Toddler who has lived whole life in detention centre faces separation from mum

Huyen Tran arrived in Australia by boat as an asylum seeker in 2011. There she met Paul and the pair decided to start a family together - they now have an 18-month-old daughter

A toddler who has spent her whole life in a detention centre is now facing being separated from her mother.

Huyen Tran escaped from Vietnam due to religious persecution and arrived in Australia by boat as an asylum seeker in 2011.

There she married a man named Paul and they decided to start a family together.

While pregnant, Huyen was forced into a Melbourne detention centre where she gave birth to her daughter Isabella in March 2018.

The baby and her mother have been in detention ever since.

Isabella, who has never left the facility, is only able to see her father for a short time each day when he visits her and her mum after work.

A Change.org petition says Isabella does not have access to basic health support and her only two regular playmates have been transferred to a different centre.

Ever since, the toddler has lost weight and has had a decreased appetite.

A psychologist has diagnosed Huyen with depression and Isabella with anxiety.

Huyen, a Catholic, was issued a deportation notice in November which could see her sent back to Vietnam, where Catholics are a persecuted minority.

She is now pleading with the government to stay for the sake of her daughter.

Her husband’s visa does not allow him to sponsor his wife and the UN has sent an urgent submission to the Australian government to not deport Huyen while they conduct an investigation, Yahoo News reports.

The Australian government said they will conduct their own separate investigation but have yet to confirm it.

At the moment of publication, over 5,000 people have signed the petition to keep Isabella's mother in Australia.

It reads: "The government has insisted on keeping this family separated and could still send Huyen back to danger, by sending a Catholic woman to a communist, non-religious state where she is already a target."

The Australian Border Force has previously been accused of preventing Isabella from being baptised in a local church, according to The Guardian .

Father Peter Carrucan, a Catholic priest who has been visiting the Melbourne detention centre since 2010, said the Border Force has refused or ignored the request.

“The detention centre is a very unsuitable place for the celebration of baptism,” Carrucan told Guardian Australia.

“The room that’s allocated to us is books and chairs and desks and things, so it’s totally unsuitable to invite people to come and share in the celebration.”

“The church is only five minutes away from the detention centre and in the past we’ve used it for a number of baptisms – not so much for children, mainly for adults.”