CHANGE THE RECORD

"SYSTEMATIC CHILD ABUSE AND RACISM": Four Corners report shows the urgency of raising the age

"SYSTEMATIC CHILD ABUSE AND RACISM": Four Corners report shows the urgency of raising the age

On Monday night, the ABC's Four Corners program exposed the reality of youth incarceration in Australia. Horrifying footage from WA’s youth prison, Banksia Hill, and NT’s Don Dale youth prison reveals systematic abuse of children who are locked up. 


First Nations-led justice coalition Change the Record has condemned the appalling treatment of children in Australian prisons and governments’ collective failure to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14, without exception.


Attributable to Damiya Hayden, Acting Executive Officer at Change the Record:


“Last night we saw horrific footage of Aboriginal children being held in prolonged solitary confinement, dehumanised and insulted, and violently restrained by prison officers in WA’s youth prison, Banksia Hill. As several officers tackled and sat on one First Nations boy, he screamed ‘I’m scared - I can’t breathe’. They could have killed him. 


“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.


“For decades First Nations people have been calling for an end to the incarceration and abuse of children. Australia’s barbaric practice of criminalising children as young as 10 is cruel, inhumane, and degrading. Governments are breaching national and international obligations by allowing and enabling abuse to thrive in these institutions. 


“The Commonwealth, state and territory governments are aware of this. They’ve been handed petitions with over 220,000 signatures from people demanding the age of criminal responsibility be raised to at least 14, with no carve-outs or exemptions. For over 2 years, Attorneys-General have buried a report telling them their legal systems discriminate against marginalised children and families and cause immense harm, and that the age must be raised. This report must be publicly released.


“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.”


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