Released by The Guardian earlier this month, the Nauru files are over 2000 leaked incident reports describing assaults, sexual abuse, self-harm attempts and child abuse endured by asylum seekers in Australia’s detention centre on the island.  

An author of several of the reports is Tobias Gunn, who grew up in Wyndham and attended primary school in Bega. For a year-long period from 2014 he was employed on Nauru as a recreation officer with Save the Children Australia.

“All the children I worked with were severely traumatised,” he said. 

“In Nauru you work in an environment where the rights, health and well-being of children, youth and families are not put first.”

During his rotations he became frustrated how he could only hope to slow the gradual decline of the asylum seekers’ mental health and how his concerns for the children at the centre were being ignored. 

“When we witnessed or a children disclosed an incident of abuse we would report it,” Mr Gunn said. 

“Once the report had been filed I would never hear any result or follow up on its outcomes, whether or not it had been resolved. The response to child abuse is painted clearly in the leaked files; inadequate or absent, 2000 incidents would not occur if it were otherwise.” 

Mr Gunn said the Nauru files were official documents that came from professionals and were not rumours.

“The 2000 documents just represent a snapshot into the everyday occurrences, many documents I have written from minor up to critical incidents involving minors are missing from the leak.   

“There has been no evidence provided that reports have been fabricated by the immigration department.

“Nor has there been any statements or proof from any ex-worker from any service providers that these reports are fabricated, yet there has been over 100 ex-workers who have been prepared to risk two years in jail to say that the reports are true to what they experience and witnessed first-hand.

“All inquiries, reports and staff testimonies support what is laid out in this leak; self-harm is wide-spread and frequent, sexual and physical abuse is endemic. In all of this children, who represented just 18 per cent of those in detention, are critically over-represented making up 50 per cent of incidents in the leaked reports.”