GENEVA (Reuters) - A UN 
committee found that Australia violated a human rights treaty by detaining a group of asylum seekers, including minors, on the remote Pacific Island of Nauru even after they were granted refugee status, it said in a statement.
Under Australia’s tough immigration policies, those attempting to reach the country by boat have been sent to detention centers - including on the South Pacific island nation of Nauru - for so-called “offshore processing” since 2013. Such facilities have previously drawn scrutiny from rights groups.
The UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors the legally-binding 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and was asked to consider a complaint by a group of refugees, found that Australia had violated two provisions of the treaty: one on arbitrary detention and one protecting the right to challenge their detention in court.
It asked Australia to provide compensation to the victims and to ensure similar violations do not recur.
“The outsourcing of operations does not absolve States of accountability,” said Committee member Mahjoub El Haiba. “Offshore detention facilities are not human-rights free zones for the State party, which remains bound by the provisions of the Covenant.”
The UN committee finding follows a 2016 petition filed with it by a group of 24 asylum seekers from Middle East, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar who were intercepted while trying to reach Australia by boat in 2013, when they were aged between 14-17 years old.
The group, who were unaccompanied and transferred to Nauru from Christmas Island in 2014, were held in the overcrowded Regional Processing Centre where they lacked access to sufficient water and healthcare, the UN statement said.