Reparation takes into account the measures intended to restore a community of loss, harm, and damages suffered because of an action. The suffering experienced by the indigenous people in the past and even in the present has been identified as the violation of human rights. The purpose of reparation is to provide justice to the indigenous people by removing and addressing the consequences they suffered. Lenzerini (2008) points out the historical injustices, to include acts of genocide, slavery, dispossession of lands, and general acts of discrimination. We try to determine whether the law can provide justice for indigenous peoples for the historical wrongs they suffered. The study takes into consideration the status of indigenous people in …show more content…
Even though slavery was different among Aboriginal people, Aboriginal together with African- Americans faced racial discrimination and violence. Most of the harms against Aboriginal peoples in Australia and North America relied on the law of legitimacy. Most harm aimed at destroying indigenous cultures. Cunneen (2005) acknowledges that cultural harms included issues like; colonial laws, denial of basic citizenship rights, and forced the removal of children. Inquiry indicated that 10% of Indigenous children were removed from their homes under state sanctioned policies in Australia from 1910 to 1970. The Indigenous children were not cared the same way as non-indigenous children. Racial discrimination thus provides a good reason for …show more content…
They need to be seen, not as a cost to be borne, but as an investment for the future of the whole country. It is considered that the international law is ready to redress the violation of human rights. The United Nations General Assembly passed a Declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples in September 2007, indicating the commitment to addressing historical injustices. Establishment of reparations tribunal will enable the victims’ matters to be heard in a dignified and sympathetic manner. The people who suffered the historical injustices need to be apologized to and compensated. There has been a denial of indigenous rights as outlined by (Cunneen, 2005) his article. Cunneen explains that the way Australia Reparations are conducted will not contribute to achieving just
Aboriginal children under 12 were working illegally, with inadequate accommodation and rations, sexual abuse of Aboriginal women, no sanitation or rubbish removal facilities, and limitation to safe drinking water. -(1)- . It was not just the land right issues that triggered this campaign, but also the lack of personal rights and freedom of the Aboriginals that influenced this action.
There have been many unanswered questions in Australia about Aboriginal history. One of these is which government policy towards indigenous people has had the largest impact on Indigenous Australians? Through research the Assimilation Policy had the largest impact upon Indigenous Australians and the three supporting arguments to prove this are the Aborigines losing their rights to freedom, Aboriginal children being removed from their families, and finally the loss of aboriginality.
Parbury (1999:64) states that Aboriginal education “cannot be separated” from the non-Aboriginal attitudes (racially based ethnocentricity that were especially British ie. white and Christian) towards Aborigines, their culture and their very existence. The Mission Schools are an early example of the connection between official education policies and key events in Aboriginal history. Aboriginal children were separated from their parents and placed into these schools which according to McGrath (as cited by Parbury, 1999:66) it was recommended that these establishments be located ‘as far as possible’ from non Aboriginal residents so as to minimize any heathen influence that Aboriginal children might be subject to from their parents. Mission Schools not only prepared Aboriginal youth for the manual labour market but also, adds Parbury (1999:67) their aim was‘to destroy Aboriginal culture and replace it with an Anglo-European work and faith ethic.’ Despite the NSW Public Instruction Act (1880) which made education free, secular and compulsory for all children Aboriginal children could be excluded from public schools based on prevailing dominant group attitudes. Consequently, the NSW Aborigines Protection Act (1909) was introduced as a result of a perceived public education crisis and Laws had already been passed, similar to protectionist type policies. This Act gave the State the power to remove Aboriginal children from their families whereby this period of time has become known as ‘Stolen Generations.’ It was during this time that Aboriginal children were segregated from mainstream schools. (Parbury, 1999; Lippman, 1994).
Indigenous People. In evaluating the Legal System’s response to Indigenous People and it’s achieving of justice, an outline of the history of Indigenous Australians - before and during settlement - as well as their status in Australian society today must be made. The dispossession of their land and culture has deprived Indigenous People of economic revenue that the land would have provided if not colonised, as well as their ... ... middle of paper ... ...
United nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples In United Nations. General Assembly, United Nations. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Eds.), . New York: New York : United Nations, 2008.
“After 250 years of enslavement in America, African Americans were still terrorized in Deep South; they were pinned to the ghettos, overcrowded, overcharged, discriminated, and undereducated”. The best solution is to owe them reparations. To aid them out of their unjust inherit status. The novel is based on real life situations of many African Americans that had to face during slave, and post slave era in the United States of America. The purpose is to show that not having reparations for the African Americans lead to many downsides to the nation’s inequalities. In the novel “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, he uses just ethics and remorse obligation, to demonstrate the nation should to pay for the damage done to the black community.
Despite the decreasing inequalities between men and women in both private and public spheres, aboriginal women continue to be oppressed and discriminated against in both. Aboriginal people in Canada are the indigenous group of people that were residing in Canada prior to the European colonization. The term First Nations, Indian and indigenous are used interchangeably when referring to aboriginal people. Prior to the colonization, aboriginal communities used to be matrilineal and the power between men and women were equally balanced. When the European came in contact with the aboriginal, there came a shift in gender role and power control leading towards discrimination against the women. As a consequence of the colonization, the aboriginal women are a dominant group that are constantly subordinated and ignored by the government system of Canada. Thus today, aboriginal women experiences double jeopardy as they belong to more than one disadvantaged group i.e. being women and belonging to aboriginal group. In contemporary world, there are not much of a difference between Aboriginal people and the other minority groups as they face the similar challenges such as gender discrimination, victimization, and experiences injustice towards them. Although aboriginal people are not considered as visible minorities, this population continues to struggle for their existence like any other visible minorities group. Although both aboriginal men and women are being discriminated in our society, the women tends to experience more discrimination in public and private sphere and are constantly the targeted for violence, abuse and are victimized. In addition, many of the problems and violence faced by aborigin...
Barsh, R. 2005. Aboriginal peoples and the justice system: Report of the national round table on Aboriginal justice issues (Book Review). Great Plains Research, 359-362.
The gross over representation of indigenous people in the Australian criminal justice system (CJS) is so disturbingly evident that it is never the source of debate. Rather it is the starting point of discussions centring on the source and solutions to this prominent social, cultural and political issue. Discourse surrounds not only the economic and social disadvantage of indigenous communities, but also the systemic racism and continuing intergenerational trauma resulting for the unjust colonisation of a nation which has profited whites at the detriment to indigenous people throughout history. In respect to the currently CJS, trepidations are raised by indigenous communities around the lack of culturally diverse laws and punishments within the system. The overtly western system does not provide a viable space for indigenous
The rights and freedoms achieved in Australia in the 20th and 21st century can be described as discriminating, dehumanising and unfair against the Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australians have achieved rights and freedoms in their country since the invasion of the English Monarch in 1788 through the exploration and development of laws, referendums and processes. Firstly, this essay will discuss the effects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the Indigenous Australians through dehumanising and discriminating against them. Secondly, this essay will discuss how Indigenous Australians gained citizenship and voting
Within Australia, beginning from approximately the time of European settlement to late 1969, the Aboriginal population of Australia experienced the detrimental effects of the stolen generation. A majority of the abducted children were ’half-castes’, in which they had one white parent and the other of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Following the government policies, the European police and government continued the assimilation of Aboriginal children into ‘white’ society. Oblivious to the destruction and devastation they were causing, the British had believed that they were doing this for “their [Aborigines] own good”, that they were “protecting” them as their families and culture were deemed unfit to raise them. These beliefs caused ...
Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.
Ever since the foundations of modern Australia were laid; there has been a disparity between the health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and rest of the Australian community (Australian human rights commission, n.d.). This essay will discuss how this gap can be traced back to the discriminatory policies enacted by governments towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’s throughout history. Their existing impacts will be examined by considering the social determinants of health. These are the contemporary psycho-social factors which indirectly influence health (Kingsley, Aldous, Townsend, Phillips & Henderson-Wilson, 2009). It will be evaluated how the historic maltreatment of Aboriginal people leads to their existing predicament concerning health.
Colonialism is not the only factor in the oppression of the rights and freedoms of the Indigenous peoples. It is also the bills and laws that have or attempted to have been passed by the government of Canada; effectively removing Indigenous communities from their deserved lands, in an attempt to further advance the non – Indigenous populations development in Canada.
An Australian council speaker tells us " it was standard practice ... children were taken from their homes ... Whole communities were shifted form their home to another part of the country. Aboriginal life has been regulated and supervised at almost every turn. There was no choice." But did the Aboriginal people pose any threat? In almost all cases of racism the people being treated unfairly are the people under threat.