Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ) director Siyavash Doostkhah slammed the Queensland Government for walking all over children's rights. The announcement today that the Queensland Government will continue to lock up children in adult prisons is simply unacceptable. Queensland children are the only children in Australia to be locked up in adult prisons.

This goes in the face of all the recent child protection reforms in Queensland and Premier Beattie's commitment that during the current term in office, he will focus his Governments' efforts on child protection issues.

Queensland's youth detention centres are better equipped to help young people reintegrated back to normal life. By locking them in adult prisons we are effectively throwing the key away. 

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has been considering Australia's compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In its Concluding Observations handed down in October last year, the Committee recommended Queensland remove 17 year olds from its adult justice system. Queensland's current practice is inconsistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says that 17 year-olds are to be treated as children.

There have been numerous reports raising concern that Queensland continues to treat 17 year-old children as adults rather than juveniles, including:

• the 1988 Kennedy Review Into Corrective Services
• the 1997 Australian Law Reform Commission Report
• the 2002 Youth Justice Conference in Brisbane
• the 2002/03 Annual Report of the President of the Children's Court

Mr Doostkhah said when the Queensland Juvenile Justice Act was introduced in 1992, the legislation provided for the inclusion of 17 year olds in the youth justice system but the Queensland Government has yet to make this a reality.

The "Women in Prison" report by the Anti Discrimination of Queensland released in 2006 also recommended that "the Queensland Government immediately legislates to ensure that the age at which a child reaches adulthood for the purpose of criminal law in Queensland be 18 years. The commission also recommends that it is not in the best interest of 17 year old offenders to be placed in an adult prison, or for correctional authorities to place a female 17 year old offender in a protection unit of an adult prison. The Queensland Government and correctional authorities should take immediate steps to cease this practice."