Call for urgent national action after UN raises ‘grave concerns’ about treatment of Indigenous children

The Australian Human Rights Commission has called for urgent national action after a United Nations committee raised “grave concerns” about the treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australia’s criminal justice system.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concern about the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in detention and the use of harsh adult penalties on children as young as 10.

The committee noted Indigenous children make up about 65 per cent of children in detention despite being about 6.5 per cent of Australia’s child population. It also raised concerns about racial profiling, over-policing, high remand rates and harsh conditions in detention, including prolonged solitary confinement, ill-treatment and spit-hoods.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss, National Children’s Commissioner Deb Tsorbaris and Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman urged governments to respond to the committee’s recommendations, implement the Commission’s Help Way Earlier report and endorse the National Anti-Racism Framework.

Kiss said the findings reinforced longstanding calls to address racism in policing and justice systems.

“Governments must invest in prevention to stop First Peoples from entering the justice system in the first place” Ms Kiss said.

She said governments were allowing children as young as 10, especially First Nations children, to be subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment in detention.

Ms Tsorbaris said Australia’s current approach to detention was failing to protect children’s rights and wellbeing, and called for investment in supports that address poverty, insecure housing, disadvantage, racism and intergenerational trauma.

“Our current approach to detention does not make children safer and contributes to more crime, not less,” she said.

Mr Sivaraman said the committee’s statement should be a wake-up call for Australia, saying discriminatory policies and entrenched inequality were driving the outcomes.

“The UN Committee’s statement should be a wake-up call for Australia,” he said.

The Commission said urgent actions include raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 in all jurisdictions, setting national standards for child justice and detention and legislating that children be detained only as a last resort.