Calls for National Enforcement of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) against Indigenous People's, Asylum seekers and Refugees.
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“United Nations member states rightly criticized Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and questioned why incarceration rates of First Nations peoples remain so high,” said Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “The UN review made it clear that the Australian government hasn’t followed through on some of its key past pledges to the UN Human Rights Council.”
The Universal Periodic Review, begun in 2006, is a comprehensive review of the human rights record of each UN member state conducted every five years. The country under UN review, along with local and international organizations, has the opportunity to contribute reports to inform the review process. Human Rights Watch submitted an assessment of Australia’s record in July.
At the review, countries praised Australia for passing its marriage equality law, and the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), since the last review in 2015. Australia informed this year’s review that it had carried out in full or in part 183 out of 290 recommendations from its 2015 review.
However, more than forty (40), nations questioned Australia’s policies toward asylum seekers and refugees, from Brazil to Germany, South Korea to the US. Among the concerns raised was Australia’s continued use of offshore processing and prolonged detention for asylum seekers. Some countries said that Australia should place a time limit on immigration detention and provide regular judicial review.
“It’s disappointing to see the Australian government doubling down on policies that have caused immense harm to asylum seekers and have been repeatedly condemned by UN officials and other governments,” Pearson said. “While Australia has abandoned its responsibilities towards these people, it’s good to see the rest of the world has not.”
Several countries raised Australia’s continued failure to reduce the significant over-representation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprise twenty-nine percent of Australia’s adult prison population, but just three percent of the national population.
Other concerns raised included the severe inequality experienced by Australia’s First Nations people, and the lack of legal safeguards to protect the rights of journalists, whistleblowers, lawyers, activists, and others making disclosures in the public interest.
Twenty-seven countries urged Australia to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility, currently ten years old, a policy that disproportionately affects Indigenous children. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that countries increase their minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least fourteen years of age.
Australian officials acknowledged that the age of criminal responsibility had been considered but said criminal justice issues were not a federal responsibility but a matter for Australian states and territories. However, under international law, federal governments remain responsible for human rights violations committed at the local level.
“The Australian federal government should show leadership by working with its states and territories to change their laws to raise the age of criminal responsibility and comply with international standards,” Pearson said.
Asylum seekers:
Since November 2013, more than 1,200 refugees and asylum seekers have been transferred to Australia for medical or other reasons. But they remain in limbo, with no permanent visas and little support, under threat of being returned to Nauru or PNG at any time. Even though authorities approved their transfers for medical treatment, they have not received adequate medical care, especially for mental health conditions.
Some of those transferred remain in detention and face restrictions on their movement – some refugees are being held under guard in hotels.
Australia has failed to:
1. Close offshore processing centers and process all asylum seeker claims in a fair, thorough, and transparent manner in Australia.
2. End mandatory detention, introduce reasonable time limits for detention and ensure asylum seekers are only detained as a last resort.
3. Ensure onshore and offshore asylum claims are dealt with thoroughly and promptly, in accordance with the Refugee Convention and subject to judicial review.
4. Amend Australia’s migration processes to allow asylum seekers who arrive by boat to be eligible to apply for permanent protection visas.
Indigenous peoples and Nations
Deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners remains a pervasive problem in Australia. From January 2016 to July 2020 there were at least 48 Indigenous peoples’ deaths in custody according to a database compiled by the Guardian.
The Guardian’s analysis of deaths in the last year shows that “government failures to follow their own procedures and provide appropriate medical care to Indigenous people in custody are major causes of the rising rates of Indigenous people dying in jail.” This is despite Australia’s commitment at the 2015 UPR to address high mortality in prisons (136.200) and close the gap in Indigenous disadvantage by increasing opportunities in health (136.112, 136.127, 136.97, 136.98, 136.107, 136.108). The majority of recommendations from the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody have not been implemented or only partly implemented, according to the government’s own measures.
Australia has failed to:
1. Introduce national policies and strategies to reduce incarceration rates of Indigenous peoples.
2. Ensure that laws, policies, and strategies aimed at reducing Indigenous imprisonment rates are guided by a human rights approach, and are designed in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
3. End the overimprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by repealing punitive bail laws; mandatory sentencing laws; and decriminalizing public drunkenness.
4. End the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in police cells and prisons through legislative safeguards and by urgently establishing independent bodies to oversee the detention conditions and treatment in accordance with Australias' obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Australias' National Child Trafficking Syndicate
Children’s rights
Australia has made little progress on its commitment in the 2015 UPR to “reform the juvenile justice system in conformity with the international standards” and “improve conditions in youth detention facilities” (136.173, 136.175). Indigenous children are 23 times as likely as their non-Indigenous peers to be in detention. Across Australia, around 600 children under the age of 14 are imprisoned each year. Australia states and territories set the age of criminal responsibility at 10.
In 2016, disturbing footage showing the teargassing, hooding, and shackling of children at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in 2014 led to a royal commission into child protection and youth detention in the territory. It found that the Northern Territory’s youth detention centers are “not fit for accommodating, let alone rehabilitating” the children they lock up, and called for their closure.[23] The report recommended that the Northern Territory raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years, and that children below 14 years should only be detained for the most serious offenses.[24]
Australia has failed to:
1. Raise the age of criminal responsibility to a minimum age of at least fourteen years or older.
2. Prohibit the practice of solitary confinement of children.
3. End abuse of children in detention and ensure perpetrators are held to account.
Sources:
1. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/21/australia-address-abuses-raised-un-review
2. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2015/202/11/call-australias-ratification-optional-protocol-convention-against-torture
3.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/04/wa-man-becomes-fifth-indigenous-person-to-die-in-custody-since-start-of-march
- Truth, Justice, Restitution and Reconciliation Commission for Australia, 2021.
The Universal Periodic Review, begun in 2006, is a comprehensive review of the human rights record of each UN member state conducted every five years. The country under UN review, along with local and international organizations, has the opportunity to contribute reports to inform the review process. Human Rights Watch submitted an assessment of Australia’s record in July.
At the review, countries praised Australia for passing its marriage equality law, and the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), since the last review in 2015. Australia informed this year’s review that it had carried out in full or in part 183 out of 290 recommendations from its 2015 review.
However, more than forty (40), nations questioned Australia’s policies toward asylum seekers and refugees, from Brazil to Germany, South Korea to the US. Among the concerns raised was Australia’s continued use of offshore processing and prolonged detention for asylum seekers. Some countries said that Australia should place a time limit on immigration detention and provide regular judicial review.
“It’s disappointing to see the Australian government doubling down on policies that have caused immense harm to asylum seekers and have been repeatedly condemned by UN officials and other governments,” Pearson said. “While Australia has abandoned its responsibilities towards these people, it’s good to see the rest of the world has not.”
Several countries raised Australia’s continued failure to reduce the significant over-representation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprise twenty-nine percent of Australia’s adult prison population, but just three percent of the national population.
Other concerns raised included the severe inequality experienced by Australia’s First Nations people, and the lack of legal safeguards to protect the rights of journalists, whistleblowers, lawyers, activists, and others making disclosures in the public interest.
Twenty-seven countries urged Australia to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility, currently ten years old, a policy that disproportionately affects Indigenous children. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that countries increase their minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least fourteen years of age.
Australian officials acknowledged that the age of criminal responsibility had been considered but said criminal justice issues were not a federal responsibility but a matter for Australian states and territories. However, under international law, federal governments remain responsible for human rights violations committed at the local level.
“The Australian federal government should show leadership by working with its states and territories to change their laws to raise the age of criminal responsibility and comply with international standards,” Pearson said.
Asylum seekers:
Since November 2013, more than 1,200 refugees and asylum seekers have been transferred to Australia for medical or other reasons. But they remain in limbo, with no permanent visas and little support, under threat of being returned to Nauru or PNG at any time. Even though authorities approved their transfers for medical treatment, they have not received adequate medical care, especially for mental health conditions.
Some of those transferred remain in detention and face restrictions on their movement – some refugees are being held under guard in hotels.
Australia has failed to:
1. Close offshore processing centers and process all asylum seeker claims in a fair, thorough, and transparent manner in Australia.
2. End mandatory detention, introduce reasonable time limits for detention and ensure asylum seekers are only detained as a last resort.
3. Ensure onshore and offshore asylum claims are dealt with thoroughly and promptly, in accordance with the Refugee Convention and subject to judicial review.
4. Amend Australia’s migration processes to allow asylum seekers who arrive by boat to be eligible to apply for permanent protection visas.
Indigenous peoples and Nations
Deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners remains a pervasive problem in Australia. From January 2016 to July 2020 there were at least 48 Indigenous peoples’ deaths in custody according to a database compiled by the Guardian.
The Guardian’s analysis of deaths in the last year shows that “government failures to follow their own procedures and provide appropriate medical care to Indigenous people in custody are major causes of the rising rates of Indigenous people dying in jail.” This is despite Australia’s commitment at the 2015 UPR to address high mortality in prisons (136.200) and close the gap in Indigenous disadvantage by increasing opportunities in health (136.112, 136.127, 136.97, 136.98, 136.107, 136.108). The majority of recommendations from the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody have not been implemented or only partly implemented, according to the government’s own measures.
Australia has failed to:
1. Introduce national policies and strategies to reduce incarceration rates of Indigenous peoples.
2. Ensure that laws, policies, and strategies aimed at reducing Indigenous imprisonment rates are guided by a human rights approach, and are designed in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
3. End the overimprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by repealing punitive bail laws; mandatory sentencing laws; and decriminalizing public drunkenness.
4. End the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in police cells and prisons through legislative safeguards and by urgently establishing independent bodies to oversee the detention conditions and treatment in accordance with Australias' obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Australias' National Child Trafficking Syndicate
Children’s rights
Australia has made little progress on its commitment in the 2015 UPR to “reform the juvenile justice system in conformity with the international standards” and “improve conditions in youth detention facilities” (136.173, 136.175). Indigenous children are 23 times as likely as their non-Indigenous peers to be in detention. Across Australia, around 600 children under the age of 14 are imprisoned each year. Australia states and territories set the age of criminal responsibility at 10.
In 2016, disturbing footage showing the teargassing, hooding, and shackling of children at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in 2014 led to a royal commission into child protection and youth detention in the territory. It found that the Northern Territory’s youth detention centers are “not fit for accommodating, let alone rehabilitating” the children they lock up, and called for their closure.[23] The report recommended that the Northern Territory raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years, and that children below 14 years should only be detained for the most serious offenses.[24]
Australia has failed to:
1. Raise the age of criminal responsibility to a minimum age of at least fourteen years or older.
2. Prohibit the practice of solitary confinement of children.
3. End abuse of children in detention and ensure perpetrators are held to account.
Sources:
1. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/21/australia-address-abuses-raised-un-review
2. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2015/202/11/call-australias-ratification-optional-protocol-convention-against-torture
3.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/04/wa-man-becomes-fifth-indigenous-person-to-die-in-custody-since-start-of-march
- Truth, Justice, Restitution and Reconciliation Commission for Australia, 2021.
Fundraising For
Deborah-May Torrens
Fundraising to educate on the Ten Stages of Genocide. All funds go directly towards advertising, ordering and purchasing educational training materials from well-known Genocide Scholars from Israel, Amenia, South Africa also from Germany who have vast knowledge experience on Genocide studies.Funds Banked To
Deborah-May Torrens
SINCE Apr 2021
1
Donations
$5 raised
TARGET $2,000
Please support this cause
$
AUD
Fundraising For
Deborah-May Torrens
Fundraising to educate on the Ten Stages of Genocide. All funds go directly towards advertising, ordering and purchasing educational training materials from well-known Genocide Scholars from Israel, Amenia, South Africa also from Germany who have vast knowledge experience on Genocide studies.Funds Banked To
Deborah-May Torrens
SINCE Apr 2021
1
Donations