The road to hell, where children are left to fall through the cracks | Sophie Trevitt

I’m told lawyers aren’t meant to have these fierce, protective feelings for their clients, but the law isn’t meant to torture children either

Who knew the drive to hell would be so beautiful and that hell would be so small?

It’s not far out of town, but it’s far enough away to be deliberate. We drive out towards the airport – through the gap in the red ranges and down the gum-flanked Stuart Highway. The trunks shift from pale and shimmery to rich red and back again as we pass the racecourse, the billboards and the old Ghan Train by the side of the road.

Related: Northern Territory’s youth justice system is a theatre of the absurd and Australia’s great shame | John Lawrence

One boy missed his mum so much his call log shows him making over 100 calls in a month, but her phone doesn’t always work and she also has no car to visit

Related: All children in detention in the Northern Territory are Indigenous

Related: We saw how terribly children were treated in prisons and promised ‘never again’. Now there is just bitter disappointment | Sophie Trevitt

To stand on the edge of genocide is to stand on the edge of the abyss, to be lost forever.

Think of all the people that you know in your life that love you. They’re like tethers. Cut the ties and you are floating with nothing to ground you.

You have no belonging, so some feel you might as well just go.

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ZdrjJM