Page 4422 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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Islander women suffer from higher rates of violence, have 32 times higher hospitalisation rates and are 11 times more likely to die from family violence related incidents than non-Aboriginal women.
Issues about care and protection were discussed at length. Aboriginal women living with violence are in a double bind. According to Kym Davison, in 90 per cent of cases the children are removed from the family home because it is not safe. Often the mother is blamed for not providing protection yet she herself is the victim of violence. She is at risk of escalated violence and/or homelessness if she leaves, and very often does not want to report the perpetrator of the violence, due to the longstanding and shameful history of black deaths in custody.
Unsurprisingly, the women just want the violence to stop. They do not unnecessarily want to end their relationships. Their help-seeking from the justice system is confounded by profound feelings of responsibility for their families and communities. They want help for their men, who often feel powerless in a society which has historically excluded them and discriminated against them. They are impacted by intergenerational and transgenerational post-traumatic stress caused by colonisation and forced dispossession of lands, culture and language.
Whilst this is a complex issue, some of the solutions are simpler. They can, should and must be developed and implemented by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. As was said at the forum, “Nothing can be done for us without us.”
Mainstream organisations need to listen and learn to become more responsive to and informed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their families. Removing children is not the answer. Healing families is and healing whole communities is. Responding to domestic and family violence for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities means resourcing the community to respond as they see fit, not us dictating how it should be done.
Consultation after consultation has been done, report after report has been written, recommendations have been made, yet still we seek the views and advice of the Indigenous community. It is just insulting for us to continue to seek guidance from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members without actually setting about implementing and resourcing the recommendations that they have already made. This means really listening and listening sooner; not waiting 10 years, for example, as we did for the government’s response to the We Don’t Shoot Our Wounded report, which was delivered earlier this week after 10 years.
Whilst there is an intention to increase access to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled targeted early support and prevention services for victims, perpetrators and families in the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander agreement, until we see real action in this area they are empty words. It is no wonder that community members are becoming apathetic and dispirited. If we are not careful, there is a risk they will become silent. We, the powerbrokers, will then be complicit, with many others, in the systematic denial of their reality.
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