http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/sophie-peer/ Sophie Peer is ChilOut’s (Children Out of Immigration Detention) Campaign Director. A career human rights advocate and campaigner, Sophie is thrilled to get paid to do what she’d probably be doing anyway! Other organisations she was lucky enough to call ‘home’ were Amnesty International Australia and the Refugee Council of Australia. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/locking-up-children-is-not-making-us-safer/ Imagine an Australian child is orphaned overseas. The local Government appoints him a legal guardian. The first thing the guardian does is take the boy to jail-like conditions in a remote location where he will stay indefinitely. Would our headlines call this barbaric? Would there be outcry: children shouldn’t be treated this way? Surely he needs a comforting environment, surely there’s a better place for the boy than a detention centre? Why does he need to be so far from people who speak his language, people who could give him some support? Doesn’t he need a carer, maybe a counselor more than a guard? It would no doubt be a scandal. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Sophie Peer) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/locking-up-children-is-not-making-us-safer/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/locking-up-children-is-not-making-us-safer/#item8089 Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:45:38 +0000 Sophie Peer | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-myths-and-reality-of-seeking-asylum/ Just to start: here’s a small taste of current commentary online in Australia: “This disaster was the ‘smoking gun’ of the ALP’s failed ‘border protection policies’ and now the claws are out!” says John. Then there’s Caz “… let’s ALL imagine that we have come out of a war torn country, (that our soldiers are attempting to fix, by the way) and have made it safely to Indonesia where our lives are not in danger and our children are being fed and receiving medical attention…....OK, you with me so far?”  And Caz continues… “As a mother I wouldn’t care if I stayed in the camps for the rest of my life, there is no way I would risk my children’s lives on one of those boats.” feedback@thepunch.com.au (Sophie Peer) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-myths-and-reality-of-seeking-asylum/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-myths-and-reality-of-seeking-asylum/#item4726 Sat, 18 Dec 2010 01:59:47 +0000 Sophie Peer | Author bios | The Punch