Australia: Disproportionate Removal of Aboriginal Children.

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Western Australia’s child protection authorities are disproportionately removing children from Aboriginal families and placing them in out-of-home care, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Children continue to be removed from their homes nearly two decades after the Australian government issued an apology to First Nations peoples for forcibly removing their children.

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“All I Know Is I Want Them Home”: Disproportionate Removal of Aboriginal Children from Families in Western Australia.

It’s a struggle to get up every day.… I’m just trying to take it one day at a time and not try and think about the long term and all the things I’m going to miss out on because obviously that doesn’t help and just overwhelms me.

I’m going to miss those first words, the first roll over, everything, they’re going to stop me from that first-time normal experience. You go from being a mum and getting used to doing bottles and feeding times … to completely nothing.

― Briana L. (pseudonym), a 36-year-old Aboriginal woman from Perth, Western Australia, whose three-month old son was removed from her care

In March 2024, Briana L. received an email from Western Australia’s child protection authorities informing her they were planning to remove her only child, 3-month-old “Mica,” from her care.

The email came less than a week after the domestic violence refuge where Briana had lived since Mica’s birth evicted them. Child protection workers said they were taking Mica from Briana’s care due to her unstable housing situation, Briana told Human Rights Watch. Days after the email, child protection authorities from the Western Australian Department of Communities took Mica away.

“They never had an issue with my parenting until I didn’t have a roof over my head,” she said. “Just because someone’s homeless we shouldn’t be taking the child off them. You should be offering them more help if anything.”