It’s hard to believe it. And yet. In Australia, the Queensland state assembly has just adopted a punitive text allowing the same prison sentences to be imposed on 10-year-old children as on adults. A measure taken with the aim of stopping “child crime” which is progressing in this state famous throughout the world for its fabulous Great Barrier Reef, its dream beaches and its surf spots. Behind the postcard lies another reality. In this state where 25% of the population was born abroad, the authorities are facing a skyrocketing rise in juvenile delinquency. The number of child offenders aged 10 to 17 in Queensland increased by 6% year-on-year between June 2022 and June 2023, according to official statistics.
A crime deemed “exceptional” which pushed the conservative Prime Minister of Queensland, David Crisafulli to push for the adoption of a particularly severe text. His administration also recognized that the law was “incompatible” with human rights and that it would likely have a “greater impact” on Aboriginal children. But he decided to ignore it, and was able to count on the support of Labor parliamentarians from the center-left opposition.
Aboriginal children most affected
Human rights defenders are choking in the face of this text accused of disproportionately penalizing Aboriginal children. Australia’s independent Human Rights Legal Center fears it will lead to more children being incarcerated in unsafe watch homes or young offenders’ prisons. “These policies do nothing to address the root causes of youth crime: intergenerational trauma, poverty, systemic racism, insufficient access to safe support services,” said the organization’s national director, Blake Cansdale.
Ann Skelton, chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, expressed her “dismay”: “We do not believe that so-called exceptional circumstances justify this blatant disregard for children’s rights, nor that it will safer Queensland,” she said. She found it “staggering” that the Queensland Attorney General himself had acknowledged that the text’s harshest penalties would violate several provisions of international law.
The Attorney General, however, estimated, in a notice to parliamentarians, that “the exceptional situation in terms of juvenile crime” made it possible to “ignore” a 2019 Australian law on human rights.