Murder and disappearance of First Nations women and children examined in Senate inquiry

The Senate inquiry has heard that the NT has among the highest rates of domestic violence in the world. (ABC News)

A Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children is sitting in Darwin today to hear from grieving families and organisations working to reduce harm in the community.

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images and names of people who have died and content that may be distressing.

The committee will consider, among other issues, the number of First Nations women and children who are missing and murdered, and the current and historical ways these deaths have been investigated.

The federal Senate inquiry follows a 2022 Four Corners investigation into the deaths of First Nations women.

That investigation revealed at least 315 First Nations women in Australia were either missing, murdered or killed in suspicious circumstances between 2000 and October 2022.

The Northern Territory coroner last year investigated the deaths of four Indigenous women in the jurisdiction at the hands of their partners.

Kumanjayi Haywood, Ngeygo Ragurrk, Miss Yunupiŋu and Kumarn Rubuntja were just four of the 76 Aboriginal women killed at the hands of their partners in the Northern Territory between 2000 and November 2023.

The coroner, Elisabeth Armitage, examined the responses of institutions such as police and emergency services to the “domestic violence epidemic” being experienced in the NT, which has the highest rates of domestic, family and sexual violence in the country.

Among the key issues the federal Senate inquiry will examine is institutional responses to the disappearance and deaths of First Nations women and children, and the systemic causes of all violence that is experienced by First Nations women and children.

Among the first people to provide evidence on Thursday was Dr Chay Brown, a researcher and domestic violence worker for Tangentyere Council.

The council works among the various town camps in and around Alice Springs.

Dr Brown noted that one of the women working for Tangentyere to reduce domestic violence, Kumarn Rubuntja, was herself murdered at the hands of her partner in 2021.

Her partner, Malcolm Abbott, pleaded guilty to murdering her in 2022.