Promoting And Protecting The Rights Of Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander People

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Topic: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

The essay analyses universal as well as international documents, covenants and conventions of human rights that summarizes that there is an obligation of governments to promote as well as protecting the human rights along with the liberty of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Additionally, it even evaluates the methods in which the Australian government did not meet the obligations that are under the specific conventions along  articles which promote as well as focus on protecting the human rights along with freedoms within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Finally, it illustrates on different ways through which Australian government have met these obligations under specific  forms of conventions as well as articles that promote as well as  protect human rights as well as  the liberty of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

There is an obligations on  governments to promote as well as to protect all human rights as well as freedoms of a chosen group  that is the obligations of government bodies to act in a specific way or staying put from certain  forms of acts).

Government is obligated to promote as well as protect certain rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as per the various international conventions and covenants (HumanRights.gov, 2007). The universal form of declaration of the human rights through the United Nations has 30 articles that proclaims the common standards of achievement for every person in the planet. The declaration in its first article gives all humans the right of freedom along with equality in dignity and rights and in article 2 forbids any form of discrimination for these rights on the basis of factors like race, colour, language as well as religion or even other factors (ohchr.org, 2013). The third article gives the right to life as well as liberty along with security while article 5 and 7 prohibits degrading and cruel punishment and equality before law. The articles also promote equality of work, employment, standard of living, health and education. They are freed from servitude and have the right to own lands, form communities and follow their own cultural practices.

According to the International Covenant on Economic with Social along with Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the government of Australia must give the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the highest attainable standard in health as well (Queensland Human rights commission, 2019). There are 12 covenants in this document and many of them are applicable the current situation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The United Nations declared of the rights of the Indigenous community is another international convention which specifically focuses on the rights of  Indigenous people globally including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. According to this document, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have the right to enjoy all the rights as others, are free and equal, have the right to self-determination and autonomy, resist forced assimilation (United Nations, 2022). They also have the right to own their media, teach their culture and religious practices and so on.

The Obligations of Governments to Promote and Protect Human Rights

The ways in which the Australian government does not meet some specific obligations under specific types of conventions and articles that can be promoted as well as protect the human rights along with freedoms of   chosen group. Examples that can be taken from the  past and the present legislation as well as policies and  the practices.

The Australian government has not been able to meet most rights of the universal declarations of the human rights. Through the history, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have to face many obstacles and were never treated with dignity. Through history they have been treated as slaves and all of their rights were stripped away from them (Mazel, 2018). There are implicit and explicit racism and systemic racism that reduces the rights enjoyed by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have high representation in the judicial system and they are likely to receive harsher punishment than the whites. They are also not given full right to their ancestral lands and often face difficulty in receiving their ancestral titles (Socha, 2021). There has been policies and legislations that prohibited the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the process of accessing their own lands while also preventing them from taking their own decisions.

The Australian government has not been able to uphold and promote the rights of self-determination and autonomy. The governmental policies and programs regarding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been stated to be paternalistic which has always tried to put the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under control of their legal and political system. There have been policies where the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been denied direct control over their income based off of preventing addiction (Shukry, 2019). The government also has not been able to ensure equality in the employment, health status, education and other economic and political areas of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The methods through which Australian government does fulfills the obligations that are under which specific conventions as well as articles which promote as well protect the human rights as well as freedoms of  the following chosen group. Examples can be based upon the date legislation along with policies and practices. (300)

There are certain measures, policies and laws that protects and promoting the rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as specified by various international conventions and covenants. One of the major examples in that is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 that provides the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people cultural safety (Griffiths et al., 2018). Under this act of the areas as well as objects that have particular significance to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are protected by the commonwealth government. During this time, the Australian government recognised the cultural rights for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and created this legislation which protected their cultural sites and objects.

The Failure of the Australian Government to Meet These Obligations

Another area where the Australian government has been able to work towards promoting the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoplecan be health care. The government spend $14.7 billion for the health care plan of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people where they were provided Medicare, child care benefits, educational support and social security payments (Pyle et al., 2019). This helped the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander public to access healthcare and education and exercise their need to education and health. This expenditure also helped them achieve better health and employment in many areas. Children were also born with better health and infant mortality rates decreased.

Finally, the closing the gap campaign and programs have been one of the largest steps that the government has taken in order to ensure the highest attainable standards in  the  field of healthcare, education as well as employment to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Brolan et al., 2018). Through this campaign, the government has majorly focused on reducing the health status gaps between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the non-Indigenous people in the nation. Since 2008, the government has reduced the gap in life expectantcy, numeracy, employment, educational attainment, mental health status and other areas that will contribute in the promotion and protecting  rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Conclusion

From the given discussion, it is to be stated that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been denied many of the rights as described in various covenants and international conventions such as declaration of the human rights, and UN declaration of  Indigenous rights. The Australian government has not been able to promote as well as protect most of the rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people including the right of self-determination as well as autonomy, their right to equal educational, health and employment attainment and so on. However, through various policies legislations and closing the gap policies, the government has been able to reduce many of the gaps that existed between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia.

References

Brolan, C. E., Herron, L., Carney, A., Fritz, E. M., James, J., & Margetts, M. (2018). A potential human rights act in Queensland and inclusion of the right to health. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 42(2), 120-126.

Griffiths, K., Coleman, C., Al-Yaman, F., Cunningham, J., Garvey, G., Whop, L., … & Madden, R. (2019). The identification of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in official statistics and other data: Critical issues of international significance. Statistical Journal of the IAOS, 35(1), 91-106.

HumanRights.gov. (2007). UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples | Australian Human Rights Commission. Humanrights.gov.au. Retrieved 13 March 2022, from https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/un-declaration-rights-indigenous-peoples-1.

Mazel, O. (2018). Indigenous health and human rights: a reflection on law and culture. International journal of environmental research and public health, 15(4), 789.

ohchr.org. (2013). The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ohchr.org. Retrieved 13 March 2022, from https://www.ohchr.org/documents/issues/ipeoples/undripmanualfornhris.pdf.

Pyle, E., Grant-Smith, D., & Mayes, R. (2019). Deficit discourses and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage: A wicked problem in Australian Indigenous policy?. The management of wicked problems in health and social care (Routledge Studies in Health Management), 148-159.

Queensland Human rights commission. (2019). Cultural rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Qhrc.qld.gov.au. Retrieved 13 March 2022, from https://www.qhrc.qld.gov.au/your-rights/human-rights-law/cultural-rights-of-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples.

Shukry, M. (2019). Harrison’s Stolen: Addressing Aboriginal and Indigenous Islanders Human Rights. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 13(9), 1221-1232.

Socha, A. (2021). Addressing Institutional Racism Against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia in Mainstream Health Services: Insights From Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services. International Journal of Indigenous Health, 16(1).

United Nations. (2022). Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations. United Nations. Retrieved 13 March 2022, from https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.