"They're strip searched, even after a c-section." The reality of Indigenous women giving birth in custody.
For many women, giving birth is an incredibly exciting time. A time filled with joy, surrounded by family and loved ones who are supporting you through this journey.
From conception, it is understood by many that women carrying children deserve the best care to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of the mother and baby. Pregnancy can also be highly stressful and anxious, however with the care of the health system and our networks of family and friends, we are often supported through this.
Unfortunately this is not the case for women who are pregnant in custody. Unable to access social, medical and emotional support when required, – the expectant mothers in jail are stripped of the supports we know help many women through the uncertain and important journey of pregnancy/
Adding to the already difficult circumstances these women are placed in, is knowing that for many women, their children will be taken from the almost immediately after giving birth. They will return to custody directly from hospital.
They will be unable to breastfeed or bond wiht their baby through ongoing skin to skin contact. They will be strip searched upon arrival, regardless of whether they have had stitches or a caesarean, then returned to their cell and required to return to work on prison grounds almost immediately.

Three years in the making

Dean Gibson has had enough. In the past three decades, 478 Indigenous people have died while in police custody in this country and while the statistics are shocking, not much is changing. It was not one tragic death that prompted the filmmaker and Guugu Yimithirr man to want to look beyond the headlines to try and understand what was happening but a growing frustration that the same stories kept repeating themselves. … His painstaking work has come together to form the documentary film Incarceration Nation, which lays bare the story of systemic injustice and inequality experienced by First Nations people. Despite representing 3.3 per cent of the Australian population, Indigenous men make up 27 per cent of prisoners and Indigenous women constitute 34 per cent of prisoners. It is hard to erase the stories of people keeling over in pain as they beg for medical attention, struggling to breathe as they are restrained and beaten. Dean Gibson has had enough. In the past three decades, 478 Indigenous people have died while in police custody in this country and while the statistics are shocking, not much is changing. It was not one tragic death that prompted the filmmaker and Guugu Yimithirr man to want to look beyond the headlines to try and understand what was happening but a growing frustration that the same stories kept repeating themselves. … His painstaking work has come together to form the documentary film Incarceration Nation, which lays bare the story of systemic injustice and inequality experienced by First Nations people...

– The West Australian
by Pierra Willix
26 August 2021

Keenan Mundine was a child when he went to jail for the first time. At 14, the young Aboriginal boy was sentenced to time inside and despite going through such a traumatic experience, he has now turned his life around to become a youth justice advocate. His story is one of many told in the harrowing, yet powerful, Incarceration Nation.

Junkee

'Incarceration Nation' is not here to make settlers comfortable

By Merryana Salem
31 August 2021

Custody has infamously been a long and serious issue among Indigenous Australians but even today deaths and other injustices for Indigenous children in custody are still not unheard of or perhaps worse still – not uncommon.

With over 65% of Indigenous children in the ages of 10 – 13 held in the juvenile justice system; that number outweighs all other groups and is a serious indicator that something has gone wrong.

Director and Writer and Gi-uguru Yimithirr man Dean Gibson sheds more light on the issue with his NITIV series Incarceration Nation

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Dean Gibson