Indigenous children in Queensland already face a system "geared against them," advocates say, as calls for the government to abandon laws which treat children as adults continue.

Despite criticism from human rights, Indigenous and legal groups, it is expected the LNP government will pass the second iteration of its "adult crime, adult time" laws this week - with the support of Labor - introducing 20 new offences that will see children charged and punished as adults.

The state already incarcerates more First Nations children than anywhere else in the country. On an average day, 70 per cent of the state's youth prison population is Indigenous.

On Tuesday, Amnesty International Australia became the latest in a long line of organisations to condemn the laws, labelling them "openly racist" and "brazenly cruel," arguing they will only "compound the trauma that leads children to offend in the first place".

The human rights organisation said the laws could likely breach Australia's human rights obligations, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child - ratified by Australia in 1990 - which states the arrest and detention of a child must be the absolute last resort, and for the shortest appropriate period of time.

The Queensland Government has admitted the new laws will curtail a child's right to protection from "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" whilst being incarcerated, and they will lead to more Indigenous children in prison.

Amnesty International Australia's Indigenous Rights campaigner, Kacey Teerman, said offending by a child was not an "adult crime" by definition, noting: "Children are not adults."

"Children are prevented from joining the labour force, are not allowed to live by themselves and have special protections in the education and health systems," she said.

"Children must not be treated as adults in the justice system."

When introducing the amendments last month, Youth Justice Minister Laura Gerber acknowledged more children will be held in adult watch houses for "extended" periods whilst simultaneously accepting they are "not appropriate or humane places to detain children, particularly for any lengthy period of time".

In January, it was reported the number of children aged 13 or under being housed in Queensland watch houses has increased by 50 per cent in the past 12 months.

In 2023-24, 120 children aged 10-13 spent at least one night in an adult watch house—a 50 per cent increase from the year previous.

Children and young people aged 10-17 who spent more than four consecutive nights in a watch house rose from 640 to 675 in the same period.

Ms Teerman said Indigenous children were already the most vulnerable and marginalised in the criminal justice system, and face a system "already geared against them".

The Gomeroi woman argued "decades of racism and bias" are woven into the fabric of the criminal justice system and labelled Premier Crisafulli's decision to treat children as adults rather than fund diversionary programs as "completely unconscionable".

"The Crisafulli government have not taken into consideration the significant overrepresentation of children with disabilities in the criminal system," she said.

"This issue is so widespread that the Disability Royal Commission published an entire chapter of its report detailing the extent that the criminal justice system criminalises and then brutalises children with disability, describing it as a national crisis."

This week, two leading UN human rights experts penned an open letter condemning the new laws and labelling them "incompatible with basic child rights".

Furthermore, in an extraordinary statement on Wednesday, more than 100 First Nations leaders argued the Queensland government is trying to "destroy" First Nations youth and families by intentionally removing Indigenous children.

The leaders, including Marcia Langton and Mick Gooda, accused the Queensland government of perpetrating the "ongoing violation of human and cultural rights," in particular, "the targeted harm perpetuated against our children and young people".

"We argue that what is happening in Queensland are egregious breaches of human rights against children, reminiscent of past Queensland Government policies and practices separating children and families," they said.

"We fear that acts are being committed by the State with the intent to destroy our First Nations by forcibly transferring our children from our responsibility out of our care, and out of our communities."