An incarcerated Indigenous woman was reportedly shackled during a hospital stay earlier this month to deliver her baby by caesarean section in a Queensland hospital in Australia.

Queensland Corrective Services promised an internal review but did not confirm the shackling. Shackling a woman during childbirth contravenes international human rights standards.

The incident happened days before Australia’s two major political parties blocked a vote in parliament on October 14 on a bill to ban the shackling of prisoners during childbirth. United Nations human rights experts criticized the Australian parliament’s failure to vote on the bill.

Prisoners and detainees do not lose their rights to health or to be treated humanely and with dignity.…