Aboriginal leaders have completed a march across Sydney's Central Business District supported by over 20 activist organisations, and over 1500 people, to mark International Human Rights Day.
It marked an annual commemoration of the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on December 10th 1948.
The demonstration in Sydney also marks a year in which institutionalised abuse against Aboriginal children has been exposed to mainstream Australia.
Fighting in Resistance Equally (FIRE), a group based at the Redfern Community Centre, said the march occurs at a time when, "human rights abuses against Aboriginal people are at a crisis point."
Uncle Ken Canning, the chairperson of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, a major organiser of the march, said the event focused on uniting different advocacy and activist groups to stand together.
"Aboriginal people have been saying it for a long time - we're all in the same fight. Whether you're marching for marriage equality, refugee rights or you're our people fighting for sovereignty, if one group is oppressed there is no freedom for anyone."
The Sydney branch of Grandmothers Against Removals initiated the march in response to the increasing amount of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander children being forcibly removed from their families.
In 2014-2015 Child Protection Services reported that 15,455 indigenous children were in out-of-home care. This is a 65 per cent increase since 2008. According to the landmark Bringing Them Home Report, there were 2,419 Indigenous children in out-of-home care in 1993.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indigenous children in Western Australia are 15 times more likely to be removed from their families than non-Indigenous children, in New South Wales they are almost 10 times more likely.
In July, ABC's 'Four Corners' program aired footage of the repeated assault and mistreatment of Indigenous boys at detention centres in the Northern Territory, provoking a Royal Commission into youth abuse at the Don Dale detention centre.
At the time, human rights lawyer Ruth Barson described the treatment of children in the Don Dale juvenile detention centre as, "unequivocally a breach of the Convention Against Torture and Mistreatment, and a breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child."
This week, Dylan Voller's mother said prison guards who were involved in the tear gassing and abuse of her son are working as guards at Darwin Correctional Centre and are tormenting him in the lead-up to him giving evidence at the Royal Commission.
Another focus of the march was Aboriginal deaths in custody, exemplified by the death of David Dungay moments after receiving a sedative injection at the Long Bay Correctional Centre in Sydney in December 2015.
Mr Canning says the media revelations of institutional abuse were not a shock.
"Aboriginal people have known what is going on. What is surprising to me is that the people who perpetrated the abuses are still working in the system."
The Human Rights Day march concluded at Dawes Point Park with cultural dances and speeches. Mr Canning said the march was something the groups he is involved in are planning to escalate.
"We will build on this, and keep working on how we can support each other," he said.
