Aboriginal leaders are calling on the United Nations to take urgent action to address Australia’s discriminatory and punitive youth justice policies, due to serious violations of the human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

The complaint has been submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, by Associate Professor Hannah McGlade with the support of the Human Rights Law Centre. It documents Australian federal, state and territory governments’ significant, persistent and escalating racial discrimination and human rights violations against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children including:

• draconian laws and policies in all states and territories, including a dramatic and significant escalation in these policies, which is fuelling a mass incarceration crisis;

• ongoing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of children by criminal legal systems, such as the use of spit hoods, solitary confinement and strip searching; and

• persistent government inaction on independent recommendations for reform, including on the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the National Children’s Commissioner’s landmark ‘Help Way Earlier!’ report in August 2024.

The complaint calls on the UN Committee to find that the Australian Government is in serious violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and must urgently address this crisis.

The complaint has been endorsed by Aboriginal, legal and human rights organisations and experts.

Associate Professor Hannah McGlade, Curtin University, expert member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues and complaint author, said:

“We have made this urgent complaint because Aboriginal children’s lives are on the line. Governments have refused to engage respectfully with Aboriginal people or respect the binding international human rights laws and standards we’ve agreed to. These flagrant breaches of UN treaty law have been underlined by racism and neglect in Australian politics.

“We’re calling on the United Nations Committee to find that Australia’s laws, policies, and government inaction are fuelling a mass incarceration crisis, seriously violate Australia’s human rights obligations and must urgently be addressed.

“There must be accountability and reform, we cannot keep going on this path of destruction, violence and racism towards Indigenous children. Our kids deserve better and our people deserve better.”

Maggie Munn, First Nations Justice Director, Human Rights Law Centre said:

“Australia’s punitive laws and policies are fuelling a mass incarceration crisis and violating the human rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

“Instead of taking action to stop these human rights violations, governments across Australia are introducing and doubling down on deeply punitive laws that will exacerbate the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in police and prison cells.

“Our communities have the solutions. For decades, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have implored governments to take real action on reducing the number of our children behind bars. Governments must urgently invest in self-determined supports that address children’s unmet needs, not prisons.”

Read the full complaint to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination here.