'No one is keeping count' of murdered Indigenous women

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women haven’t just vanished from their homes, families and country – they have disappeared, an inquiry has been told.

Witness after witness in a Darwin hearing of the Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children on Thursday detailed how racial stereotypes, lack of cultural understanding, inadequate resources, disadvantage and grossly inappropriate policing mean that Indigenous victims of violence are falling through the cracks.

Rachel Neary, coordinator of the Kungas (Women) Stopping Violence Program run by the North Australia Aboriginal Justice Association (NAAJA) in Alice Springs, works with Indigenous women who have been in prison and have a history of violent offending.

She told the inquiry that all the women she works with also have been victims of violence.

“Our clients will tell us regularly that when they’re in prison they feel like they’ve been forgotten and like they don’t exist,” Ms Neary said.

“Though alive, incarceration means they have little or no access to family, country and culture and services.

“They have, for all intents and purposes, also been disappeared.”

The NT has the highest rate of domestic violence in the country, and among the highest in the world. (Aaron Bunch/AAP PHOTOS)

Prison is the antithesis of Aboriginal traditional ways of justice, which are primarily centred around restoring relationships, not isolation, Ms Neary said.

“There are also overlaps with women who have disappeared into alcoholism as a way of dealing with the domestic violence and trauma that they have experienced, often compounded by childhood and adult unresolved grief and trauma,” she said.

“These women are often so isolated and the cycles of attending rehab centres and prisons and living lives with homelessness, experiencing extreme levels of violence.

“As an example, one of our elderly homeless clients who struggles with alcohol dependency, had her eye removed last week following her husband hitting her with a stick and while she’s not murdered or missing, the world around her is slowly disappearing, just like meaningful health has disappeared from her life.”

Dr Chay Brown, a specialist domestic family and sexual violence researcher affiliated with the Australian National University and Tangentyere Council in Alice Springs, said the Northern Territory has the highest rate of domestic violence in the country – and among the highest in the world.

Violence in the NT disproportionately affects First Nations women, who are eight times more likely to be assaulted than non-Indigenous women and almost 13 times likely to be killed by their intimate partner.

“As shocking as these figures may be, they only tell a fraction of the story or the very tip of the iceberg,” Dr Brown said.

“And this is because approximately only 10 per cent of domestic family and sexual violence is reported to formal agencies like police.

“And when it comes to intimate partner violence or domestic violence homicides, the reality is is that no one is keeping count.”

Rachael Hill, from the North Australian Aboriginal Family Legal Service (NAAFLS), said in the 49 communities they work in, there are only 19 safehouses for women fleeing violence and only three of those were Aboriginal controlled organisations.

“These are chronically underfunded, understaffed and undervalued yet when properly funded, they were a source of employment, a symbol of women’s rights and a source of community pride, such as the Galiwinku women’s space,” she said.

“The one takeaway message … is that the only way to tackle domestic violence in our 49 remote communities is community.

“Community controlled and community led solutions, in NAAFLS’ view, everything else will be temporary, transcendent and transactional.”

13YARN 13 92 76

Aboriginal Counselling Services 0410 539 905

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

Lifeline 13 11 14

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028