"This woman was in the situation that she and her family had fled from Iran --
they were fleeing from Islam, they were fleeing from persecution -- and she
came to Australia unlawfully and was placed in the Curtin detention centre,"
Clugston said.
"She was estranged from her husband and she and her children were placed in a
compound where she was the only woman and the only Mandaean with 50 Muslim
men."
It is alleged that while the woman was at Curtin in Western Australia on July
28, 2002 a man tried to rape her while her nine-year-old daughter looked on, he
said.
The woman immediately complained to her relatives in Sydney and the case was
eventually raised with rights group Amnesty International after the immigration
department failed to act, Clugston said.
The woman is now living in the community on a protection visa.
Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission has investigated
the case and sent the preliminary report to the immigration department.
A department spokeswoman said police investigated the allegations of sexual
assault but no charges were laid. She said the department regretted not moving
the woman into a more appropriate compound at the detention centre.
The department was sharply criticised for inefficiencies and injustices in an
official report released last week, and Prime Minister John Howard apologised
to two women mistreated by immigration officials.
German-born Australian resident Cornelia Rau spent 10 months behind bars as an
illegal immigrant when she should have been receiving treatment for a
psychiatric condition.
Another woman, Vivian Alvarez Solon, was mistakenly deported to the Philippines
in 2001 after officials failed to realise that she was an Australian resident
who had been listed as a missing person.
