat making a perilous trip across the sea.

We need to pray that these children will be protected, and that justice will be done for them. We need to relentlessly insist on answers to questions from our politicians and join the chorus of voices seeking their protection. Above all, we need to welcome the stranger who is already with us in detention centres and our communities. Even a return to Nauru would be better than this policy.