Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

Article 2 states that,Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration without distinctionof any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national orsocial origin, property, birth or other status.The Universal Declaration enumerated a catalogue of human rights to whicheveryone is entitled without any distinction based on race. Indigenous Australianfamilies and children in most States and the Northern Territory were denied equalenjoyment of virtually all the rights recognised by the Universal Declaration, inparticular,• the right to liberty and security of person (Article 3),• the equal protection of the law (Article 7),• the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal in thedetermination of their rights and obligations (Article 10),• freedom from arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home andcorrespondence (Article 12), and• the right to a free elementary education and the right of parents to choose the kind ofeducation to be given to their children (Article 26).From 1950 then the prohibition of systematic racial discrimination on the scaleexperienced by Indigenous Australians was recognised as a rule binding all members ofthe United Nations. The subsequent International Convention on the Elimination of AllForms of Racial Discrimination, finalised in 1965 and ratified by Australian in 1975,simply gave greater precision to what was already acknowledged as an injunction ofinternational law.The [Convention] is, to a large extent, declaratory of the law of the Charter, or, in other words,the basic principles of the convention lay down the law which binds also states which are notparties to the convention, but, as members of the United Nations, are parties to the Charter(Schwelb 1972 page 351).In Australia the prohibition of racial discrimination was disregarded for many moreyears. Legislation continued to provide a different and inferior regime for Indigenouschildren until 1954 in Western Australia, 1957 in Victoria, 1962 in South Australia, 1964in the Northern Territory and 1965 in Queensland. Direct discrimination continuedfollowing the repeal of specific Indigenous legislation as welfare departments continuedto implement the same policies.This level of systematic racial discrimination amounts to a ‘gross violation of humanrights’. While there is no international consensus on the full list of ‘gross violations’,most lists include systematic racial discrimination together with extermination and torture(Dimitrijevic 1992 page 217, International Law Commission 1991, Third Restatement of