The Northern Territory Chief Minister is manufacturing a culture war distraction while presiding over a correctional system in crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Women prisoners in Alice Springs are being held in dangerous, overcrowded conditions without adequate facilities, legal privacy, or safety from male inmates. Instead of dealing with the problem they created, a prison system in overcrowded crisis, the NT government has chosen to target one of the most marginalised groups in our community and attack trans women by putting them in crowded men’s prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Chief Minister told the media \u201cif you\u2019re born a bloke, you go into a men\u2019s prison.\u201d She also said \u201c\u2026we want to make it really clear that if you are a man and you\u2019re fundamentally equipped as a man, if I could put it that way, then you belong in a men\u2019s prison.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greens Senator and Justice Spokesperson David Shoebridge said: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Aboriginal women are being imprisoned at unprecedented rates and held in sweltering, overcrowded conditions without any rehabilitation services. That’s the national crisis and it\u2019s not the gender identity of inmates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is just more bigoted scapegoating from the NT Government while their prison system fails women they have put in jail every single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis dangerous culture war being perpetrated by the NT Government is enabled by the Federal Government who funds 71% of the NT prison system and is therefore directly implicated in this dangerous policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s time to ensure Commonwealth funding comes with the requirement to uphold the human rights and dignity of people in prisons, not just give a blank cheque for the excesses of the NT Government.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greens Senator and LGBTIQA+ spokesperson Nick McKim said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPutting trans women in a men\u2019s prison is a shocking abuse of their human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrans women are women and trans rights are human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrans people need love and support, not to be thrown into danger to pander to far-right culture warriors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greens Member for Nightcliff, Kat McNamara MLA said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Chief Minister is confecting culture wars to distract from the prison crisis unfolding under her rule.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe way the Chief Minister is speaking about trans people is uneducated, offensive and dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrans women experience double the rate of sexual violence from men than the rest of the population. We must ensure their safety in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe CLP government is pouring salt on the wounds of the queer community this week. In the same week they are weakening protections in our anti-discrimination laws, they\u2019re stripping away an essential protection for trans women in the NT.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs one the few openly queer members of the Legislative Assembly, I am devastated for our LGBTQIA+ community this week.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Northern Territory Chief Minister is manufacturing a culture war distraction while presiding over a correctional system in crisis. Women prisoners in Alice Springs are being held in dangerous, overcrowded conditions without adequate facilities, legal privacy, or safety from male inmates. Instead of dealing with the problem they created, a prison system in overcrowded crisis, … Continue reading “NT and Australian Greens Statement on NT prisons”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35404,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35403\/revisions\/35404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}