Access to visitors and visiting facility conditions The UN SPT has reported that, across the globe, ‘one of the most pressing concerns for women deprived of their liberty is the situation of their minor children, in particular children of a very young age’.124 The Subcommittee has also found that ‘because women are a minority within the total population of persons deprived of liberty, they are held in very few establishments, which are often located a long way from their families, who therefore have great difficulty in visiting them regularly’.125 The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women has also reported that many women ‘have little meaningful contact with their family members, more especially their children due in large part to women being located a distance from the family and the logistical and financial costs involved in arranging visits’.126 Maintaining meaningful relationships, particularly with children, is important for women in immigration detention. In a prison setting, regular visits from family are a contributing factor to reduced recidivism and reintegration. The New Zealand Office of the Inspectorate has reported that a ‘large body of evidence suggests that maintaining social connections helps prisoners cope with their experience and successfully transition back into society’ and receiving visits from family ‘has been linked to reduced long-term offending’.127 The New South Wales Inspector of Custodial Services has also noted that ‘[r]esearch shows that prisoners who receive visits from a family member are 39% less likely to re-offend than those who do not’.128 In turn, this again helps to indirectly strengthen community safety by reducing recidivism and improving community reintegration. As mentioned earlier in this Report, women in immigration detention can only be accommodated at BRP, VIDC and PIDC. Any women who come into detention from the other states or territories must either be held in a hotel APOD or transferred interstate. The Commonwealth Ombudsman has identified the lack of accommodation options for women as a ‘worrying prospect’ expressing concern that the ‘transfer to more appropriate accommodation interstate would see the women moved away from their children and families, friends, and support networks’.129 One of the submissions the Commission received also observed that ‘[f]amilies facing financial and logistical barriers to interstate travel may find that the inability of children to visit their relative impacts on the legal outcome of custody arrangements.’ The Bangkok Rules stipulate at Rule 4 that ‘[w]omen prisoners shall be allocated, to the extent possible, to prisons close to their home or place of social rehabilitation, taking account of their caretaking responsibilities, as well as the individual woman’s preference and the availability of appropriate programmes and services’.130 At the time of the Commission’s visit, no women residing at BRP had been usually resident in Victoria immediately prior to being detained in immigration detention.131 At VIDC 88.9% of the women detained had been usually resident in New South Wales and at PIDC 66.7% of women had usually been resident in Western Australia immediately prior to being detained in immigration detention.132 For the women who were not able to have family visits due to being detained interstate, the impact was particularly difficult. One woman who had not had contact with her children during her time in immigration detention told the Commission, ‘it’s been two years since the last time I hugged a family member’. Another woman told the Commission she had initially been placed in a hotel APOD in Brisbane and had scheduled to have her first visit from her children before being transferred interstate prior to the visit occurring. She stated, ‘it’s gender discrimination, not being able to see my children after being transferred from Brisbane as they can’t accommodate women’. Women who had received interstate visitors also spoke about the impact of restricted visiting times on their visitors. One woman at BRP told the Commission, ‘[m]y parents came at Christmas for a day to visit, but that is it. I’ve had no other visitors. No one can come. It’s a lot of money to travel to Melbourne for a 2-hour visit’. Another woman at VIDC said, ‘family visits are 1 hour, if you request longer, you get 1 hour 15 minutes only and you cannot go outside. It is not enough if people came all the way from Melbourne’. A woman who had regular visits noted, ‘prison was better for visits, they [children] could come in and spend half the day together’. Another woman at VIDC also stated, ‘[t]he visit times have not reverted back to precovid days. This is disappointing especially to mothers who cannot have extended visits with their children’. Issues and concerns impacting women across the detention network 31