Next year, the United Nations Human Rights Committee will review whether Australia has complied with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
A Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee has been jointly written by over 40 NGOs and supported by 95 NGOs, including SNAICC. This submission emphasises ongoing discrimination that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and women, in particular, experience. The submission includes key recommendations about diverse issues, including:
- The over representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child protection system
- The over representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and adults in the criminal justice system
- Review of the Northern Territory intervention and its inconsistency with the ICCPR
- Review of Income Management and its disadvantage to Aboriginal people
- Constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
- Implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples
- Violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women
- Improving health standards and life expectancy of Aboriginal peoples
- Increasing funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services
- Addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Deaths in Custody
- Increasing participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in public and political life
- Addressing racially discriminatory policing
- Securing compensation schemes for victims of the Stolen Generations and Stolen wages
- Addressing inhumane treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a disability
