Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s lives are not being valued the same as their non-Indigenous counterparts, advocates claim as the toll of domestic violence continues to mount.
Indigenous women are 31 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of violence, says the Our Watch campaign against domestic violence.
The killings of 12 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women since June represent one-third of domestic violence deaths in that period, it said.
The country is in crisis with Indigenous women hugely over-represented in the toll, says Regan Mitchell, who leads the group’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander strategy against domestic violence.
“For our women – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women – the key driver for men’s violence is the ongoing colonial impacts, which are still very much in play today,” she told AAP.
“The racist structures and systems and attitudes live in every pocket of society, the discrimination our women face, the oppression, and you can see what’s happening now, in 2024, our women’s lives are not being valued in the same way as white women.”
A 61-year-old woman died in hospital on Thursday, following an alleged domestic violence assault in Katherine, bringing the number of women killed in gendered violence incidents in the Northern Territory to eight since June.
Katherine Women’s Information and Legal Service is calling for action.
“We call, again, for all levels of Government to come together and walk alongside the Big Rivers as we work on solutions – for prevention, for response, for healing and for recovery,” it said in a social media post.
Ms Mitchell said it’s a crisis, which has not been taken seriously enough.
“Can you imagine if that was anyone else in another part of the country, and if it was white women, we would be flooded with media about it,” she said.
“There’s no crisis talks, there’s no roundtables for Aboriginal women.”
An ongoing inquest into the deaths of four Northern Territory women heard at least 83 women had been killed by domestic violence in the Northern Territory since 2000, with more than 90 per cent Aboriginal.
In August, counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer released 30 proposed recommendations for Coroner Elisabeth Armitage to consider ahead of her findings, including funding increases, indexation for the sector and an overhaul of prison programs.
The coroner is expected to hand down her findings on Monday.
While Ms Mitchell said there’s “no magic quick fix” to the issue of gendered violence, she hopes the recommendations of this inquest are listened to, along with those of a Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children that released its final report in August.
“I have to have hope that these inquiries don’t just happen for nothing, they happen because of such extreme injustices that have happened to our people,” she said.
“These recommendations are rooted in truth and they’re rooted in evidence.
“We’ve got so much evidence from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other people in that space, I have to believe that surely our country is better than this.”
Leave a Reply