Kerry Arabenakerry.arabena@unimelb.edu.au

@ArabenaKerry

Focus of today’s discussion

• Three reports:– ‘Yes, but I didn’t hit her in the face’ Cape York,

1999. Understanding attitudes to violence after increase in violent homocides

– ‘We don’t shoot our wounded, we try to heal them’. In ACT to understand how women wanted service to intervene.

– ‘Tiddas Count to Ten’ Working with young girls who are perpetrators of violence.

Gendered Violence

• Interpersonal – Criminal able to be heard in court of law.

• Societal – Racial Discrimination, failure to improve ‘Closing the Gap’ outcomes.

• Institutional – lack of cultural safety, lack of access to comprehensive primary health care services, invisibility in policy.

What we found

• Nexus between alcohol misuse and violence.

• Historical experiences of colonisation have set precedence – history is used to justify actions in the present.

• High levels of violence in communities, little access to coordinated effort that has resulted in reduced levels of violence.

Communities in Crisis

• Increase in the frequency and severity of violence – it is endemic.

• At least 2.5 decades of violence means not one man, woman or child whose lives have not been touched by violence.

• Deeply disturbing concept of ‘fear of reprisal’ from family members if victims seek help.

• Services under utilised because of under reporting.

Historical influences of DV

• Forced removal off country• The control exerted by Superintendents etc.• Erasure of Dreamtime stories• Forced removal of children from parents• Forced sexual segregation• Concentration of diverse tribal groups• Overcrowding, material disadvantage,

unemployment, alcohol misuse

Resigned to high levels of violence

• Acceptance of both the role of perpetrator and of victim.

• Permeates daily life to a point where it is not dysfunctional at all.

• Distinguishing terms are difficult – sexual assault, incest, rape.

• Acceptance of non-disclosure of violence to services and police

Study regarding Women’s access to services (in touch with DVCS and refuge)

• Perpetrators are Aboriginal and non Aboriginal men

• In urban settings, increasing number of women following through with prosecution

• Preference that police charge in the first instance• SEWB issues from mental abuse not well catered

for.• Protecting children main reason for leaving • Single mothers particularly at risk

Findings continued

• ICE is substance most reported as contributing to violence

• Women frst violated when they are most vulnerable – pregnancy

• Re-housed after violence is a major problem• Police interventions are crucial• Main reason for accessing services – DVOs• Clients of multiple services – not case managed• Families and communities have the role to stop

violence

What women wanted• Relationship with their Aboriginal partners to

continue without violence• Perpetrator seek help for their abusive behaviour• The childhood and experience of oppression of

their partners to be recognised• Made this understanding particularly difficult to

leave their Aboriginal partners• Acknowledgement that if living with violent non-

Indigenous partner – their identity was also being attacked. Hard to access Aboriginal services

Triggers for engagement with services

• Calls from concerned neighbours• Through contact with hosptial services• Reopen cases of sexual assault or trauma• Attacked by their sons• Called the police• Exhaustion from mental and verbal abuse• Royal commission into sexual assault through

institutions

Vulnerable single mothers

• Increased vulnerability of single mothers from assaults from adolescent sons

• In the second study – 11 women were single mothers with 41 children between them

• 9 in public housing, 1 moved back with parents, 1 in a refuge.

• Young men are no engaged with school, using alcohol and drugs, are disconnected, have normalised violence as a means to an end

Intergenerational impact of high levels of violence

• Young women as perpetrators, not as victims• Violence is non-familial (school based peers) and

family based (younger siblings and cousins) and on mothers.

• Consequences further entrench poverty– Early expulsion from school, no capacity to transition

to another school– Unable to find work– Connected to services already oversubscribed– Making choices to have children early– In excessively violent relationships

What women want

• Violence to stop• Services to listen, then act – be civil.• Get advice and support for women without judging them• Support women to make decisions• Men need to know how violence affects their partners –

take responsibility for behaviour• Women need to find strength to leave, and have some

place to go• Mature case workers who know how to work with

Aboriginal families

Living free from violence

• At least 1 supportive relationship• Sober living services• Recognition of complexity in the lives of

women• Understand how and why women want to

protect their partners and sons • Find ways of supporting boys and men take

responsibility for and change behaviour

Stategies women want

• Community education and prevention• Whole of family interventions• Seamless services and interventions• Evidence based policy led changes in justice

and support services• The gaps in the service landscape to be

addressed• Build capacity in communities