When asked by then Immigration Minister Tony Burke to provide services to asylum seeker children on Nauru in 2013, Save the Children Australia was faced with a clear dilemma. The Government’s policy was a clear breach of international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child. If Save the Children provided services, there was a risk that it may be considered complicit in that breach. On the other hand, Save the Children had significant experience working with refugees and asylum seekers in camps around the world and was confident it could mitigate some of the immediate humanitarian need and have a positive influence on the conditions on Nauru. From August 2013 to October 2015, Save the Children was contracted by the Australian Government to provide welfare, education and recreation services to asylum seekers in Nauru. In this public seminar, Paul Ronalds, CEO of Save the Children Australia, discussed how Save the Children sought to negotiate the dilemmas it faced to ensure it was always acting ‘in the best interests of children’.

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