A National Disgrace: Violence Against Women and Children in Indigenous Communities

Speech

Published in the University of New South Wales Law Journal - 16 August 2002

The people who could have made a difference have failed to intervene to stop innocent women and children being bashed, raped, mutilated and murdered and exposed to forms of violence that have been allowed to escalate to a level that is now a national disgrace.[1]

After decades of turning a blind eye to violence in Indigenous communities, government agencies and community leaders have, over the last few years, begun to examine the problem more rigorously. Evidently, they are beginning to place the same value on the lives and security of Indigenous women and children as they do on those of the rest of the community.

The offensive – and racist – assumption that violence is in some way culturally determined and should therefore be tolerated is being challenged. Violence cannot be explained away or excused as being ‘the Aboriginal way.' While the fear that public scrutiny of the issue might reinforce existing negative stereotypes about Indigenous people has to some extent been realised, communities have decided that the only way to begin the process of reducing violence is to confront it directly. They argue that underpinning responses to violence should be a clear recognition that ‘violence in all its forms, whatever its locale and in any circumstances, in unacceptable, and both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples must work together to help in its eradication.'[2]

This shift in sentiment has been driven largely by women speaking out and refusing to countenance the now devastating levels of abuse experienced in many communities. Reports suggest that no matter who initiates such violence, the women are more likely to be injured or to suffer more severe injury than the men.[3] Women's shelters, where they exist, are often full to overflowing at the end of the week, when drinking binges occur.

As was made clear by the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Task Force on Violence (‘Women's Task Force'), Indigenous women want the violence to stop and do not accept that it is part of everyday life. The Task Force describes the situation as having reached ‘crisis point', a view that is reinforced by official statistics on violent assaults, murders and serious injuries. Dealing with such violence is made more difficult, as the authors of the report point out, because many non-Indigenous people do not encounter such violence in their own lives and find the current level of violence in Indigenous communities ‘difficult to comprehend.'[4] I suspect this includes policy makers and politicians who are still not showing the necessary sense of urgency in working to ameliorate such violence.

In 1991, Maryanne Sam reported that:

Family violence is widespread in our communities. In fact, it is one of the major causes of family breakdown, along with drugs and alcohol. Our women are suffering serious injuries and are fleeing to refuges and shelters in order to get away from the violence. Our kids are running away from home often turning to crime, drugs and alcohol, as well as other substance abuse. Our men are drinking more and more, turning to drugs and gambling as a way of coping with the loss of their families and the deterioration of their traditional roles.[5]

There is abundant evidence that, in many communities, the situation has deteriorated further since she made those observations.[6] For example, both Sutton[7] and Pearson[8] report that in many communities violence has spiralled out of control, reaching almost epidemic proportions. ….

In assessing the causes and cures for such violence, Indigenous leaders have rightly insisted that we must first understand the role that the dispossession and relocation of whole communities and the forced separation of family members has played in generating the sense of hopelessness which is still palpable in many communities. As the Women's Task Force argues , ‘the impact of history cannot be isolated in any discussion of its origins and the consequences of such violence in the lives of Indigenous peoples'.[9]

The wilful denial of the importance of such history by the current Federal Government and their repeated refusal to acknowledge the impact of dispossession, cultural fragmentation and marginalisation means that the solutions they propose under the rhetoric of ‘practical reconciliation' are unlikely to solve the problem.

Failure to accurately analyse the causes and contributing factors of violence will mean that the solutions proffered will be, at best, partial. The contribution of associated social problems including high unemployment, poor mental health, poverty and low educational attainment must also be incorporated into the development of strategies and programs. As the Women's Task Force Report clearly illustrates, there are factors present in Indigenous communities that are not present in non-Indigenous communities: dispossession of land and culture, the separation of children from parents over successive generations and the failure of governments to enforce sanctions against violence, to name but a few..[10] This will mean that such strategies must be tailored to the experiences and circumstances of Indigenous communities in all their variety and complexity.

In addressing so-called ‘domestic' violence, it is important to be aware that it is closely correlated with child abuse. Some surveys indicate that as many as 60 per cent of children of abused mothers are themselves abused by the perpetrator.[11] Children are often the ‘silent' victims of family violence even when they are not themselves the primary victims. In many communities they have no choice but to witness such violence and endure the disruption and mental trauma that result. Poor attendance at school, reduced employment prospects, depression and despair make such children future players in the destructive cycle of abuse and violence. Attention to the special needs of children should feature prominently in violence reduction strategies.

It is obvious that solutions must be devised to deal urgently with violence wherever and whenever it occurs. Different standards of response to violence should not be applied to Indigenous communities. Violence should not be accepted as normal or inevitable just because it occurs between Indigenous people. In addition, the cycle of disadvantage, reinforced as it is with alcohol and substance abuse must be broken. Approaches to solving these problems need to encompass measures to help prevent future violence, as well as the rehabilitation of those damaged by violence and assistance for their families and communities.

Critical to the successful design and implementation of such solutions is a sustained commitment from governments. Few programs delivered to Aboriginal communities in this area, or indeed in any others, have enjoyed the focused attention and commitment from governments necessary to deliver successful outcomes. For instance, after a modest but promising start to family violence prevention programs in the early nineties, the $30 million which had funded ATSIC's Family Violence Intervention Program was lost as a result of the massive cuts to ATSIC's budget in 1996-97.[12] Too often resources are short-lived or delivered as part of a narrowly conceived ‘pilot' which rarely develops into a fully-fledged program. Bizarrely, given their experimental character, such ‘pilots' are rarely evaluated, so it is difficult to get any idea of whether they have actually been useful. Support for staff is often inadequate and there is, as result, high turnover. There is also a desperate need for greater clarification of Commonwealth/State funding arrangements.

Given the severity and pervasiveness of violence in Indigenous communities, a high level of co-ordination between agencies and programs is also essential – health, substance abuse, education, child protection and law enforcement agencies must all be involved, starting at the top. Sadly, this is rarely achieved and instead duplication, poor co-ordination and failure to think beyond departmental and jurisdictional boundaries characterise many of the programs delivered to Indigenous communities. Piecemeal funding decisions, complex accountability requirements and conflicting objectives all contribute to frequent failure and escalate the sense of hopelessness which is all too palpable in some communities. Conversely, successes are not disseminated for wider adoption and ‘good practice' goes unrecognised and unrewarded.

Perhaps the most important prerequisite to produce sustained improvements in violence levels is the involvement of Indigenous people in decision-making at all levels. This depends on effective support for community development, so-called capacity building, including the provision of funds for training Indigenous leaders and staff. Partnerships between government agencies and Indigenous communities should also be developed, committing all parties to specific actions and responsibilities, with agreed and measurable outcomes and performance benchmarks. Self-determination, the target of criticism and, indeed disdain, by the Howard Government and its allies, has not actually been tried in most Indigenous communities. Self-determination or self-rule means being able to effectively control institutions and make major decisions regarding resource allocation, economic and development strategies, not just being left to manage a plethora of complex programs devised and imposed by outsiders. It is nowhere more important to engage Indigenous people in decision-making than in the effort to reduce violence.

There is hope that the tide has turned. Community leaders and most governments are more prepared than they have ever been to acknowledge and act on what Indigenous women have been telling them for many years. There should be no more reports gathering dust and feeding hopelessness. We must all roll up our sleeves and work in partnership to remove the scourge of violence from our Indigenous people and to ensure that the wider community does not continue to add, through their prejudice or indifference, to the burden already carried by the abused.

[1] Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Development (‘DATSIPD'), Queensland, The Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Task Force on Violence Report, 2000.

[2] Ibid.

[3]Ibid

[4] Ibid.

[5] Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, Through Black Eyes: A Handbook of Family Violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities (1991) 1.

[6] Memmott, P., Stacy, R., Chambers, C & Keys, C. Violence in Indigenous Communities. Canberra: Crime Prevention Branch, Attorney General's Department, 2001.

[7] Sutton, P. The Politics of suffering: Indigenous policy in Australia since the 1970s, Anthropological Forum, 11(2), 2001, 125-173.