Antoinette Braybrook, a Kuku Yalanji woman and CEO of the Aboriginal family violence prevention and legal service Djirra, has delivered a passionate address to the UN Human Rights Council in Switzerland.
Ms Braybrook called for the Australian government to be pressured to address the country's disproportionate incarceration rates of Indigenous women.
“Our women are imprisoned at 21 times the rate [of] other women,” she said.
“We make up 34 per cent of the female prison population, but comprise only 2.2 per cent of the Australian female population.”
“I call on the Human Rights Council to hold the Australian government accountable for the discriminatory incarceration of our people, [and] urge our government to move away from tough on crime and law and order approaches.”
The sentiments were echoed by June Oscar, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice commissioner, who also spoke at the UN Human Rights Council and .
The address came 24 hours after Victoria Coroner agreed to consider whether systemic racism played a role in the .
Ms Braybrook said it was her hope that the Australian government would "stop locking up our people" and "taking our mothers."
“We must abolish laws that target our people, including the law of public drunkenness in Victoria and Queensland,” she told the council.
“Our women are overwhelmingly imprisoned for non-violent offences related to poverty and homelessness.”
