TRANSCRIPT
On an average day, there are more than 4,500 children under youth justice supervision across the nation.
More than half [[57 per cent]] of those kids are Indigenous.
In its annual World Watch Report, Human Rights Watch says Australia's treatment of children in the criminal justice system, among other issues, is tarnishing the country's human rights record - and it's not the first time they've called it out.
"It's gone from bad to worse. What we do know as well in Australia is that there's no Human Rights Act. So there's no overarching piece of legislation that puts all the human rights regulations and rules and responsibilities into one place. Australia is the only liberal democracy that doesn't have a Human Rights Act."
That was Daniela Gavshon, the Australian Director of Human Rights Watch, she says the report reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries, and while it's not a scorecard or comparison tool, it does highlight global trends.
"There were 70 elections last year in 2024 across the globe. In many of these elections we saw leaders, autocratic or authoritarian leaders, who had platforms of anti-rights agendas - or agendas that single out or are oppressive against minorities - gaining traction and gaining support. Obviously, that's incredibly concerning and worrying."
She says one of the most concerning events of the past twelve months was the re-election of Donald Trump in the U-S.
"Obviously the election in the US will have a significant impact on the rest of the world, and it is yet to be seen what will happen. But we obviously have seen a Trump presidency before. We take Trump at his word and when he talks about things that he will do, policies he'll implement that will seriously undermine the rights of asylum seekers and migrants or women, we are deeply concerned about that."
However, she says there were some positive movements over the past year too.
"Despite grave human rights violations and war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed, we did see really strong resistance and protests from people within those countries, and that really brings some hope. We saw, for example, in Bangladesh, you had student-led protests that really pushed against the repressive rule of Sheikh Hasina, and eventually led to her fleeing the country and an interim government that is now promising to be far more rights-respecting."
As in previous years, the report acknowledged Australia as a vibrant democracy that mostly protects the civil and political rights of its citizens.
But concerns around Australia's treatment of young people in the criminal justice system, as well as its treatment of asylum seekers, have been flagged as ongoing issues.
"They keep appearing because I think on some level, human rights aren't placed at the forefront of government policy. I think a lot of the time they become politicised. Certainly, we see that with the refugee and asylum seeker issues and the way Australia treats refugees and asylum seekers. Certainly what we've seen is massive backsliding in terms of youth justice."
Over the past year, governments - particularly those in the Northern Territory and Queensland - have run on the back of a tough on crime approach.
Katherine Hayes is the Chief Executive of the Youth Advocacy Centre in Queensland.
She says it reflects a broader trend.
"It's interesting that retribution and punishment have become the predominant narrative here in Queensland, and it's something that's echoed across Australia and even in other countries such as the United States and the UK. And it seems to be a combination of a heightened awareness of local crime through social media, sensationalist reporting, and also this ongoing distrust of institutions like the judiciary and the government."
It's been noted authorities in Queensland continue to detain children in watch houses and the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility in the Northern Territory from 12 to 10 in October last year.
That same month, Northern Territory authorities announced that spit hoods - a head covering that raises human rights concerns - would be again used on children.
Ms Hayes says children that young should not be being locked up.
"Seeing a 10-year-old being locked up in a detention centre or a watch house is absolutely horrific and alarming because these are kids who are still developing and for a 10, 11, 12 or 13-year-old to end up in detention or in the state's custody, there has to be something that's gone seriously wrong in their lives."
In August last year, Australia’s National Children’s Commissioner called for significant changes to how governments approach child justice.
The report, titled 'Help way earlier!’, made 24 recommendations, including raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14, banning solitary confinement, and consistently monitoring all child detention facilities.
Ms Gavshon says raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 in all the states and territories is a crucial first step.
"I think that's something that most human rights groups or all human rights groups would unanimously agree on, both in Australia and globally. It's just an unacceptably low age for criminal responsibility."
However, to achieve that, Ms Hayes says change has to come from a federal level.
"I think in Queensland the climate is very much hostile to children and children's rights. So I'm pessimistic that any kind of human rights approach is going to get any traction in Queensland. I think that we need to have a united federal approach that doesn't focus on tough on crime, but looks at these wicked problems of disadvantage, neglect, child abuse."
The report also criticised Australia's decision to continue sending individuals who attempt to reach the country by boat to offshore detention on the Pacific island of Nauru.
In November, the government passed new laws that grant it the authority to pay third-party countries to accept non-citizens - including recognised refugees - as well as seek jail time for those who resist deportation, and ban phones from detention centres.
"Offshore processing and temporary protection visas were things of the past. They existed under the Howard era, but they were abolished for a reason and they were abolished because it demonstrated that people were suffering under these policies, that people were suffering under the way Australia was treating them. And to see them reintroduced over the past decade and to see people's rights and liberties continue to be curtailed in the way that they have under successive governments has been deeply, deeply, deeply concerning."
That was Sarah Dale, the principal solicitor of the Refugee Advice and Casework Service.
She was part of a legal fight that led to a decision by the UN last week , finding Australia violated a human rights treaty by detaining a group of asylum seekers, including minors, on the remote Pacific island of Nauru even after they were granted refugee status.
She says it's important for Australia to recognise how significant its violations of international laws are.
"If Australia just recognised our obligations, processed people swiftly and supported people as we should, we would be also alleviating a significant amount of suffering, not only for the individuals here in Australia, but globally also."
The report also emphasised Australia should be doing more to protect human rights around the world.
Ms Gavshon says Australia's use of tools such as sanctions is lacking.
"The Australian Government placed sanctions on violent West Bank settlers, on Hamas leaders, on officials from Iran and from Myanmar. But there's a glaring gap in that we have not seen any sanctions on Chinese officials for crimes against humanity that are committed in Xinjiang, in Tibet, and even officials that are responsible for the repressive and massive backsliding we're seeing in Hong Kong."
She says Human Rights Watch has become increasingly concerned about the erosion of international law, calling for more countries to step up when it comes to using the international legal system.
"For example, we saw Gambia and Mexico really being the leaders in pushing for a global treaty on Crimes against Humanity, which is now moving further along to development. We've seen Luxembourg, Sierra Leone working towards advocating for a new treaty on child rights and the rights to education in secondary schools... and that's something that we're going to need to keep seeing in the years ahead."
