NOONGAR ELDER UNCLE BEN TAYLOR CUERMARA CALLS FOR ON-COUNTRY REHABILITATION FOR YOUTH

Uncle Ben Taylor Cuermara. Credit: Miles Tweedie Photography.

Readers and listeners are warned this story contains the name and story of someone who has died.

Hundreds gathered in Boorloo/Perth on Wednesday to call for the Unit 18 child prison to be abolished.

The rally was led by the family of sixteen-year-old Cleveland Dodd, who died in the custody of the youth justice system last week.

Noongar elder Uncle Ben Taylor Cuermara gave the welcome to country at the rally.

Uncle Ben has been fighting for decades to end Aboriginal deaths in custody.

He said children who commit crimes should be rehabilitated on country, rather than being sent into WA’s notorious Banksia Hill and Unit 18 youth detention centres.

“[Cleveland Dodd] should have been out on country,” he said.

“They should have sent him back there, to be with his mob. That’s where he should have went. They brought him all the way down here to Perth, locked him up there where he know nobody, he can’t talk to any countrymen.”

Listen to the full interview with Uncle Ben Taylor Cuermara:

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