One year on from the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory’s final report and six months into the reform journey, the Northern Territory government is making progress to improve support and services to families experiencing vulnerability and overhaul the child protection and youth justice systems.

Children are already being removed from Indigenous communities at an unprecedented rate. Indigenous children make up 36.9% of children in out-of-home care in Australia, despite being just 3% of the population.

Organisations The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA), and The Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory (APO NT), have come together to develop this report to ensure that the perspectives and circumstances of Aboriginal Children in the Northern Territory are given the attention they demand in the Committee’s next set of concluding observations to Australia.

This report presents information on people aged 10–17 who were in the child protection system and under youth justice supervision from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2017.

The ACT government is currently conducting a review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in the ACT child protection system. This interim report oulines a number of recommendations that have already been made.