More than 120 Indonesians who say Australia wrongly jailed them as adults – when in fact they were children – have settled a major class action suit.

As a result of the government’s agreement, the victims, who were jailed or prosecuted as people smugglers, will receive more than A$27m (£14m,$17m).

Some of the children detained were as young as 12 at the time of their detention.

There have been a number of cases tied to the Australian government’s asylum seeker policies.

Sam Tierney, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said, “it’s fair to say we’re delighted to have gotten this outcome… this has been a decade in the making.”.

After arriving in Australia on people-smuggling boats, most of the applicants involved in the class action suit were detained on Christmas Island or in Darwin between 2009 and 2012.

As children, they were lured on to the boats by offers of highly paid work, without knowing their destination or that they would be used to transport asylum seekers.

Children found on those boats should have been returned to their home countries rather than charged under Australian law at that time.

However, authorities relied on a now-discredited wrist X-ray analysis to determine the ages of the children, and jailed anyone they thought was older than 18.

According to a landmark 2012 report by the Australian Human Rights Commission, the boys’ rights had been violated numerous times and their cases had been handled incorrectly.

As a result of illegally holding refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island in dangerous conditions, it paid out A$70m in compensation to nearly 1,700 refugees and asylum seekers in 2017.