ABSTRACT
The Report of the Inquest into the Death of Ms Dhu (Perth, 16 December 2016) sparked significant activism regarding the deaths of Indigenous women in police and prison custody. Ms Dhu had been arrested and placed in police custody for defaulting on fines. At the time, she was suffering from a broken rib, caused by her partner, which was slowly turning septic. Despite her cries for help and her obvious pain, medical staff and police officers discredited her complaints and stereotyped her as a ‘junkie’ who was experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Less than 45 hours after being taken into custody, Ms Dhu was pronounced dead. Although Coroner Fogliani found that the police had failed to treat Ms Dhu as a ‘human being’, she did not recommend legal proceedings or investigations against any of the officials, instead concluding that any necessary measures to address the officers’ actions had already been undertaken internally. The Report has been rewritten in an Indigenous voice and is grounded in Indigenous truth-telling and international human rights agreements to which Australia is a signatory. The findings of the rewritten Report speak directly to Indigenous peoples.
