New revelations by whistleblowers at the Nauru immigration detention centre highlight rampant abuse, trauma and threats of violence towards refugees.

Risking two years’ imprisonment under the Abbott government’s Border Force Act, health care workers and guards have defied the new laws and spoken out about conditions on the island.

Alanna Mycock, a nurse who had worked on Nauru, described for the ABC’s 7:30 program a horrific scene of a mother being abused by guards in the camp. “We’d seen that she’d been raped there. She was offered more time in the showers for sexual favours”, she said.

Dr David Isaacs also spoke to the program. “I saw a six-year-old girl who tried to hang herself with a fence tie and had marks around her neck. I’ve never seen a child self-harm of that age before.

“It’s child abuse. Putting children in detention is child abuse … our government is abusing children”, he said.

In a chilling scene captured on a hidden video camera, security guards discussed shooting asylum seekers just prior to the riots that broke out in 2013.

Guard 1: “Yeah, yeah, as soon as the cop tells you what to do, you can do it … Now I don’t understand Nauruan, so I’m just gonna say he told me to do everything.”

Guard 2: “I’m pretty sure he said shoot that guy. I’m fairly confident he gave me that order.”

A current Senate inquiry into the conditions on the island has heard that the private companies running the facilities, Transfield and Wilson Security, are attempting to cover up their role in the abuse. The companies claim that staff are trained to report abuse through a hotline. But those speaking out say that they have never heard of such a thing.

Despite the limited amount of information available, it is clear that in order to stop the abuse and human rights violations, Nauru, and the other refugee camps, must be shut down.