Australia’s Children’s Commissioner has criticised the continued detention of an 11 year old asylum seeker from Sri Lanka.

She says the unaccompanied minor is being held, together with two teenage cousins, in “jail like” conditions at Pontville Detention centre near Hobart in the island state of Tasmania.

It’s understoond the Australian Immigration Minister, Tony Burke, is trying to find a place in community detention for the trio.

The National Children’s Commissioner, Megan Mitchell, recently visited the Pontville Detention Centre in Hobart where the 11-year-old Sri Lankan boy is being held.

The child is the youngest unaccompanied minor being detained in Australia and the commissioner wants the child to be moved out of detention.

“I don’t think that detention is an appropriate place for young people generally, especially those who have come to Australia and experienced such significant trauma on the way.”

“And obviously the younger the children are, the more vulnerable they are in those settings,” she said, speaking to Radio Australia.

Megan visited the Pontville Detention Centre, and met with unaccompanied minors today in Adelaide who are being detained there as well. Speaking on conditions unaccompanied minors are living in at Pontville, she said, it’s a fairly bleak environment.

“It is very jail-like, and there are high wire fences all around it and also internal to it.”