I’m sitting out on Country – the red dust of the Tiwi Islands clinging to my feet. Here, in Wurrumiyanga, as it is called in the powerful, living language of the Tiwi people, the earth breathes beneath me, rich with story, resilience, and spirit. And yet, this place – so full of life – is met with silence from those in power. Promises drift past like smoke on the horizon. It is an island heavy with wisdom, and weary with waiting.
In a few days, I’ll be flying into another world – our country’s capital, Canberra. I’ll be walking streets, not lined with the faces of families – kids playing, aunties and grandmothers yarning, cousins chasing each other through red dust, generations stitched together in stories and song – but those of immense privilege and power. And during my time up in the islands, one truth becomes painfully clear: the decisions made in the latter city are failing the lives of those in the former.
As I traverse this vast country – from the regional towns of Queensland, through the sunburnt red earth of Alice Springs, down to the windswept shores of Tasmania – I’ve realised one fundamental truth: Australia isn’t just turning its back on these young people. It is denying its obligations under international law.
This is Australia – the country that led global efforts to end apartheid in South Africa, that helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that was among the first to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
So why are we actively denying our responsibility to uphold the very international agreements we have signed, at direct expense of its most vulnerable citizens: our children?
Australia is a signatory to some of the most important human rights treaties in the world. We’ve signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We’ve signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture. These aren’t symbolic gestures. They come with real responsibilities – especially towards our most vulnerable children in detention, care, or crisis.
We signed the treaties. We made the promises; the right to be treated with dignity, the right to safety and protection, the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
But those rights are being violated. Repeatedly.
Australia is failing to uphold the very treaties it helped write. Children as young as 10 are still being locked in watch houses and detention centres for weeks – some in isolation, some without access to education, therapy, or support. Australia continues to have one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility among developed nations, despite repeated calls from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to raise it.
Young people with disabilities are routinely segregated in schools, denied accessible housing, and overrepresented in institutional care settings where abuse has gone unchecked.
First Nations children are being removed from their families at rates higher than during the Stolen Generations.
And young asylum seekers – many of them stateless or unaccompanied – remain in immigration detention for indefinite periods, in direct breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
These international treaties are signed by the Federal Government, not the states and territories. And yet, when it comes time to implement them – to fund protections, to enforce standards, to lead – the federal government seems to disappear.
It’s easy for the Federal government to point fingers at the states and territories, and claim that issues like justice, education and healthcare don’t fall under their remit, and they wash their hands of these problems – and nothing changes. Meanwhile, the states and territories are underfunded, or not acting in the best interest of the children who are being locked in solitary confinement, detained in adult facilities, denied access to basic health care and education.
Let me be clear: this is a breach of international law. At a federal level. And when the UN tried to investigate, Australia said no.
In 2023, the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture suspended its visit to Australia. Why? Because it was denied access to youth detention centres and other facilities where people – including children – are at risk of mistreatment.
This wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a message: Australia will not be held accountable.
We claim to be a rights-respecting democracy. We claim to care about justice. But when the international community knocks on our door, we turn them away, and turn our backs on the young people inside those cells.
In Queensland, we’ve seen the introduction of the “Adult Crime, Adult Time” law, which is a policy that allows children to be sentenced and punished as if they were adults for certain crimes. This flies directly in the face of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Australia has ratified. It is a policy that defies international law.
But when challenged by United Nations experts, the premier of Queensland, David Crisafulli claimed in May that he was not accountable to the UN.
Except we are.
We’re beholden to the tiny kids I’ve seen in shackles or ankle monitors playing in parks. We’re beholden to the teen who joins a gang just to feel part of some kind of family – because they’ve been abandoned by the system. And we’re beholden to international law, whether it’s politically convenient or not.
We can’t keep pretending this is someone else’s problem. The treaties were signed by the Commonwealth. The standards were set by the 193 countries of the United Nations. These promises were made to all of us – yet it is the most vulnerable who now carry the weight of their betrayal.
Our young people deserve a country that keeps its word.
And trust me, the world is watching.
Top photo – Pictured: (Satara Uthayakumaran), Source: (Supplied)
