Australia set to be questioned by United Nations anti-torture watchdog this week
This week, the Australian Government is set to be questioned by the United Nations anti-torture watchdog on its compliance with the UN’s anti-torture treaty - the Convention Against Torture.
Change the Record, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services and the Human Rights Law Centre have briefed the Committee overseeing Australia’s compliance with the anti-torture treaty, and call on the Albanese Government to end human rights abuses behind bars ahead of the country’s report being considered this week.
Australia’s review by the United Nations is happening at a time when Australia’s youth justice system is in a state of crisis. As seen on Four Corners last night, mistreatment of children as young as 10 is rife in youth prisons like Banksia Hill in Western Australia. This comes six years after the TV program exposed the brutal treatment of children inside the NT’s Don Dale youth prison.
The review also comes a few weeks after the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture was forced to suspend their visit to Australia. In clear breach of Australia’s obligations owed pursuant to the UN’s anti-torture protocol, the team of independent experts suspended their first visit to Australia after being denied access to places of detention in New South Wales and mental health wards in Queensland.
The coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, legal and advocacy organisations call on the anti-torture watchdog to recommend that all levels of government across Australia:
End mass imprisonment, starting with raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14 years old and fixing dangerous bail laws;
Prohibit the detention of children in adult prisons and police watch houses;
Ban the barbaric use of solitary confinement; routine strip searching and spit hoods;
Implement best practice and independent oversight of places of detention in order to shine a light on mistreatment and help prevent human rights abuses in the first place.
Jamie McConnachie, Executive Officer at the NATSILS, said:
“We are in a pivotal moment in history and there is potential to go beyond the empty gestures of the past. We call upon this Australian Government to abolish policies and procedures that acquiesce to the inhumane treatment of those in prison and closed environments. It is a fundamental issue of rights and freedoms. There must be a political will nationally and internationally to avoid what is senseless and preventable.”
Damiya Hayden, Policy Lead at Change The Record, said:
“Last night on Four Corners we saw footage of Aboriginal children being held in prolonged solitary confinement, dehumanised and insulted, and violently restrained by prison officers. As several officers tackled and sat on one First Nations boy, he screamed ‘I’m scared - I can’t breathe’. He could have been killed. This is child abuse and racism, systematically perpetrated by Australian governments against First Nations children. First Nations children with disability are disproportionately subjected to these torturous conditions and the trauma they produce.
“It should be untenable that government policy is to discriminate against, punish and hurt children and communities, but that’s what’s happening at the moment. We need federal, state and territory governments to stop criminalising kids, comply with their human rights and police and prison oversight obligations, and support and resource self-determined, strengths-based, caring responses to kids in crisis.”
Monique Hurley, Managing Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, said:
“Australia is in the midst of a mass imprisonment crisis, where human rights abuses are allowed to thrive behind bars. Right now, people are being pipelined into prisons at alarming rates where people with disabilities are tortured in solitary confinement, women routinely strip searched and children as young as 10 years old are caged in prison cells.
“Children belong in schools and playgrounds, never in prison and police cells. Yet children are currently locked away in adult prisons in Western Australia and Victoria. Governments across Australia must support children to live their best lives. This starts with reducing the number of children being pushed into prisons, raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14 years old and fixing dangerous bail laws.
“The United Nations anti-torture watchdog must shine the international spotlight on the human rights abuses permitted in prisons across Australia. This review provides an opportunity for the Albanese government to step up to the plate and show leadership where successive previous governments have failed to end human rights abuses behind bars.”
BACKGROUND
Change The Record, the Human Rights Law Centre and the NATSILS made a joint submission to the Committee Against Torture in respect of Australia’s compliance with the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Convention) which is available here. The submission responds to Australia’s state party report dated 16 January 2019 that is due to be considered by the Committee Against Torture on 15 and 16 November 2022. The Australian government’s appearance before the Committee can be viewed via UN Web TV here.
Media contact:
Thomas Feng 0431 285 275
thomas.feng@hrlc.org.au