Voices of Don Dale echoed outside of NT parliament in youth justice protest
The cries of an invisible 11-year-old child echoed outside the NT parliament: ‘Most days I wake up wishing I could go home’. SEE HIS LETTER HERE
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UPDATE, FRI: THE WORDS of an invisible 11-year-old child echoed outside the NT parliament.
“Most days I wake up wishing I could go home,” the Aboriginal boy wrote in a letter after spending three-weeks in Don Dale.
“I get angry at myself, and all I can do to calm myself down is tell myself tomorrow is going to be a better day.”
“Noone wants to listen or help or talk to you when you’re feeling down.
“I don’t have anyone to talk to in my cell … I miss my mum and dad and Nanna and brothers.
“There is spit on the walls and ants everywhere and they don’t care (about) our hygiene and us.
“Some officers are terrible, I feel most of them are only there to make your day worse than it already is.
“I hate Don Dale.”
His Nanna, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, wiped away tears as she read her grandson’s words out to a crowd of 50 protesters calling for the closure of Don Dale on Thursday.
The only representative from the parliamentary chambers was Mulka independent MLA Yingiya Guyula, who condemned his fellow politicians for failing to protect young people in detention.
As a Yolngu man from East Arnhem Land, Mr Guyula said he understood how critical it was for children to be disciplined on Country, in collaboration with Elders and leaders.
“Long before colonisation our children were learning from Country, learning to survive, take up leadership, to learn about who they really are and become those future leaders,” he said.
“I know, I am one of those children and I learnt it this way.
“It made me who I am standing right here.
“Locking up children in Don Dale … it is a waste of time (and) lives and makes people feel like jailbirds.”
INITIAL, THURS: CHANTS calling for the closure of the Territory’s most infamous youth detention centre will ring out on the steps of parliament today.
Demonstrators calling for youth justice reform are expected to gather at noon as politicians sit in the gallery on Thursday.
Rocket Bretherton has lived-experience of the conditions inside Berrimah prison and will be among the protesters calling for children to be moved out of the former maximum security adult prison wing, commonly known as Don Dale.
Ms Bretherton said they were calling for a therapeutic model of care to help rehabilitate the children and break the cycles of reoffending.
“We’re making them angrier … and more traumatised when they come out,” Ms Bretherton said.
“They deserve better than this. The public should be outraged.”
The Thursday protest comes the day after prosecutors dropped all charges against four women who staged a silent protest over controversial youth bail reforms in the Territory parliament.
Sharna Alley, 23, Mililma May, 23, Amelia Luscombe, 31, and Jocelyn Louise Tribe, 33, were each charged with failing to leave government premises in May after they raised their fists in solidarity with children locked up in Don Dale as politicians debated increasingly harsh new bail reforms.
The changes, which were then slammed by human rights bodies as walking back Royal Commission’s recommendations, revoked bail and imprisoned children if they breached their bail conditions.
In reaction to the women’s protests, Speaker Ngaree Ah Kit closed the visitors gallery but the demonstrators stayed put. The court heard the women were dragged out of the gallery by police and security guards.
Nine months after the legislation passed, the youth bail changes have been blamed as a significant factor in the doubling of the number of children currently held in detention. Office of the Children’s Commissioner data revealed there was a 105 per cent increase in the number of children in juvenile detention from 2020 to 2021, including a steep rise of children younger than 14.
On Wednesday prosecutors made an application to Judge Tanya Fong Lim to withdraw the charges against the four activists.
They were due to have their matter heard over a three-day hearing in May.
Barrister Koulla Roussos, who represented Ms Luscombs, said the nine-month legal ordeal was sparked by an “alleged offensive gesture made by four young women in the public gallery”.
“We are heartened, you honour, that three days of valuable court time were not wasted with the continual prosecution of this charge, and welcome the withdrawal of the charges,” Ms Roussos said.
Don Dale parliament protest
When: 12pm, Thursday February 16.
Where: Outside Parliament House
For more details visit the Facebook event here.
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