{"id":932481,"date":"2026-10-18T10:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T10:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/932481\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T10:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T10:22:15","slug":"indigenous-woman-shackled-to-hospital-bed-while-in-labour-in-queensland-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/932481\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous woman shackled to hospital bed while in labour in Queensland | Prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

An incarcerated Indigenous woman was shackled to a hospital bed in Queensland<\/a> while she was in labour last weekend, an advocacy group has said.<\/p>\n

The birth happened just days before Labor and the Coalition blocked a bill to ban the \u201cbarbaric practice\u201d of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Debbie Kilroy, the chief executive officer of advocacy group Sisters Inside, said an Aboriginal woman who gave birth via caesarean section to a premature baby on the weekend and was still in hospital had been \u201cshackled on and off since she came into the hospital\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hospital staff rang Sisters Inside after trying everything they could to get the shackles removed, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were even crying because prison staff wouldn\u2019t remove the shackles.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Queensland corrective services spokesperson said the incident would be reviewed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis incident will be subject to an internal review as restraints are only ever to be used as a last resort on pregnant prisoners where necessary to maintain public safety,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

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Lidia Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman and independent senator for Victoria, introduced bills to the Senate this week to ban shackling and to stop children being strip-searched.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The] people sitting in this room have the power to end these barbaric, inhumane, traumatic and totally unnecessary practices,\u201d Thorpe said.<\/p>\n

As part of the UN, Australia has signed on to the Bangkok rules<\/a> on the treatment of female prisoners, which state that prison should be a last resort for pregnant women and that \u201cinstruments of restraint shall never be used on women during labour, during birth and immediately after birth\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the government said this week<\/a> the criminal justice system was a matter for the states and territories while the Coalition said it understood the intent of the bill but would not support its passage.<\/p>\n

The Queensland Liberal senator Paul Scarr broke ranks to say he was \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d about the practice and would raise it with the Queensland attorney general.<\/p>\n

Kilroy said the woman in the Queensland hospital had been \u201cspiralling\u201d before the shackles were removed on Friday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAs soon as she was shackled her health was deteriorating,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMum wasn\u2019t running anywhere, mum wasn\u2019t being violent.\u201d<\/p>\n

An inquiry into Thorpe\u2019s bill heard about women having one leg and one arm shackled, with only one arm available to hold their newborn.<\/p>\n

Thorpe said on Friday that \u201cthe Albanese government had the opportunity to take a stand against this barbaric practice\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, they voted to allow it to continue. Not a day later, we hear of another harrowing case,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Thorpe said it was \u201ca joke\u201d for the commonwealth to leave it to states and territories because they \u201chave the constitutional power to establish a national standard and they are choosing not to use it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead they continue to handball this issue to jurisdictions that have repeatedly failed to stop it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many more women and their babies have to go through this horrific experience before the Albanese government acts?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An incarcerated Indigenous woman was shackled to a hospital bed in Queensland while she was in labour last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-932481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=932481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}