A Vanuatu child rapist and murderer has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The sentence — one of the harshest penalties ever in Vanuatu’s court history — was handed down to Bob Robert inside a packed courtroom yesterday morning.

Close relatives of the victim said the penalty was satisfactory to the family who gave up everything to take Robert to justice for taking the life of their only daughter, six-year-old Florence Iaruel.

READ MORE: Vanuatu Daily Post editorial – tears for little Florence

Florence’s mother burst into tears when Supreme Court Justice Gustaaf Andrée Wiltens started recalling moments of the final horrific hours that her daughter had to go through, without any help, before her dead body was found near a plantation at Etas in April 18, 2018.

Tomorrow will mark a year since the day Florence was tragically taken from her bereaved family.

“The poor innocent 6-year-old child was abused by Robert, while he was on parole, in ways that most people in our society simply cannot imagine or understand,” Justice Wiltens said.

“The sexual offending was truly depraved and reprehensible conduct.”

‘Boxing skills’
The Supreme Court Judge added: “Prior to using his undoubted boxing skills and experience to end Florence’s life in the most violent way imaginable, Robert treated her in an abominable way for his sexual gratification.”

The court heard that on the evening of April, 17, 2018, and through to dawn of the following morning, Robert had been drinking kava and alcohol.

Just after midnight he entered two separate homes with the intent to criminally offend. At the first house, Robert went to the bedside of a young 9-year-old girl and knelt down over the girl before her mother sounded the alarm.

At the second home, he attempted to enter into a room occupied by a young 4-year-old girl who was sleeping inside. He fled when the mother sounded the alarm again.

Justice Wiltens agreed that Robert’s intention when he entered both houses was to have sex with a young child.

After two failed attempts, Robert went to where Florence was. He admitted to forcing her to go with him with the intention “to have sex with her”.

He blocked her mouth to stop her from crying out loud and took her some distance away from their sleeping house where the sexual offending took place. He then punched her chest repeatedly to end her life, in fear of going back to jail.

Body discovered
Her body was discovered by her uncle and two cousins at about 6am on April 18, near a sandalwood plantation.

A post-mortem examination was conducted by Dr Kaloulgivaki, two days after the killing. The cause of the late victim’s death was certified to be severe hemothorax cause by severe traumatic chest injuries and multiple other traumatic injuries which were caused by blunt force (a pooling of blood in the chest cavity).

“The examination revealed that prior to death, multiple traumatic injuries had been caused by blunt force trauma.”

DNA samples were also collected and matched that of the defendant.

Justice Wiltens acknowledged three mitigating factors. These included a custom ceremony which had been performed on behalf of the defendant. He did not participate in that ceremony.

The judge said the ceremony did not amount to significant mitigation.

Robert had pleaded guilty to all the charges against him. The judge also noted that the pleas were not at the first available opportunity. He had entered his pleas after taking legal advice.

Case a precedent
Justice Wiltens also noted that the defendant cooperated with the police during the investigation period.

The final sentences imposed on Robert are as follows: four years imprisonment on each charge for entering a dwelling house and attempting to enter a dwelling house (charges 1 and 2); for abducting a person under 18 years (charge 3), Robert was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment; for aggravated sexual assault on a child under 15 years (charges 4 and 5), he was sentenced to life imprisonment and for premeditated intentional homicide (charge 6), Robert was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Justice Wiltens said given the gravity of Robert’s offending there was no possibility for any of the sentences to be suspended.

While the defence legal counsel is yet to indicate whether or not it will file an appeal, members of the public have welcomed the Supreme Court decision.

Minutes after the sentence was imposed, the Vanuatu Daily Post observed the massive debate it sparked on social media as members of the public applauded the verdict as a milestone in Vanuatu’s judiciary system after criticising the judicial system for being too lenient with murderers and rapists in the past.

The sentence yesterday also reflects the amendment to the Penal Code [CAP 135] by former Justice Minister Ronald Warsal in 2017, which increases the maximum penalty for unlawful sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 13 years from 14 years in jail to life imprisonment.

This case has set a precedence to any similar case in the future and will also serve as a deterrent message to all offenders.

Richard M. Nanua and Glenda Willie are reporters with the Vanuatu Daily Post.

A legal advocacy group has told the UN Human Rights Council that more than 100 asylum seeker and refugee children are living without hope on Nauru.

The Human Rights Law Centre addressed the latest council session in Geneva.

The centre’s Daniel Webb told the council that despite the fact the Australian government was professing its committment to human rights in Geneva, it continued to indefinitely imprison 102 children in its offshore detention centre on Nauru.

“Imprisoned for fleeing the same atrocities our government comes here and condemns. And after five years of detention, these children have now lost hope.

“Some have stopped speaking. Some have stopped eating. A 10-year-old boy recently tried to kill himself.”

Webb said if the detention was not stopped there would be deaths.

He said even the government’s own medical advisers were warning that the situation was untenable.

“Yet the Australian government still refuses to free these kids, and is fighting case after case in our Federal Court to deny them access to urgent medical care. Mr President, we are talking about 102 children.”

Australia presented their concerns regarding human rights around the world at the same session but did not mention their detention camps on Nauru or Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Basic rights for refugee children is an issue troubling some South-East Asian nations. In Indonesia, more than 800 asylum seekers have been identified as children, while in Malaysia, close to 300 children out of the country’s 12,000 asylum seekers are seeking refuge. Jihee Junn looks into the issue for Asia Pacific Report.

With hundreds of children currently in detention in the Asia-Pacific region, a panel of experts has said that ending child detention could be the starting point to help the refugee crisis.

In a discussion hosted by the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN) in Auckland this week, the global campaign to help end child detention was introduced, as well as alternatives to current detention practices in the region.

The End Immigration Detention of Children campaign advocates for support in New Zealand, calling for all refugee, asylum seeker, and irregular migrant children to have basic rights such as the right to be looked after and to be with their parents.

The issue is most prevalent in South-East Asian nations. In Indonesia, more than 800 asylum seekers have been identified as children, while in Malaysia, close to 300 children out of the country’s 12,000 asylum seekers are seeking refuge.

“If you look at the numbers, they’re not massive so we do feel it’s something that is manageable and it could really be a first positive step in advancing refugee protection in South-East Asia,” says Julia Mayerhof, executive officer of the refugee rights network.

Speaking in the context of New Zealand’s potential role in the issue, the chair of APRRN’s Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Working Group, Paul Power, says that the country could use its unique regional position to help with funding or expertise.

“Child detention in the region is a really strategic way to start that conversation [about resettlement]. No one thinks children should be detained and it’s a great starting point for these complex issues.”

Appalling conditions
Speaking from Melbourne where he is now resettled, 26-year old Habib from Afghanistan recalls his experiences in an Indonesian detention centre where he shared the same facilities as many families and children also seeking asylum.

“I think detention of children in Indonesia is not the right thing. It was very overcrowded and it was not actually the right place for them to be.

“We had to bear all kinds of arguments and conflicts because people were sitting together having discussions … I was feeling very sorry for families. For me, I could tolerate some of the arguments, but for the families I think it was very difficult.”

Julia Mayerhof says that such circumstances for children are not unusual.  Children are often faced with poor sanitation, insufficient food, and health issues such as skin diseases and tuberculosis.

“People are sometimes allowed to go outside, while in some detention centres there’s no way to go outside at all so they would never see the daylight,” says Mayerhof.

“No sports, no access to education, so everything that a normal child should have to grow up in a normal way, it doesn’t happen in a detention centre. This is bad for adults but for children it’s even worse.”

Unaccompanied minors
Unaccompanied minors — those travelling without a parent or adult — would often face similar circumstances to what Habib witnessed, although there are exceptions.

“There are a lot of countries where they’d be detained in the same environment as adults,” says Dr Robyn Sampson, senior adviser and research coordinator at the International Detention Coalition (IDC).

“But there are some great examples of countries that do not detain unaccompanied minors because they would be so vulnerable, and the Philippines is a good example. They actually place these children in the mainstream child protection system that they have set up for their own children who don’t have parents or adults to look after them.

“In my opinion, one of the ideal outcomes for these young people is to go into the mainstream protection system that might involve foster care,” says Dr Sampson.

“Another example is when they go into shelters, and that can be good because they are with other young people who have had the same kinds of experiences and may even speak the same language.”

But despite these alternatives, lack of capacity has become a recurring issue, which Dr Sampson cites as one of the main problems with the case management programme in Malaysia.

“This programme is helping to keep these children from being placed in detention in the first place and it’s something that could be expanded in the future.”

“But at this stage, the resources are too low. So although they’re managing to keep children out of detention, they’re not managing to get children who are in detention to be released because they don’t have the capacity.”

Seeking alternatives
In addition to the global number of designated refugees passing the 20 million mark, there are also around 2 million asylum seekers and more than 40 million internally displaced people.

Paul Power says that because of the issue’s scale and complexity, there is simply no single set of solutions. Instead, national, regional, and subregional answers should be sought on particular issues.

“A big problem that the world faces is the tradition of durable solutions for refugees. Voluntary safe return after a conflict has ended and integration in a country of asylum and resettlement are in such short supply,” he says.

“Around 100,000 out of 20 million refugees were resettled. So if you’re waiting on resettlement as the answer to your displacement, you’re going to be waiting two centuries at the back of the mythical queue that many Australian politicians believe.”

Asia and the Middle East stand out as the two regions in the world where most countries have not signed the refugee convention, and with 76 percent of refugees living outside of camps in Asia, the international community must look beyond simply ending detention.

“The situation of refugees in camps is of critical importance and lack of support for people living in these camps is a major factor in the misery of people who’ve sought refuge” says Power.

“But that’s not where most refugees around the world are at. They’re trying to survive in urban settings and most of the international support does not actually take account of that.”

Jihee Junn is a postgraduate student journalist at Auckland University of Technology and is on the Pacific Media Centre’s 2016 Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies course.