Deaths and treatment of incarcerated Indigenous people have been a significant concern in Australia for decades. Broome (2010) writes of detailed harassment and gross over-policing of Indigenous people back in 1990, stating that Aboriginal people, ‘regularly experience racist violence, intimidation, and harassment at the hands of the police’ (p.267). The Human Rights Watch’s (2020) World Report for 2019 states that Aboriginal people comprise 28 percent of the Australian adult prison population, but just two percent of the national population. This issue paper is going to look at the case of Ms. Dhu, 22-year-old Indigenous women, who died in police custody in 2014, after ‘suffering a catastrophic deterioration in her health’ (Perpitch, 2016). It will gather case detail from ABC News reports and the guardian. It will then relate the details of Ms. Dhu’s treatment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), stating that articles one, three, five, seven, nine, and ten were violated while Ms. Dhu was in custody. This paper will finish by evaluating if any social justice has occurred as an outcome of Ms. Dhu’s death.
Yamaji woman Ms. Dhu, 22, dies on her third visit within 48 hours to Hedland Health Campus after complaining of feeling unwell at South Hedland Police Station; family demands answers (Holdaway, 2018, para. 3). Holdaway (2018) explains that Ms. Dhu had been taken into custody two days earlier for unpaid fines before her death on August 4th, 2014. It took until February 4th, 2015 for the Australian Premier to order a coronial investigation into Ms. Dhu’s death, after her grandmother Carol Roe called for an urgent inquest, saying there has been ‘no truth, no justice, no inquiries’ (Holdaway, 2018). November of 2015, the coronial inquest finally began, finding footage showing an unconscious Ms. Dhu being dragged from her cell by police to be thrown into the back of a police vehicle on the morning of her death (Holdaway, 2018). There was also footage of her crying and pleading with the police that she was in pain (Holdaway, 2018). A former sergeant involved in the case stated he believed Ms. Dhu was coming down from drugs and was faking the illness to try and get out of her cell, as well as admitting to referring to her as a ‘junkie’ and telling her ‘to sit this out’ (Holdaway, 2018, para. 17). Ms. Dhu died that day from previously undiagnosed septicemia and pneumonia, caused by an infection from a broken rib (Holdaway, 2018).
In 1948 all individuals were promised a lifetime of dignity, respect, peace, safety, and human flourishing, as it was universally declared that that was an individual’s human right. The United Nations (UN) was established to assist each country in guaranteeing these Human Rights, and in 1948 the UN passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (1996-2012, para.1) described
‘Human rights are inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent, and indivisible’.
Article one of the UDHR (n.d) states, ‘all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood’. Article three then states that ‘everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person’ (UDHR, n.d). Ms. Dhu was stripped of both of the latter Human rights while she was in western Australian police custody. Holdaway (2018, para.17) reported that the person in the cell adjacent to Ms. Dhu told the inquest that ‘officers were laughing at her as she lay in her vomit in the hours before she died’. Article five of the UDHR (n.d.) states, ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment’, and that is exactly how the police offices at South Hedland police station treated Ms. Dhu. The coroner even labeled the police behaviors as ‘inhumane,’ saying Ms. Dhu’s life could have been spared on multiple occasions while in custody (Perpitch, 2016). Articles seven and nine stipulate that all are equal before the law and entitled to equal protection of the law without discrimination and without being subject to arbitrary arrest or detention (UDHR, n.d.). Ms. Dhu received no protection from the law. Perpitch (2016, para.15) quoted the coroner’s statement that ‘The behavior towards Ms. Dhu by several police officers was unprofessional and inhumane. Their behavior was affected by preconception they had formed about her’. According to Article ten of the UDHR (n.d.) Ms. Dhu was entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal. Ms. Dhu never received this hearing because the offices in charge of protecting and upholding Ms. Dhu’s human rights while in custody, in fact, stripped her of multiple human rights, which consequently lead to her death.
Not only did the officers at South Hedland police station have a complete disregard for Ms. Dhu’s Human rights, but the Doctors at Hedland Health Campus disregarded her also (Perpitch, 2016). The first time Ms. Dhu complained of rib pain and was taken to Hedland Health campus, she was discharged back into police custody, with a doctor saying she displayed no signs of infection and diagnosed her with behavioral issues (Perpitch, 2016). When readmitted the following day, her temperature was not taken, neither was a chest X-ray (Perpitch, 2016). Ms. Dhu’s coroner concluded that ‘errors were made and there was a missed opportunity to treat for her infection’, stating ‘on this presentation, antibiotics would have been potentially life-saving for Ms. Dhu’ (Perpitch, 2016). Holdaway (2018) writes that a doctor who examined Ms. Dhu the night before she died, later regarded the situation as a ‘significant failure’. Ms. Dhu was regrettably let down and denied her basic Human Rights by multiple authority figures until her last painful breath.
There was a huge public outcry for justice and change following Ms. Dhu’s death, her uncle yelling ‘she did not deserve to die’ as Ms. Dhu’s family lead a protest in Brisbane against Aboriginal deaths in custody, November 2014 (Holdaway, 2018). Rallies were held across the nation on the first anniversary of Ms. Dhu’s death, as the family was still pleading to know what happened, and for justice, but still to no avail (Holdaway, 2018). The only change Ms. Dhu’s death prompted was for the WA government to announce that ‘lock-ups will be made safer, some low-level offenders will be kept out of jail and youth will be diverted away from custody’ (Holdaway, 2018). According to the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (2019), Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders are among the most incarcerated people in the world, and 56% more at risk of being arbitrarily arrested and detained to this day.
If I was to evaluate the outcome from Ms. Dhu’s death in terms of the theory of social justice, no, no, I do not believe there was any social justice. I also believe there wasn’t much of an ‘outcome’ for Ms. Dhu’s death. No doctors were held accountable. No police officers admitted responsibility or remorse. There was no justice for her, her family, friends, and community. As the statistic above suggests, there is a radical unfairness associated with being Indigenous in society still to this day. Allam, Wahlquist, and Evershed (2019) reported that there had been more than 424 Indigenous deaths in Australian custody since 1991, suggesting that Indigenous human rights have fully yet to improve.
This issue paper discussed the gross negligence and inhumane treatment-imposed on Ms. Dhu, a 22-year-old Indigenous woman while in south Hedland police custody and at Hedland health campus in 2014. It then discussed the apparent disregard for a multiple of Ms. Dhu’s Human rights that led her to die in custody, pleading to be heard and helped. It then discusses the lack of change as an outcome to Ms. Dhu’s death and asserts that no social justice was reached. Treatment of Indigenous Australians concerning their human rights has yet to be seen as actively improving on a national level.
References –
Allam, L., Wahlquist, C., & Evershed, N. (2019). Indigenous deaths in custody worsen in year of tracking by Deaths Inside project. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/23/indigenous-deaths-in-custody- worsen-over-year-of-tracking-by-deaths-inside-project
Broome, R. (2010). Aboriginal Australians: A history since 1788. (4th ed.). Crows nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Holdaway, S. (2018). Ms Dhu death in custody: A family’s long search for answers. ABCNews. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-16/how-the-ms-dhu-death-in- custody-case-unfolded/8119806?nw=0
Human Rights Measurement Initiative. (2019). Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders suffer human right violations in Australia. Retrieved from https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/aboriginal-people-and-torres-strait-islanders-suffer- human-rights-violations-in-australia/
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (1996-2012), Universal Declaration of Human Rights, retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx
Perpitch, N. (2019) Ms Dhu inquest: Coroner criticizes ‘inhumane’ WA police treatment before death in custody. ABCNews. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12- 16/ms-dhu-inquest-coroner-slams-police-over-death-in-custody/8122898
The Humans Rights Watch. (2020) World Report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/australia#2c9b66
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (n.d.) Preamble. Retrieved from https://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/m2/pluginfile.php/2516369/mod_resource/content/0/UD HR%20Articles.pdf
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