Australia's UN Involvement and Minority Mistreatment

Australia boasts an admirable history of involvement with the United Nations, being one of its founding members in 1945, as well as drafting, and assenting to, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, despite these notable humanitarian endeavours, Australia’s treatment of minority groups, namely Aboriginals and asylum seekers, has been anything but humane. Australia’s praiseworthy association with the United Nations, and its efforts in peace-keeping operations, are belied by degrading treatment of its Indigenous populace, and callous conduct towards asylum seekers.

The separation of ‘the stolen generation’ is a gross violation of Article 1 of the UDHR. The magnitude of this breach is apparent, not just in its contempt for Aboriginal

freedom and dignity, the very essence of the first article, but also in the vast number of Aboriginal children affected. A survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1994 stated that 10% of Aboriginal people aged over 25 had been removed from their families in childhood. It is estimated that between 1883 and 1969 more than 6,200 children were stolen in NSW alone. These numbers betray the vast ramifications of the stolen generation upon the Aboriginal community. The iniquity of this act is furthered by the widespread stories of abuse and neglect occurring in the ‘homes’ where the children were held, further transgressing other articles of the UDHR. Girl’s homes such as the Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls’ Home were notorious for accounts of child sexual abuse, whilst boy’s homes, such as the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Home, often offered such poor working conditions as to be akin to child slave-labour. The extent of children affected as part of the ‘stolen generation,’ and the pitiful conditions they were subjected to, show that the Australian Government’s treatment of the ‘stolen generation’ was a salient infraction of the UDHR, and vindicated Ex-Prime Minister John Howard’s words, when he said: “the greatest blemish and stain on the Australian national story is our treatment of the indigenous people.”

The ‘Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER)’ is a stark contravention of article 17 of the UDHR, and allows the government to arbitrarily deprive Aboriginal people of their property and freedom. The consequences this has had are visible throughout all aspects of the aboriginal community. There has been a 14% increase in Aboriginal unemployment, largely due to an NTER precipitated decline in ‘Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP).’ Despite the NTER’s ‘chief aim’ being domestic security, chiefly for children, police reported incidents in ‘prescribed area’ have dramatically increased since the intervention - from 939 in 2010 to 1109 in 2011. Alcoholism has also increased in this time period, as has incarceration rates among the Aboriginal peoples. The NTER is clearly shown to have caused more harm than good, by exposing Aboriginal communities to Western problems, whilst obstructing Aboriginal traditions and ceremonies. Its inability to achieve its purpose shows that the NTER was primarily a ‘land grab’ with an ulterior motive of preventing domestic abuse. As respected elder Yingiya Guyula of Arnhem Land decries: “You are forcing us to abandon our culture.” Through the ‘vicious big lie [Journalist Jeff McMullen]’ of the Northern Territory Emergency Response, the Australian government is in clear infringement of article 17 of the UDHR, denying Aboriginal communities land that is rightfully theirs…and theirs alone.

Perhaps the most current of Australia’s breaches of the UDHR is the transgression of article 14, flouted through the execrable treatment of asylum seekers.

According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, there are 2013 people in immigration detention facilities, and 1189 people in community detention in Australia. This includes 127 children in immigration detention facilities and 642 children in community detention. These statistics are indicative of the scale of refugees displaced by the government’s pejorative policies, and allude to the breadth of injustices inflicted upon the most vulnerable people of all. Indeed the depth of these injustices is most apparent at the infamous detention centres themselves. Indefinite detention is not just psychologically depressing, the conditions at the detention centres are violations of not just article 14, but also article 5 of the UDHR, with the ‘United Nations Special Rapportuer on Torture’ finding that harsh conditions and merciless violence in detention centres such as those on Manus island are in shocking violation of the Convention Against Torture, ratified by Australia. Such international decrial is a clear sign that Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is in breach of the UDHR. The conditions that infants and children in these detention centres are subject to present further breaches of the UDHR, this time contravening the convention on ‘The Rights of a Child.’ The Australian government’s inhumane handling of asylum seekers is a stark violation of articles 5 and 14 of the UN, and its transgression of the convention of ‘The Rights of a Child’ educed denouncement from the UN, defaming Australia’s involvement with the United

Nations.

Australia has been an influential presence at the United Nations, supplying large financial contributions and making significant military contributions to UN peace-keeping efforts. Despite this veneer of international humanitarianism however, Australia’s mistreatment of its indigenous population, and its unsympathetic attitude towards asylum seekers is indicative of a flagrant breach of many key tenets of the UDHR. Whilst Australia might have a long, deep history of involvement with the United Nations, its humanitarian abuses towards its minority groups renders this history… marred.