Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Website

Ending family violence and abuse in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities – Key issues

An overview paper of research and findings by the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2001 – 2006

Prepared by the:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Social Justice Commissioner

June 2006

All documents extracted in this paper can be found on the HREOC website at: www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/familyviolence/

Table of contents
Section 1: Introduction by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner

Section 2: Summary – Main findings on ending family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities

Section 3: Speech – Tom Calma, Addressing family violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities: Key issues, 19 June 2006

Section 4: Extracts of materials on family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities (by theme)

Review of progress in addressing family violence;
Recognising Aboriginal customary law consistently with human rights;
A human rights based approach to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage;
Mental health issues;
Indigenous women and imprisonment and post-release programs;
Indigenous youth and criminal justice systems;
Indigenous victims of crime; and
Substance abuse issues.

Section 1: Introduction

Family violence and abuse is causing untold damage to the cultures and fabric of Indigenous societies. It is damaging our communities, our families, our women, our children and our men.

All Indigenous people are entitled to live their lives in safety and full human dignity - without fear of intimidation, family violence or abuse. This is their cultural and their human right. Like all Australians, Indigenous peoples are also entitled to the full and equal protection of the law.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) is committed to working towards ending family violence in Indigenous communities. We want to work with governments and Indigenous peoples to ensure that there are deliberate and determined steps taken to address this issue.

HREOC has statutory responsibilities under the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 (Cth) to monitor the extent to which Indigenous peoples are able to enjoy their human rights. This is achieved through a variety of ways, including: the Social Justice Report, that is prepared by the Social Justice Commissioner and submitted to federal Parliament each year; submissions to various inquiries on law reform and legislative proposals; educational activities; participation in conferences, seminars and media debates; as well as conducting national inquiries and interventions in court cases to promote an understanding of human rights issues.

Over the past five years the Commission has used these functions extensively to comment on issues relating to family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities.

This paper summarises the main findings from HREOC research and consultations relating to family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities conducted from 2001-2006.

The paper includes extracts from various reports, submissions and other materials (organised thematically), which can be used as a reference tool for government officials, researchers and Indigenous communities. Full versions of all the materials in the paper, including footnotes and references, are available online at www.humanrights.gov.au.

We have looked at the issue of family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities in many contexts, including:

the relationship to substance abuse;
the interaction of Aboriginal customary law, violence and human rights;
the need for human rights education among Indigenous communities;
the significance of violence as a barrier to women achieving leadership positions and for women’s equality generally;
the significant role of violence and abuse as a causative factor in Indigenous women entering and then re-entering prison at alarmingly high rates;
international models for programs aimed at addressing inter-generational trauma and grief through healing;
the impact of violence on Indigenous youth in developing cognitive disabilities, in under-performance in schools and entry into the juvenile and then adult criminal justice processes;
its relationship to the high incidence of mental illness and youth suicide among Indigenous peoples; and
it being both a reflection of, and a cause of, poor health among Indigenous peoples.

This paper seeks to ensure that any program responses to family violence in Indigenous communities are built on solid evidence and facts. It demonstrates how violence relates to almost every aspect of policy making and service delivery to Indigenous communities.

Because of this, we need to adopt a holistic approach to address the causes and the consequences of family violence in Indigenous communities. If we treat these issues as simply a law and order, legal compliance or health matter, we will not achieve lasting improvements to the lives of Indigenous peoples.

Much of the work presented in this paper is the result of consultation with Indigenous peoples - addressing family violence will also require partnerships with Indigenous peoples and communities. We need to ensure that the day-to-day realities that exist in Indigenous communities are recognised and addressed in any policy response to family violence.

HREOC wants to see a positive future for Indigenous Australians - free from family violence and abuse. We believe that this is an achievable and realistic goal.

I hope you find this paper a useful resource as we all strive to achieve this important and necessary outcome.

Tom Calma
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Social Justice Commissioner
20 June 2006

Section 2: Summary of main findings and messages on ending family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities

In this section:

This section summarises the main findings from research and consultations conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission between 2001 and 2006 that relates to family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities.

Family violence – key messages

Family violence is abhorrent and has no place in Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander societies. It is a scourge that is causing untold damage and trauma among Indigenous communities, to our women and children, and to the fabric of Indigenous cultures.

Indigenous, women, children and men are entitled to live their lives in safety and full human dignity. This means without fear of family violence or abuse. This is their cultural and their human right.

Violence and abuse is a criminal matter. If an Indigenous person commits an offence they should be dealt with by the criminal justice system just as any other person would be. There should also be swift intervention from care and protection systems to ensure that the best interests of the child is the primary consideration.

Government officials and community members should be fearless and bold in reporting suspected incidents of violence and abuse. This means addressing the code of silence that exists in many Indigenous communities about these issues. And it means government officers meeting their statutory obligations, meeting their duty of care and taking moral responsibility in the performance of their duties as public officials.

Violence relates to almost every aspect of policy making and service delivery to Indigenous communities. The solutions to family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities are complex, multi-faceted and require long term focus and commitment to address. They require bi-partisan political will and leadership at the highest levels of government.

Governments must work in partnership with Indigenous peoples and communities to identify and implement solutions to address family violence and abuse.

We need to adopt a holistic approach to address the causes and the consequences of family violence in Indigenous communities.

We can no longer accept the making of commitments to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inequality without putting into place processes and programs to match the stated commitments. Programs and service delivery must be adequately resourced and supported so that they are capable of achieving the stated goals of governments.

We can also not accept the failure of governments to commit to an urgent plan of action. It is not acceptable to continually state that the situation is tragic and ought to be treated with urgency, and then fail to put into place bold targets to focus policy making over the short, medium and longer term or to fund programs so they are capable of meeting these targets.

Ten key challenges in addressing family violence and abuse

Turn government commitments into action:
Governments have been making commitments to address family violence for some time already. What we need is concerted, long term action which meets these commitments
Indigenous participation:
This action must be based on genuine partnership with Indigenous peoples and with our full participation.
Support Indigenous community initiatives and networks:
There are significant processes and networks already in place in Indigenous communities to progress these issues. We need to support them to lead efforts to stamp out violence, including by developing the educational tools to assist them to identify and respond to family violence.
Human rights education in Indigenous communities:
There is a need for broad based education and awareness-raising among Indigenous communities. Working with communities to send strong messages that violence won’t be tolerated, that there are legal obligations and protections, and that individuals have rights, are critical if we are to stamp out family violence.
Don’t forget our men and don’t stereotype them as abusers.
Family violence is fundamentally an issue of gender equality. We need strong leadership from women, but we also need the support of Indigenous men if we are to make progress in stamping out violence. Indigenous men need to model appropriate behaviour, challenge violence and stand up against it, and support our women and nurture our children.
Look for the positives and celebrate the victories.
There are good things happening in Indigenous communities, even if the national media is not interested in reporting them. We need to confront family violence, but also do so by reinforcing the inherent worth and dignity of Indigenous peoples, not by vilifying and demonising all Indigenous peoples.
Re-assert our cultural norms and regain respect in our communities.
Family violence and abuse is about lack of respect for Indigenous culture. We need to fight it as Indigenous peoples, and rebuild our proud traditions and community structures so that there is no place for fear and intimidation.
Ensure robust accountability and monitoring mechanisms:
There must be accountability measurements put into place to hold governments to their commitments. This requires the development of robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. These will also allow us to identify and celebrate successes.
Changing the mindset:
We require a change in mindset of government from an approach which manages dysfunction to one that supports functional communities. Current approaches pay for the consequences of disadvantage and discrimination. It is a passive reactive system of feeding dysfunction, rather than taking positive steps to overcome it. We need a pro-active system of service delivery to Indigenous communities focused on building functional, healthy communities.
Targeting of need:
Let us be bold in ensuring that program interventions are targeted to address need and overcome disadvantage. As it stands, government programs and services are not targeted to a level that will overcome Indigenous disadvantage. Hence, they are not targeted in a way that will meet the solemn commitments that have been made. They are targeted to maintain the status quo.

Defining family violence in Indigenous communities

Indigenous concepts of violence are much broader than usual mainstream definitions of domestic violence. For Indigenous peoples, the term family violence better reflects their experiences.

Family violence involves any use of force, be it physical or non-physical, which is aimed at controlling another family or community member and which undermines that person’s well-being. It can be directed towards an individual, family, community or particular group. Family violence is not limited to physical forms of abuse, and also includes cultural and spiritual abuse. There are interconnecting and trans-generational experiences of violence within Indigenous families and communities.

There are significant deficiencies in the availability of statistics and research on the extent and nature of family violence in communities. What data exists suggests that Indigenous peoples suffer violence, including family violence, at significantly higher rates than other Australians do. This situation has existed for at least the past two decades with no identifiable improvement.

Indigenous women’s experience of discrimination and violence is bound up in the colour of their skin as well as their gender. The identity of many Indigenous women is bound to their experience as Indigenous people. Rather than sharing a common experience of sexism binding them with non-Indigenous women, this may bind them more to their community, including the men of the community.

Strategies for addressing family violence in Indigenous communities need to acknowledge that a consequence of this is that an Indigenous woman ‘may be unable or unwilling to fragment their identity by leaving the community, kin, family or partners’ as a solution to the violence.

Designing programs to address family violence

There are currently a patchwork of programs and approaches to addressing family violence in Indigenous communities among federal, state and territory governments, but there remains a lack of coordination and consistency in approaches to addressing these issues between governments and among different government agencies. Significant gaps also exist.

There are three recurring strategic aspects that need to be present to address family violence in Indigenous communities, namely that:

programs be community-driven (with leadership from men as well as women);

community agencies establish partnerships with each other and with relevant government agencies; and

composite violence programs are able to provide a more holistic approach to community violence.

An emphasis solely on criminal justice responses to family violence poses two main concerns for Indigenous women:

The first is that the system is generally ineffective in addressing the behaviour of the perpetrator in the longer term. The effect of imprisonment is to remove them from the community and then, without any focus on rehabilitation or addressing the circumstances that led to the offending in the first place, to simply return them to the same environment.

The second is that there are a range of barriers in the accessibility and cultural appropriateness of legal processes which discourage Indigenous women from using the criminal justice system in the first place.

Existing programs addressing Indigenous family violence programs can be categorised into the following broad areas of intervention:

Support programs – Accessible and appropriate counselling is essential, not only for the victims and perpetrators of violence, but also for family and community members who not only deal with the issue of violence itself but to also provide post-violence counselling to family members.

Identity programs – Identity programs are those that are aimed to develop within the individual, family or community, a secure sense of self-value or self-esteem. This can be achieved through diversionary programs and also through therapy based programs that focus on culturally specific psychological or spiritual healing. All these programs may be accessed prior to, and after involvement with violence, and offer a longer-term response through attempting to change the situational factors underlying violence.

Behavioural change (men and women’s groups)– as the majority of family violence is perpetrated by men, strong support for men’s behavioural reform programs is required. Complementary groups and support services for Indigenous women should be run parallel to men’s programs and complementary preventative/intervention programs for youth be an integral part of the whole strategy.

Night patrols – have the potential to build cooperation and mutual respect and support with local police. Night patrols, particularly in remote areas, use and strengthen Indigenous mechanisms for social control, thereby ensuring that traditional methods are afforded a key role in the control of anti-social behaviour, minor criminal infractions and potentially serious criminal incidents in the Indigenous community.

Refuges and Shelters – while an important part of any family violence intervention strategy, they are not a sufficient response to the difficulties produced by high levels of violence in Indigenous communities. They represent a reactive strategy in addressing the underlying causes, thereby creating no possibility of a change in the pattern of violent behaviour. Refuges and women’s shelters need to be coupled with other proactive strategies targeted at the perpetrators of violence and other situational factors.

Justice programs – the roles of justice programs, which are characteristically aimed at the perpetrators of violence, are to mediate between people in conflict, designate appropriately cultural punishments for victims, for example through circle sentencing and the prevention of recidivism.

Dispute resolution – Anecdotal evidence suggests that success has been achieved where impartial members of the Indigenous community are used as facilitators and traditional dispute-resolution techniques are incorporated into mediation processes.

Education and awareness raising– Education and training programs are vital to raise awareness about family violence prevention; as well as develop skills within communities to resolve conflicts and identify the need for interventions with perpetrators. There are (currently) no educational programs targeted at young children for use in Indigenous pre-schools and schools. With the knowledge we now have about the detrimental effects of violence on children, or witnessed by children and the generational cycles by which violence is transmitted, it is essential to provide violence prevention education programs within pre-schools and schools.

Holistic composite programs – Programs which are comprised of elements of the above categories. These operate to target different forms of violence in the community, target different categories of offenders or victims, or employ different methods of combating or preventing violence.

The implementation of composite programs, particularly in communities displaying multiple forms of increasing violence, is shown to be an emerging and preferred approach that reflects a more systematic way of combating violence, combining both proactive and reactive methods which target different age and gender groups.

An issue for governments introducing services is how to best trigger such programs in communities where they are obviously needed while at the same time creating a climate whereby the programs are community-originating, motivated and controlled. The Violence in Indigenous Communities report (by Memmott, Stacy, Chambers and Keys, herein the Memmott report) recommends ‘that government agencies take a regional approach to supporting and coordinating local community initiatives, and assisting communities to prepare community action plans with respect to violence’.

A human rights based approach to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage

Australia has legal obligations in international human rights treaties to address the disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians, including in relation to family violence issues and the social and economic conditions which contribute to violence. Article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights requires that the government ‘take steps to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of’ rights ‘by all appropriate means’ [emphasis added].

This obligation means that governments must progressively achieve the full realisation of relevant rights and to do so without delay. Steps must be deliberate, concrete and targeted as clearly as possible towards meeting the obligations recognized in the Covenant.

This also requires that governments establish timeframes for the achievement of outcomes and identify appropriate indicators, in relation to which they should set ambitious but achievable benchmarks, so that the rate of progress can be monitored and, if progress is slow, corrective action taken. Setting benchmarks enables government and other parties to reach agreement about what rate of progress would be adequate.

This is fundamentally an issue of government accountability for service delivery and outcomes. It requires governments’ actions to match the commitments that they make, and for governments to demonstrate that they have a plan for when outcomes will be achieved – ie, that programs are benchmarked with targets and goals.

Indigenous peoples have the right to full and effective participation in decisions which directly or indirectly affect their lives. Such participation should be based on the principle of free, prior and informed consent, which includes governments providing information that is accurate, accessible, and in a language the indigenous peoples can understand.

Governments should establish transparent and accountable frameworks for engagement, consultation and negotiation with indigenous peoples and communities. This should allow for the full and effective participation of indigenous men, women and young people in the design, negotiation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and assessment of outcomes.

Recognising Aboriginal customary law consistently with human rights

Aboriginal customary law does not condone family violence and abuse, and cannot be relied upon to excuse such behaviour. Perpetrators of violence and abuse do not respect customary law and are not behaving in accordance with it.

Aboriginal customary law must be applied consistently with human rights standards. At no stage does customary law override the rights of women and children to be safe and to live free from violence.

Any attempts to recognise Aboriginal customary law in a manner inconsistent with human rights standards would place Australia in breach of its obligations under international law and activate a duty on the part of the federal government to nullify or override such breaches.

There will be many instances where there will be no conflict between individual and collective rights (as expressed through customary law), and where they will be able operate in an interdependent manner. The recognition of Aboriginal customary law and collective rights has the capacity to strengthen social structures within Aboriginal communities as well as the observance of law and order.

Balancing customary law with human rights standards

There will, however, be other circumstances where individual and collective rights are in opposition and a balance must be struck. This does not mean that collective and individual rights are irreconcilable. Decisions made under the Optional Protocol to the ICCPR and General Comments interpreting the scope of the ICCPR by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in relation to Article 27 of the Covenant, for example, provide guidance on how this contest between collective and individual rights should be resolved.

The Human Rights Committee has noted that Article 27 applies to indigenous peoples, and that it creates a positive obligation on States (governments) to protect such cultures.

The Committee has, however, placed limits on those measures that can be recognised. So while it acknowledges that positive measures by States may be necessary to protect the identity of a minority and the rights of its members to enjoy and develop their culture and language and to practise their religion, it also notes that such positive measures must respect the provisions of Articles 2.1 and 26 of the Covenant. These Articles relate to the principle of non-discrimination and how it applies in relation to the treatment between different minorities, as well as the treatment between the persons belonging to a minority group and the remainder of the population.

Similarly, the Committee notes that ‘none of the rights protected under Article 27 of the Covenant may be legitimately exercised in a manner or to an extent inconsistent with other provisions of the Covenant’. This includes, for example, Article 6 (the inherent right to life); Article 7 (torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment); and Article 23 (requirement of free and informed consent for marriage).

The rights which persons belonging to minorities enjoy under Article 27 of the Covenant in respect of their language, culture and religion do not authorise any State, group or person to violate the right to the equal enjoyment by women of any Covenant rights, including the right to equal protection of the law.

The Committee has also stated that female genital mutilation is a practice that breaches Articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant, despite the cultural significance of the practice in some societies; and has expressed concern about domestic violence, including forced sexual intercourse, within the context of marriage.

The provisions of the ICCPR are also to be read consistently with the interpretation of similar relevant rights under other conventions such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (‘CEDAW’) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (‘CRC’).

The right to freedom from violence is accepted as implicit in the right to freedom from discrimination under CEDAW. The Convention also requires that all appropriate measures should be taken to ‘modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women’ so as to eliminate ‘prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women’.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has noted that traditional practices by which women are regarded as subordinate to men or as having stereotyped roles, perpetuate widespread practices involving violence or coercion. These can include: family violence and abuse, forced marriage, dowry deaths, acid attacks and female circumcision. Such prejudices and practices may justify gender-based violence as a form of protection or control of women. The effect of such violence on the physical and mental integrity of women is to deprive them of the equal enjoyment, exercise and knowledge of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The particular vulnerability of children is recognised by the CRC. Similar to the ICCPR, the CRC specifically recognises the right of indigenous children to enjoy their own culture in community with other members of his or her own group. However, States Parties have obligations to protect children from all forms of sexual abuse and all other forms of exploitation prejudicial to any aspects of the child’s welfare.

Resolving conflicts between human rights and Aboriginal customary law

Mainstream law should consider apparent conflicts between Aboriginal customary law and women’s individual rights on a case by case basis. It is also important to recognise that custom and law can adapt to general societal change, thus allowing resolution of apparent conflict. The potential for conflict should not be used by government as an excuse to avoid the recognition of Aboriginal customary law or by Aboriginal communities to condone breaches of human rights.

In situations where women’s human rights are at risk, Aboriginal communities should be encouraged to develop their own solutions to these problems and to adapt traditional practices to ensure women’s human rights. While all attempts should be made to reconcile women’s individual human rights with the rights of Indigenous peoples to retain and enjoy their culture,HREOC considers that women’s individual human rights must ultimately prevail. HREOC considers that the recognition of Aboriginal customary law must also take active steps to ensure women’s right to individual safety and freedom from violence.

HREOC considers that it is preferable for judicial decision makers to be required to balance Aboriginal customary law issues with human rights standards, rather than imposing a legislative uniform ban or refusing to recognise certain practices.

It is also the view of HREOC that international human rights principles are relevant to the balance that must be achieved in sentencing decisions involving customary Aboriginal law. Further, a sentence which leads to impermissible discrimination against a woman or a child under international human rights principles is an error of law both in the balancing exercise under the provisions of Sentencing Acts and under the common law.

The Court of Criminal Appeal of the Northern Territory in a recent decision (The Queen v GJ) has confirmed that where Aboriginal customary law conflicts with Territory law the latter must prevail, and stated that it has never been the case that the courts of the Northern Territory have given precedence to Aboriginal customary law when it conflicts with the written law of the Northern Territory.

The Court of Criminal Appeal of the Northern Territory also noted that to date ‘consultation with Aboriginal communities about (these) principles has too often been perfunctory’ and suggested that it may be an appropriate matter for HREOC ‘to give consideration to the implementation of educational programs about (conflicts between customary law and criminal codes) in Aboriginal communities’.

Indigenous women, imprisonment and post-release support needs

Indigenous women are increasingly over-represented in criminal justice processes. This is occurring in the context of intolerably high levels of family violence, over policing for selected offences, ill health, unemployment and poverty.

There is a consistent pattern indicating that incarcerated Indigenous women have been victims of assault and sexual assault at some time in their lives. Indigenous women are also significantly over represented as victims of violent crime.

A matter of great concern in relation to current debates about addressing family violence in Indigenous communities are issues of access to justice for Indigenous women. A matter of particular concern is the limited ability of funding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (ATSILS) to provide access to justice for Indigenous women through legal representation and family violence services.

There is an urgent need to ensure appropriate funding levels for ATSILS, Family Violence Prevention Legal Services and Indigenous women’s legal services, in order to provide a greater focus on the legal needs of Indigenous women as well as a greater focus on preventative action and community education.

Links must be drawn and holistic models developed and supported which address the connections between culture, drug use, alcohol use, separation from family, violence, poverty, spiritual needs, housing, health, boredom, race discrimination and gender discrimination.

Effective pre-and post-release programs should include community based, Indigenous specific programs to help women deal with the effects of violence and to help women develop alternative strategies for coping with violence in the future. People require protection from violent behaviour and alternative structures for prevention and punishment of violent behaviour which provide more than imprisonment with all its risks and consequences.

Effective pre-and post-release programs need to recognise and treat the complexity of experience of the experience of Indigenous individuals who are both victims and perpetrators of violence. Programs will also need to provide support for Indigenous women to reintegrate back into the community. The types of support required by each woman will be determined by her location and other issues. For instance, for some women there may be issues of payback, and she may not be able to return to her community until those issues are resolved. Other women may need to return to small communities, where contact with the perpetrator of violence cannot be avoided.

The issues of healing and wellness are critical issues for Indigenous women exiting prison. Processes for healing are seen as having the potential to increase the health and wellbeing of Indigenous women, with a possible outcome of this being reductions in rates of involvement of Indigenous women in criminal justice processes.

Indigenous concepts of healing are based on addressing the relationship between the spiritual, emotional and physical in a holistic manner. An essential element of Indigenous healing is recognising the interconnections between and effects of violence, social and economic disadvantage, racism and dispossession from land and culture on Indigenous people, families and communities.

Healing can be contest specific – such as; addressing issues of grief and loss- or more general by assisting individuals deal with any trauma they may have experienced. The varying nature of healing demonstrates that it cannot be easily defined, with healing manifesting itself differently in different communities.

Healing is not a program, rather it is a process. Healing is not something that should only be available at the post-release stage, rather it should be available at any point when a woman is ready – this may be before a woman comes into contact with the criminal justice system, or after they have been in and out of prison over a number of years. Further, healing in the context of criminal justice, attempts to help the individual deal with the reasons why they have offended in the first place. This element of healing is strongly linked to the notion of restorative justice. For this reason, healing has the potential to fit within a restorative justice framework.

There are, however, relatively few programs and services for Indigenous women exiting prison that presently focus on healing processes in Australia. The conversion of concepts of healing into actual programs and services is very much in its infancy here. As the case study of the Yula Panaal Cultural and Spiritual Healing Program in New South Wales demonstrates, they also face difficulty in attracting operational funding.

The traditional approach to distributing available funding for programs and services is dictated by an economy of scale. This impacts negatively on Indigenous women as it delivers minimum resources to a population within the community that has a high level of need. Given that Indigenous women are manifestly the smallest population in the Australian prison system, it is somewhat understandable that they are the group with the least amount of resources directed towards them. However it is precisely this lack of direct resources that goes someway to maintaining Indigenous women’s distinct disadvantage in society.

Indigenous youth and criminal justice systems

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population is growing faster than the non-Indigenous population. The annual rate of growth for Indigenous peoples has been estimated at 2.3% compared with approximately 1.2% for non-Indigenous Australians. As a result, the challenges for service delivery to Indigenous youth will be exacerbated over the coming decades.

Indigenous males comprise 46 percent of the total national male juvenile detention population and Indigenous females comprise 57 percent of the total national female juvenile detention population. Although overall there has been a decline in rates of detention for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous juveniles, the ratio of over-representation continues in a stable trend with Indigenous young people 20 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous young people.

While there are limited statistics available, it is believed that a significant percentage of Indigenous juvenile detainees have a disability. Indigenous young people living in poor physical and social environments experience higher rates of cognitive / intellectual disabilities and poorer mental health.

There are a range of developmental issues that impact on the cognitive functioning and mental health of Indigenous young people and their communities such as Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, petrol sniffing, physical and emotional violence and poor nutrition.

The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey (WAACHS) revealed that Aboriginal children experience a high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties. It found that there are clear associations between family and household factors and risk of clinically significant emotional and behavioural difficulties experienced by Aboriginal children and young people. The factor most strongly associated with high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties in children was the number of major life stress events (e.g. illness, family break up, arrests or financial difficulties) experienced by the family in the 12 months prior to the survey.

Similarly Pathways to Prevention, a report developed for the National Crime Prevention Strategy urges government to focus on early developmental phases of a child as a means to thwarting future contact with crime.

Failures to address issues relating to mental health, child protection, disability and community service systems contribute to the increased risk of children entering the juvenile justice system. These failures include lack of support services, appropriate treatment and behaviour intervention programs, family based care services and accommodation options; the use of inappropriate and harmful service practices, such as physical restraint and medication; the risk or actual occurrence of physical and sexual assault; and the reliance on the police to resolve challenging behaviour. There is also evidence to suggest that the lack of support services for children and appropriate policies and practices to deal with challenging behaviour often leads services to rely on or view juvenile justice facilities as providing a stable and secure care environment and as a solution to a complex problem.

Restorative justive models

The past decade has seen an increased emphasis on restorative justice mechanisms for addressing criminal behaviour in Indigenous communities to address the needs of victims (including of family violence) as well as to make the system more meaningful to offenders.

Restorative justice is fundamentally concerned with restoring social relationships, with establishing or re-establishing social equality in relationships. That is, relationships in which each person’s rights to equal dignity, concern and respect are satisfied. As it is concerned with social equality, restorative justice inherently demands that one attend to the nature of relationships between individuals, groups and communities. Thus, in order to achieve restoration of relationships, restorative justice must be concerned with both the discrete wrong and its relevant context and causes.

This does not necessarily seek to return a relationship to the position prior to the commission of some wrongdoing, but instead to address the underlying issues. Restorative justice can thus incorporate concepts of restitution and healing, while focusing on the transformation of relationships.

There are numerous new initiatives in Australia developing community based justice mechanisms for Indigenous peoples which are based on restorative justice principles. Some of these processes, such as Law and Justice Committees in the Northern Territory and Community Justice Groups in Queensland incorporate a holistic response to family violence into strategies for addressing offending in communities.

The last two years has also seen the development of community justice mechanisms for involvement of Indigenous peoples in sentencing. Examples include the Ngunga Court and Ngunga Youth Court in South Australia; the Murri Court in Queensland; the Koori Court in Victoria and circle sentencing in New South Wales. Generally, these processes seek to incorporate an Aboriginal traditional customary law approach to the sentencing of Aboriginal offenders within the framework of existing legislation. While there are variations between the various models, they all involve Aboriginal Elders sitting alongside the magistrate to advise on sentencing options, with members of the offender’s family, the victim, the victim’s family and other interested community members participating in the sentencing process.

A NSW report on circle sentencing, reviewing the first twelve months of the operation of circle sentencing in Nowra, found that circle sentencing helps to break the cycle of recidivism, introduces more relevant and meaningful sentencing options for Aboriginal offenders with the help of respected community members, reduces the barriers that currently exist between the courts and Aboriginal people, leads to improvements in the level of support for Aboriginal offenders, incorporates support for victims, and promotes healing and reconciliation and increases the confidence and generally promotes the empowerment of Aboriginal people in the community.

While these processes have been considered successful in their initial years, they are limited to dealing with particular non-violent offences. Accordingly, offences relating to violence and sexual offences cannot be addressed within these sentencing processes.

The NSW Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee has proposed the extension of community controlled justice mechanisms to deal with family violence. This involves establishing localised justice mechanisms and healing centres combined with alternative sentencing processes for offenders which seek to establish formal links with local Aboriginal communities. In this approach, community justice and healing centres would be established as a single point of contact for victims of family violence.

There are similarities in this proposal with the Northern Territory Law and Justice Committee and Queensland Community Justice Group approaches, as well as similarities with the roles of services established under ATSIC’s Family Violence Prevention Legal Service Program. It also provides what the Memmott report, as discussed earlier, identified as a holistic composite set of programs for addressing family violence.

It also has similarities to Canadian models for addressing sex offending by Indigenous peoples. The Canadian approach emphasises the need for restorative justice, community-based initiatives beyond the justice system such as victim-offender mediation, family group conferencing, sentencing circles and formal cautioning. It also highlights the gaps that exist in addressing Aboriginal sex offender needs and the need for Aboriginal control of appropriately cultural services. The report Aboriginal Sexual Offending in Canada identifies four areas where action is necessary to address Aboriginal sexual offending: community development; program development; research and human resources. The effectiveness of this model and whether aspects could be transferred to the Australian context, particularly in regard to community capacity-building and service coordination, is an avenue for further investigation.

These models and proposals suggest that the full potential of community justice mechanisms for addressing family violence has not been explored sufficiently, and may provide an appropriate way forward for addressing some aspects of need.

Victims of crime

The criminal justice system is extremely poor at dealing with the underlying causes of criminal behaviour and makes a negligible contribution to addressing the consequences of crime in the community. One of the consequences of this, and a vital factor that is often overlooked, is that Indigenous victims of crime and communities are poorly served, if served at all, by the current system.

Accordingly, the current system disadvantages Indigenous peoples from both ends – it has a deleterious effect on Indigenous communities through over-representation of Indigenous people in custody combined with the lack of attention it gives to the high rate of Indigenous victimisation, particularly through violence and abuse in communities. Reform to criminal justice processes, including through community justice initiatives, must be responsive to these factors.

There are limited services which target Indigenous victims of crime. A number of existing victim support services and victims compensations services, in particular, also do not record Indigenous status of their clients. This makes it difficult to assess whether services are being accessed and are meeting the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Mental health

Poor mental health contributes to the crisis of family violence, anti-social behaviour, substance misuse, confrontation with the legal system, low participation in schooling and employment that are seen in a significant number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

There is currently no national data collection process that is able to provide accurate information on the incidence of mental health disorders or treatment occurring among Indigenous peoples in Australia. All we know is that suicide, substance abuse and family and community violence are problems and there are services in place in some communities to address these. Most of the data we have about mental ill-health in Indigenous adults is that gleaned after crisis situations, when the mental health issue results in hospitalisation.

The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey published in April 2005, with a survey sample of approximately 5,000 children. It reported that one in four (1:4) Aboriginal children are at high risk of developing clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties. This compares to about one in six or seven (1:6/7) of non-Indigenous children.

Research has also indicated that children with poor mental health have a greater tendency to develop into adults with poor mental health.
- Suicide and other forms of self-harm:
  In 1998, Indigenous males committed suicide at 2.6 times the rate in the non-Indigenous population; for females the rate is double that of females in the non-Indigenous population. In 2000-01, Indigenous males were hospitalised at 2.2 times the rate of males in the general population and females at 2.0 times the rate of females in the population for intentional self-injury. The National Health Survey in 2001 reported 10% of Indigenous peoples were likely to consume alcohol at risk or high-risk levels, compared with 11% of non-Indigenous people. However, this finding contrasts with other sources that report Indigenous peoples consuming alcohol at risk levels twice that of the non-Indigenous community. Apart from alcohol, substance abuse is reported to be higher in Indigenous communities.
- Indicators for other forms of harm behaviours:
  Violence is symptomatic of poor mental health in perpetrators and is associated with substance abuse. It is also stressor to the mental health of victims. Violence kills Indigenous peoples at four times the rate of the non-Indigenous population. Reported physical, or threatened physical, violence, appears to have doubled over 1994 – 2002: 12.9% of respondents in 1994 identifying as victims, compared to 24.3% of respondents in 2002 in Indigenous social surveys. In 2001, Indigenous females were 28.3 times more likely to be hospitalised for assault than non-Indigenous females; males at 8.4 times the non-Indigenous rate.

Mental ill-health among Indigenous peoples must be understood in a holistic context – as the National Aboriginal Health Strategy put it ‘Health to Aboriginal peoples is a matter of determining all aspects of their life, including control over their physical environment, of dignity, of community self-esteem, and of justice. It is not merely a matter of the provision of doctors, hospitals, medicines or the absence of disease and incapacity’.

The combination of problems suffered within Indigenous communities is the prime example of negative social determinants of health in Australia. Violence and addiction in communities undermines the resilience of members and erodes the capacity of communities to support the mental health of members. The impact of addiction on communities has been most closely observed in relation to alcoholism, although petrol sniffing and other substance abuse must be considered in relation to some communities.

Social support and social cohesion are associated with good mental health. Studies show that people in long-term, familial relationships and close-knit communities are better able to deal with stress and will live longer than those who do not.

Strengthening communities and culture clearly has potentially positive implications for the mental health of community members. Likewise, policies and programs that erode the strength and culture of communities can be considered as having negative impacts on community members.

Substance abuse issues

There are significant links between substance abuse and violence. The links between substance and abuse and violence mean that strategies to prevent and mitigate substance abuse also need to address the impacts of substance abuse on communities.

Potential responses to address the impacts of substance abuse need to address the those directly affected by substances, those potentially at risk of taking up substances at dangerous levels, and the impacts on those who come into contact with people affected by substances.

Typically, responses to address substance abuse are based on three phase health frameworks that include prevention measures, intervention strategies, and measures to overcome the impacts of those disabled through substance abuse. They include:
- Primary interventions – to reduce recruitment into substance abuse;
- Secondary interventions – seeking to achieve abstinence and rehabilitation;
- Tertiary intervention – providing services to the permanently disabled.

In relation to petrol sniffing, the social impacts of sniffing are as follows:

‘Petrol sniffing poses a range of problems to sniffers, their families, communities and to the wider society. Among the problems which have been associated with petrol sniffing are: serious health consequences including death or long-term brain damage, social alienation of sniffers, social disruption, vandalism and violence, increased inter-family conflict and reduced morale on communities, incarceration of sniffers and costs to the health system in terms of acute care and providing for the long-term disabled…’
In introducing liquor licence conditions and restrictions in Indigenous communities on alcohol the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) must be considered.

HREOC’s Alcohol Report, published in 1995, considers the fact that while you might be detracting from the rights of the individual to alcohol by virtue of introducing restrictions, you may be in fact conferring rights on the group as a result (known as ‘collective rights’). In the Alcohol Report, the Commission reasoned that alcohol restrictions could be conceived as conferring some benefits in terms of the ‘collective rights’ it might promote in Indigenous communities. Such benefits might be a reduction in the incidence of violent crime, a reduction in the rate of Indigenous incarceration, and an increase in money available for food.

In order to not breach the RDA, alcohol restrictions would need be classified as a class of ‘benefit conferral’. They must also meet all of the criteria for special measures, namely that:
- It confers a benefit on some or all members of a class, and membership of this class is based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin;
- It is for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of the group so that they may enjoy and exercise equally with others, their human rights and fundamental freedoms; and
- The protection given is necessary so the group may enjoy and exercise equally with others, their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

While not determinative, in his decision in Gerhardy v Brown, Justice Brennan notes HREOC’s Alcohol Report and states: “The wishes of the beneficiaries of the measure are of great importance (perhaps essential) in determining whether a measure is taken for the purpose of securing their advancement. In the Alcohol Report, Commissioner Antonios concluded: alcohol restrictions imposed upon aboriginal groups as a result of government policies which are incompatible with the policy of the community will not be special measures.”

This highlights the importance of ensuring informed, real community consultation when considering alcohol restrictions in Indigenous communities.

Evidence also suggests that alcohol restrictions in isolation of any mechanism to address why people are abusing alcohol actually entrench the problems that the restrictions were designed to stop.

Section 3: Addressing family violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities – Key issues

In this section:

This section reproduces a speech by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner identifying ten key challenges for ending family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities. The speech was given at a national forum convened in Parliament House in Canberra on 19 June 2006.^[1]

I thank you for your attendance today. The presence of such a large and distinguished group of people, able to attend at short notice, indicates the seriousness with which we all see the issue of family violence in Indigenous communities.

Can I also thank Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation, who have taken the lead role in organising this event. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has had no hesitation in joining ANTAR as a co-host of this important event. I’d also like to thank the many organisations that are also hosting or supporting this event, such as Reconciliation Australia, Oxfam Australia, the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Principals’ Associations Professional Development Council.

I know that I speak for all these organisations when I say that we have created this event because we are committed to seeing an end to family violence in Indigenous communities. We want to work with governments to ensure that there are deliberate and determined steps taken to address this issue, which is a cause of such devastation to the cultures and fabric of Indigenous societies.

We also see the need for a space for dialogue with Indigenous peoples to discuss some of the complexities and the day to day realities that exist in communities in addressing the many facets to family violence. And we have a breadth of experience among our panellists today on the daily challenges that addressing family violence raises for Indigenous communities.

My role today is to provide some suggestions, from my national perspective as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, on the issues that I consider we must face if we are to make progress in addressing family violence in Indigenous communities.

But first, let me state upfront and unequivocally that family violence in Indigenous communities is abhorrent and has no place in Aboriginal society.

Family violence is a scourge that is causing untold damage and trauma among Indigenous communities. It is damaging Indigenous cultures and it is causing untold damage to our women and children.

Indigenous men, women and children are entitled to live their lives in safety and full human dignity. This means without fear of family violence or abuse. This is their cultural and their human right.

Violence and abuse is also in breach of criminal laws across the country. I am on record several times stating that if an Indigenous person commits these types of offences they should be dealt with by the criminal justice system just as any other person would be. There should also be swift intervention from care and protection systems to ensure that the best interests of the child are the primary consideration.

Government officials and community members should be fearless and bold in reporting suspected incidents of violence and abuse. This means addressing the code of silence that exists in many Indigenous communities about these issues. And it means government officers meeting their statutory obligations, meeting their duty of care and taking moral responsibility in the performance of their duties as public officials. Many do already. Regrettably, some do not.

Let me also state upfront that Aboriginal customary law does not condone family violence.

Family violence and abuse of women and children has no place in Aboriginal culture. Customary law cannot be relied upon to excuse such behaviour.

That is not the customary law that I know. Perpetrators of violence and abuse do not respect customary law and are not behaving in accordance with it.

HREOC has stated clearly in submissions to sentencing courts and to inquiries that customary law must be applied consistently with human rights standards. In other words, at no stage does customary law override the rights of women and children to be safe and to live free from violence.

What I intend to do today is to challenge you to broaden your thinking about the dimensions of the issue of family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities and to provide you with some possible ways forward.

For while we all readily agree that violence should not be tolerated, anyone who has worked even fleetingly on these issues knows that the solutions are complex, multi-faceted and require long term focus and commitment to address.

It is hard going. And governments and communities have by and large failed to solve the problem to date.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission will shortly release a paper which provides an overview of the research, educational and advocacy work that we have done over recent years on issues relating to family violence in Indigenous communities.

We have looked at this issue in many contexts. We have considered:

the relationship to substance abuse;
the interaction of Aboriginal customary law, violence and human rights;
the need for human rights education among Indigenous communities;
the significant role of violence and abuse as a causative factor in Indigenous women entering and then re-entering prison at alarmingly high rates;
international models for programs aimed at addressing inter-generational trauma and grief through healing;
the impact of violence on Indigenous youth in developing cognitive disabilities, in under-performance in schools and entry into the juvenile and then adult criminal justice processes;
its relationship to the high incidence of mental illness and youth suicide among Indigenous peoples; and
it being both a reflection of, and a cause of, poor health among Indigenous peoples.

I think you will find this a useful document when it is released. I mention it here as this snapshot of issues captures how violence relates to almost every aspect of policy making and service delivery to Indigenous communities.

Because of this, we need to adopt a holistic approach to address the causes and the consequences of family violence in Indigenous communities. If we treat it as simply a law and order matter, a matter of legal compliance, or a health matter, we will not achieve lasting improvements to the lives of Indigenous peoples.

In saying this, I note that the forthcoming Ministerial Summit on family violence is narrowly focused on issues of law and order, customary law and school attendance. These are important issues and they can make a difference. But they are not the only issues.

We urge all governments to ensure that they do not forget the total picture and that the narrow focus of the Summit is used as a platform to create momentum to deal with all the relevant factors relating to family violence. I personally am viewing the Summit as Stage One of the broad-based approach that will be needed if we are to end violence in Indigenous communities.

In the time remaining to me, I want to identify ten challenges for addressing family violence in Indigenous communities. To me, these are some of the key factors that we need to address to achieve lasting change.

First, we should acknowledge that governments have been making commitments to address this issue for some time already. What we need is concerted, long term action which meets these commitments.

Let me remind you of one of the most significant commitments which has been made in recent years. The Council of Australian Government adopted the National Framework for preventing family violence and child abuse in Indigenous communities in June 2004. COAG set out six principles upon which action by governments would be based, namely:

a focus on safety;
adopting a partnership approach, including with Indigenous families, communities and community organisations;
strong leadership from governments and indigenous community leaders and sustainable resourcing;
acknowledging that successful strategies would empower Indigenous peoples by enabling them to take control of their lives, regain responsibility for their families and communities and to enhance individual and family wellbeing;
developing flexible approaches which work across jurisdictional and administrative boundaries, and enable local indigenous communities to set priorities and work with governments to develop solutions and implement them; and
addressing the underlying causes of violence and abuse, including alcohol and drug abuse, generational disadvantage, poverty and unemployment.^[2]

It is a wide ranging acknowledgement of the relevant factors and necessary components of any response.

At the time, which is now two years ago, COAG stated that “The extent of family violence and child abuse among indigenous families continues to be a matter of grave concern for both governments and indigenous communities. All jurisdictions agree that preventing family violence and child abuse in indigenous families is a priority for action that requires a national effort.”^[3]

Now rather than be discouraged at the lack of priority that has clearly been given to this issue since the making of this solemn commitment in 2004, I want to commend Minister Brough for putting this issue back on the agenda.

I don’t think that Minister Brough needs to seek the commitment of anyone to work on this issue – because you already have that ten times over. The time for action is long overdue.

Second, this action must be based on genuine partnership with Indigenous peoples and with our full participation.

It is important for governments to walk with Indigenous peoples and not run ahead and expect that we will catch up.

In my latest Social Justice Report I also put the challenge to all Australian governments to ensure that appropriate support is provided to the establishment of regional Indigenous structures as a matter of urgency.

I don’t intend to say more about this issue here, other than that it is difficult to see how governments can adopt a partnership approach when there is limited capacity to engage with Indigenous peoples in a systematic way.

Put simply, my concern is that governments risk failure if they develop and implement policies about Indigenous issues without engaging with the intended recipients of those services. Bureaucrats and governments can have the best intentions in the world, but if their ideas have not been subject to the ‘reality test’ of the life experience of the local Indigenous peoples who are intended to benefit from this, then government efforts are more likely to fail in the medium to long term.

Third, and related to this, there are significant processes and networks already in place to progress these issues. We need to support them and build their capacity.

As examples, I am talking about:

the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health sector;
Aboriginal and Islander Child Care services;
Family Violence Prevention Legal Services;
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services;
the peak bodies for these sectors;
Community Justice Groups, women’s groups and Night Patrols;
CDEP schemes;
state and territory based Justice Forums and Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committees; and
leadership programs and institutes, to name but a few.

We should be working with these significant resources within Indigenous communities and supporting them to lead efforts to stamp out violence, including by developing the educational tools to assist them to identify and respond to family violence.

As a further example of existing resources, last week the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW released a directory of Aboriginal men’s groups, the focus of which includes anger management, dealing with violence and grief and trauma counselling. It is a simple initiative, but a vital one in making existing services for help known among the Indigenous community.

My basis point is that we do have some structures and resources in communities that could be better supported and utilised. Let’s not reinvent the wheel and fracture existing services.

Fourth, there is a need for broad based education and awareness-raising among Indigenous communities.

There have been media reports recently about a report which is currently being considered by the NSW government. The report has been produced by the Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce and is called ‘Breaking the silence – Creating our future”.

Media reports have stated that the review found that child sexual assault is not well understood in Aboriginal communities, resulting in it going undetected and in creating a culture of silence and inappropriate responses such as protecting perpetrators rather than children.

I await the report’s release and its recommendations with interest. What is clear to me, however, is that it supports my concern that there is not a clear understanding or acceptance of the problem of family violence in many Indigenous communities. This means that community dynamics do not confront and challenge violent and abusive behaviour as much as they should.

In my view, raising awareness among communities, working with communities to send strong messages that violence won’t be tolerated, that there are legal obligations and protections and individuals have rights, are critical if we are to stamp out this behaviour for good.

Fifth, is a plea: don’t forget our men and don’t stereotype them as abusers.

There are many Aboriginal men who find family violence and abuse abhorrent. I am one of them.

In the past two months I have addressed men’s leadership groups and health professionals, and the concern has been put to me regularly that this debate is demonising Indigenous men and typecasting us all as violent and abusive and as perpetrators of abuse. Some remote communities have spoken out against this and rejected that they condone violence.

We need the support of Indigenous men if we are to make progress in stamping out violence. Indigenous men have a critical role to play in ending violence in communities. As Indigenous men, we need to model appropriate behaviour, challenge violence and stand up against it, and support our women and nurture our children.

Many Indigenous men already do – it would be a backward step if we did not acknowledge these strong men, and if we didn’t direct some of our attention, through services and programs, to support their needs.

A recent study of men’s health services on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara lands, titled Building on our strengths, by Dr Alex Brown states:

When searching the available literature, ‘gender and health’ tends to highlight responses virtually exclusively to the health and well-being of Indigenous women. When relating to men, it tends to highlight the negative consequences of male behaviour... Indigenous males are described and labelled as the worst of health and social statistics, rather than as the dynamic, essential elements of families, communities and societies. Perpetuating negative stereotypes of Indigenous males as ‘problem males’, has led to the development of health and social policy that continues to blame males for an array of issues, without providing the necessary support, infrastructure and political will to reverse male health and social disadvantage.^[4]

We need to bear this in mind in any response so it addresses the issues as they relate to all members of Indigenous communities.

Sixth, and related to this, is a further plea: we need to look for the positives and celebrate the victories.

There are good things happening in Indigenous communities, even if the national media is not interested in reporting them. In my view there are two impacts of the continual negative stereotypes about Indigenous peoples.

The first is that it contributes to a political environment in which these issues are not important to the Australian public, except when sensational allegations are made from time to time. What, for example, is different about the debate of the past two months to the debate around the time the Prime Minister convened a national summit in 2003? Why was there no sustained interest or pressure from the media or the non Indigenous community to address these issues in the three years since that Summit, and the time before that and so on... This is reconciliation in action – we need to work together and be in it for the long haul together.

The second impact of this constant stereotyping is that it can further disempower and contribute to negative self-image among Indigenous peoples. Let us confront the problem, but also do so by reinforcing the inherent worth and dignity of Indigenous peoples, not by vilifying and demonising all Indigenous peoples.

Seventh, and this one is directed solely to Indigenous peoples and communities, we face a challenge among Indigenous society to re-assert our cultural norms and regain respect in our communities.

Indigenous peoples proudly identify as being a distinct group within society. We do so based on our cultures, our identity and our systems of law.

These systems are built on respect. This respect begins with respect for our elders and continues on to respect for our mothers and women, our men and for our children – our future generations.

One of the most insidious and damaging effects of our colonisation as peoples, has been the breaking down of our systems of respect. Poverty, disadvantage and discrimination have bred dysfunction and have led to a lack of respect among sectors of our communities.

We face a major challenge, as Indigenous societies, to focus on rebuilding or re-asserting our cultural values which have been eroded through lack of respect.

Family violence and abuse is about lack of respect for Indigenous culture. We need to fight it as Indigenous peoples, and rebuild our proud traditions and community structures so that there is no place for fear and intimidation.

Eighth, and this is the main challenge for governments working in partnership with Indigenous peoples, we need a long term, bi-partisan commitment to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to end family violence in Indigenous communities.

This is not the same as calling for a commitment to address this issue. It is calling for government accountability on this issue.

By this I mean accountability where governments’ actions match the commitments they make. Where governments’ actions show that they have decided:

a) that they are committed to a particular course of action – such as overcoming Indigenous disadvantage;
b) that they have considered what needs to be done to actually achieve this outcome;
c) that they have a plan for when the outcome will be achieved – ie, it is benchmarked with targets and goals for when it will happen;
d) that they have put all resources possible and made every effort possible to achieve this, and;
e) have done so for as long as is necessary to reach the end goal – even if this is longer than the electoral cycle. This requires bi-partisan support, and if the policy intervention is sound and it has been developed with the active participation of Indigenous peoples, such support should be forthcoming.

When you have been downtrodden for all of your life and governments have been promising to do something to address this for all of your life, and they haven’t – why would you hold out any hope for change? We can’t forget how disempowering, dispiriting and destructive empty promises have been on Indigenous society over such a long period of time.

What this means is that this Summit on violence must focus on the accountability measurements that will be put in place to hold governments to their commitments. I strongly encourage the development of robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. These will also allow us to identify and celebrate successes.

Ninth, and related to this, it requires a change in mindset of government from an approach which manages dysfunction to one that supports functional communities.

At present, the record expenditure on Indigenous affairs is paying for the consequences of disadvantage and discrimination. It is paying for ill-health, for unemployment, violence and substance abuse. It is a passive reactive system of feeding dysfunction, rather than taking positive steps to overcome it.

I want to see, we want to see a pro-active system of service delivery to Indigenous communities – in other words, a focus on building functional, healthy communities.

It should be obvious that supporting good health and supporting functional communities is good policy. It doesn’t take much to see that it makes sound financial sense in the longer term. And of course, it is socially and morally preferable.

This objective should be the dominant thought in the mind of all policymakers and governments.

And tenth, and finally, let us be bold in ensuring that program interventions are targeted to address need and overcome disadvantage.

As it stands, government programs and services are not targeted to a level that will overcome Indigenous disadvantage. Hence, they are not targeted in a way that will meet the solemn commitments that have been made. They are targeted to maintain the status quo.

In my latest Social Justice Report to federal Parliament, I have proposed a campaign for achieving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality within a generation. That is how long it will take, if we treat this as a crisis issue now.

What I have stated in the Report is that the factor that is most striking in its absence from the current health framework is the lack of a timeframe for achieving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality. There remains a need for governments to take adequate measures (including through the allocation of adequate resources) within set timeframes to overcome the disparity in rights experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

My office is working with a number of organisations to progress thinking about what is needed to achieve health equality within a generation – this includes thinking on violence. We will be jointly convening a national summit on Indigenous health equality in the latter part of this year. We see this summit on violence as an important process which will inform that Summit.

So to conclude, in the latest Social Justice Report I identify two things that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the general community can no longer accept from governments. These apply equally to responses to family violence issues as they do to health issues.

First, we can no longer accept the making of commitments to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inequality without putting into place processes and programs to match the stated commitments. Programs and service delivery must be adequately resourced and supported so that they are capable of achieving the stated goals of governments.

Second, and conversely, we can not accept the failure of governments to commit to an urgent plan of action. It is not acceptable to continually state that the situation is tragic and ought to be treated with urgency, and then fail to put into place bold targets to focus policy making over the short, medium and longer term or to fund programs so they are capable of meeting these targets.

A plan that is not adequately funded to meet its outcomes cannot be considered an effective plan.

We don’t want to see any more unfunded commitments from governments.

Commitments, such as those at the COAG level, must be benchmarked and matched against need. They must be funded to achieve their goals and there must be equality between the investment in government bureaucratic processes and program funding that reaches Indigenous peoples.

Let me be provocative and ask you: Is a commitment to equality which is not accompanied by the effort needed to realise it any better than a system that actively discriminates against Indigenous peoples?

Indigenous peoples get no joy from commitments of governments which have not resulted in noticeable improvements.

The status quo is not acceptable.

We want to see a positive future, where the rhetoric of government turns to true reconciliation, as measured in tangible outcomes.

This is achievable and it is realistic. And it is overdue.

Let me conclude by reiterating one of my comments at the beginning. We are at one on this issue. Government, non-government and communities want to work together to end family violence in Indigenous communities. On behalf of the workshop organisers, we offer you our support in this effort.

Section 4: Extracts of materials on family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities

In this section:

This section contains extracts of reports, submissions, court interventions, speeches and other materials prepared by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission on issues relating to family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities over the past five years (2001 – 2006).

The materials are organised according to the following themes:

Review of progress in addressing family violence;
Recognising Aboriginal customary law consistently with human rights;
A human rights based approach to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage;
Mental health issues;
Indigenous women, imprisonment and post-release programs;
Indigenous youth and criminal justice processes;
Indigenous victims of crime; and
Substance abuse issues.

Please note that there is some crossover between themes, and materials extracted in one section also relate to issues discussed in other sections of the publication.

Footnotes and references have been removed from the extracted materials, unless providing important clarification, for ease of reference. The full versions of all the materials extracted, including references, are available on the HREOC website at the website addresses listed at the beginning of each extract.

All documents are linked from the following webpage: www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/familyviolence/

a. Review of progress in addressing family violence

Document extracted in this section:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Addressing family violence in Indigenous communities, Chapter 5, Social Justice Report 2003^[5]

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Addressing family violence in Indigenous communities, Chapter 5, Social Justice Report 2003

There is no issue currently causing more destruction to the fabric of Indigenous communities than family violence. This has been acknowledged by all levels of government in recent years, with a number of significant inquiries and initiatives undertaken or commenced at the federal, state and territory level to address its impact.

Indigenous concepts of family violence

Indigenous concepts of violence are much broader than usual mainstream definitions of domestic violence. For Indigenous peoples, the term family violence better reflects their experiences.

Family violence involves any use of force, be it physical or non-physical, which is aimed at controlling another family or community member and which undermines that person’s well-being. It can be directed towards an individual, family, community or particular group. In Tjunparni: Family Violence in Indigenous Australia family violence is defined as behaviours and experiences including:

beating of a wife or other family members, homicide, suicide and other self-inflicted injury, rape, child abuse and child sexual abuse. When we talk of family violence we need to remember that we are not talking about serious physical injury alone but also verbal harassment, psychological and emotional abuse, and economic deprivation, which although as devastating are even more difficult to quantify than physical abuse.

Family violence is not limited to physical forms of abuse. It also includes cultural and spiritual abuse:

People get hurt physically - you can see the bruises and black eyes. A person gets hurt emotionally - you can see the tears and the distressed face - but when you’ve been hurt spiritually like that - it’s a real deep hurt and nobody, unless you’re a victim yourself, could ever understand because you’ve been hurt by someone that you hold in trust.

Family violence in Indigenous communities also takes place in the broader context of violence committed at a systemic level:

It is violence to move people forcibly from their place of birth and to dump them in strange places... It is violence to separate family members by policy or by designed economic hardship and necessity. It is violence to classify people by race in order to deny privileges to some and heap privileges on others. It is violence to systematically deny the most basic human rights in the service of such a system. The obvious physical violence that reaches wide attention is the merest tip of the iceberg of such ignored, routinized, structural violence.

Hence, it is crucial to acknowledge the impact of broader systemic violence when considering the impact of family violence in Indigenous communities. It is vital that definitions of violence incorporate not only physical dimensions, but also emotional, social, economic, spiritual and institutional dimensions. The expansive framework of family violence is imperative in developing and implementing broad, holistic, prevention/intervention strategies at various levels of critical need.

Such a frame of reference brings into focus the interconnecting and trans-generational experiences of violence within Indigenous families and communities.

Aboriginal world views in relation to Family Violence

A critical aspect of this broader conception of what constitutes family violence is that it recognises the centrality of Indigenous culture in framing the experiences, choices and ultimately the responses to violence, of Indigenous women:

In understanding Aboriginal world views in relation to Family Violence, it has to be understood that an Aboriginal woman cannot be considered in isolation, or even as part of a nuclear family, but as a member of a wider kinship group or community that has traditionally exercised responsibility for her wellbeing as she exercises her rights within the group.

This factor is often overlooked by current policies and other intervention strategies aimed at addressing violence against women which are primarily guided and directed by a liberal feminist framework. The major criticism of western feminist based intervention strategies for dealing with violence against Indigenous women is that they have evolved from the very structures that served to subordinate and oppress Indigenous peoples. Moreover they embody white middle class women’s experiences. Indigenous women, however:

do not have a purely gendered experience of violence that renders them powerless. They, along with their men, experienced and continue to experience, the racist violence of the State. Aboriginal women do not share a common experience of sexism and patriarchal oppression, which binds them with non-Aboriginal women in a unified struggle...

The notion of patriarchy is foreign to traditional Aboriginal communities, which were relatively separate but equal in terms of male/female roles. While Aboriginal societies were gendered, women were not victims of men’s power, but assertively affirmed their place and role in the community. According to Berndt & Berndt (1964) this provided both independence yet an essential interdependence between gender groups.

Accordingly, Indigenous women’s experience of discrimination and violence is bound up in the colour of their skin as well as their gender. Strategies for addressing family violence in Indigenous communities need to acknowledge that a consequence of this is that an Indigenous woman ‘may be unable or unwilling to fragment their identity by leaving the community, kin, family or partners’ as a solution to the violence.

Many current approaches to family violence derive from a model of ‘domestic violence’ - violence against women, underpinned by western models of female oppression. These do not ‘fit’ Indigenous experience. The identity of many Indigenous women is bound to their experience as Indigenous people. Rather than sharing a common experience of sexism binding them with non-Indigenous women, this may bind them more to their community, including the men of the community. Indigenous people may also have a negative perception of police and welfare authorities.

An emphasis on criminal justice responses to family violence poses two main concerns for Indigenous women. The first is that the system is generally ineffective in addressing the behaviour of the perpetrator in the longer term. The effect of imprisonment is to remove them from the community and then, without any focus on rehabilitation or addressing the circumstances that led to the offending in the first place, to simply return them to the same environment. The second is that there are a range of barriers in the accessibility and cultural appropriateness of legal processes which discourage Indigenous women from using the criminal justice system in the first place.

These barriers highlight a failure to acknowledge that the unique characteristics of Indigenous family violence has the potential to render approaches for dealing with this violence ineffective, with the consequence that Indigenous women ultimately do not enjoy the protection of the law.

Statistics on family violence

There are significant deficiencies in the availability of statistics and research on the extent and nature of family violence in communities. An overview of recent statistics and research into the extent and nature of Indigenous family violence is provided in the report. What data exists suggests that Indigenous people suffer violence, including family violence, at significantly higher rates than other Australians do. This situation has existed for at least the past two decades with no identifiable improvement.

Responding to family violence

Addressing family violence is a shared responsibility between all levels of government with prime responsibility resting with health and community service agencies in federal, state and territory governments.

There are a patchwork of programs and approaches to addressing family violence in Indigenous communities among federal, state and territory governments, but there remains a lack of coordination and consistency in approaches to addressing these issues between governments and among different government agencies. Significant gaps also exist.

Existing family violence programs that are available to Indigenous peoples are limited in number, ad hoc and often of limited duration. Due to the inter-connections between family violence and other issues faced by Indigenous peoples, work being done at a grass roots level may also be overlooked and programs may not necessarily be identified or identify themselves as violence prevention programs. Proposed programs may also have difficulty obtaining funding, on either a pilot or ongoing basis, due to the overlap in jurisdictional and departmental responsibilities.

In Violence in Indigenous Communities, Memmott, Stacy, Chambers and Keys identified 130 Indigenous family violence programs that had been implemented or were planned for implementation in Indigenous communities, in the 1990s. They categorised these programs into the following broad areas of intervention:

Support programs - including one-on-one counselling and advice services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Aid Services and strategic advice for actual or potential victims to prevent or avoid violence, including referrals to other programs and centres.

Accessible and appropriate counselling is essential, not only for the victims and perpetrators of violence, but also for family and community members who not only deal with the issue of violence itself but to also provide post-violence counselling to family members who have lost someone as a result of violence, suicide, and more particularly for issues of female and male rape and child sexual assault.

Identity programs – Identity programs are those that are aimed to develop within the individual, family or community, a secure sense of self-value or self-esteem. This can be achieved through diversionary programs such as, sporting, social and cultural activities, education and skills training aimed at youth and young adults and also through therapy based programs that focus on culturally specific psychological or spiritual healing. Examples of this approach include the Muramali project as well as the Social and Emotional Well Being Centres being established in the Northern Territory. All these programs may be accessed prior to, and after involvement with violence, and offer a longer-term response through attempting to change the situational factors underlying violence.

Behavioural change (men and women’s groups) – as the majority of family violence is perpetrated by men, strong support for men’s behavioural reform programs is required. These programs are described as Men’s Healing Programs. The Ending Domestic Violence Programs for Perpetrators study, undertaken by Keys Young, found that collaborative projects must be adopted that link Indigenous people and agencies with domestic violence services, to develop services appropriate to the community. It is also important that complementary groups and support services for Indigenous women be run parallel to men’s programs and complementary preventative/intervention programs for youth be an integral part of the whole strategy. An example of this is the Rekindling the Spirit Program in Northern New South Wales which works with men, their partners, youth and children.

Night patrols - which have the potential to build cooperation and mutual respect and support with local police. As reported by the Australian Institute of Criminology, the Tangentyere Night Patrol (TNP) in the Northern Territory is a best practice example of a properly managed program that builds on the cooperation and mutual respect of local police. TNP patrolled the Aboriginal town camps on a regular basis to help minimise violence using non-violent methods. TNP uses and strengthens Aboriginal mechanisms for social control, thereby ensuring that traditional methods are afforded a key role in the control of anti-social behaviour, minor criminal infractions and potentially serious criminal incidents in the Aboriginal community;

Refuges and Shelters - while an important part of any family violence intervention strategy, are not a sufficient response to the difficulties produced by high levels of violence in Indigenous communities. They represent a reactive strategy in addressing the underlying causes, thereby creating no possibility of a change in the pattern of violent behaviour. Refuges and women’s shelters need to be coupled with other proactive strategies targeted at the perpetrators of violence and other situational factors. Indigenous specific shelters are essential. At the very least, Indigenous workers at shelters are vital.

Justice programs – the roles of justice programs, which are characteristically aimed at the perpetrators of violence, are to mediate between people in conflict, designate appropriately cultural punishments for victims, for example through circle sentencing and the prevention of recidivism.

The NSW Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council and the NSW Judicial Commission have recently released a joint report Circle Sentencing in New South Wales a Review and Evaluation. The report reviewed the first twelve months of the operation of circle sentencing in Nowra in South East New South Wales. The report found among other things that circle sentencing helps to break the cycle of recidivism, introduces more relevant and meaningful sentencing options for Aboriginal offenders with the help of respected community members, reduces the barriers that currently exist between the courts and Aboriginal people, leads to improvements in the level of support for Aboriginal offenders, incorporates support for victims, and promotes healing and reconciliation and increases the confidence and generally promotes the empowerment of Aboriginal people in the community.

Dispute resolution – Anecdotal evidence suggests that flexibility within NSW Community Justice Centres, although not aimed at Aboriginal people specifically, has proven to be successful in certain Indigenous communities in NSW. Specifically, success has been achieved where impartial members of the Indigenous community are used as facilitators and traditional dispute-resolution techniques are incorporated into the overall mediation process.

Education and awareness raising – Education and training programs are vital to raise awareness about family violence prevention; as well as develop the skills within communities to resolve conflicts and identify the need for interventions with perpetrators. The National Indigenous Legal Advocacy Courses, which are aimed at Indigenous peoples working in justice related fields including legal services and on community justice mechanisms, include competencies addressing awareness of family violence and conflict resolution.

Gnibi, the College of Indigenous Australian Peoples at the Southern Cross University, has also developed undergraduate and postgraduate degrees that are specifically designed to address the educational needs of Indigenous Australians from an Indigenous theory and educational practice dealing with issues of violence, trauma and healing.

Violence in Indigenous Communities reported that there were no educational programs targeted at young children for use in Indigenous pre-schools and schools. With the knowledge we now have about the detrimental effects of violence on children, or witnessed by children and the generational cycles by which violence is transmitted, it is essential to provide violence prevention education programs within pre-schools and schools.

Holistic composite programs – Programs which are comprised of elements of the above categories. These operate to target different forms of violence in the community, target different categories of offenders or victims, or employ different methods of combating or preventing violence.

There is also increasing recognition of the links between family violence and substance abuse, particularly alcohol. A number of recent initiatives, particularly in Queensland, have focused on restricting the availability of alcohol and introducing changes to canteen management to promote reduced alcohol consumption.

These programs function at different stages. Some are implemented during or immediately after the occurrence of a violent incident (early reactive programs); some are implemented some time after the incident and are aimed at resolving the negative impact of the violence (late reactive programs); some aim to counter any likelihood of violence at an early stage (early proactive strategies); and others are implemented prior to violence occurring but triggered by signs that violence may be imminent (late proactive strategies). This additional form of classification of programs highlights the need for a holistic composite set of programs to be made available for communities to address the various dimensions of family violence.

Overall, Memmott observes in relation to existing programs and approaches that:

The classification and review of violence programs indicated that there is a scarcity or under-representation of programs in certain key areas of violence, and that there is clearly a need to focus support resources into developing such programs for wider application.

A number of omissions in the available literature on Indigenous violence and violence programs were detected, including (i) a failure of program designers to clearly define the forms of violence they were targeting, (ii) a lack of program evaluation studies, and (iii) a lack of objective studies on the nature of program failures. The review of violence programs was also accompanied by a general finding that there was a general lack of programs in many Indigenous communities.

Memmott also states that a review of existing programs and approaches reveals three recurring strategic aspects that need to be present to address family violence in Indigenous communities, namely that programs be community-driven; that community agencies establish partnerships with each other and with relevant government agencies; and that composite violence programs are able to provide a more holistic approach to community violence.

The report notes the importance of programs that adopt an holistic or broad approach to violence. These:

often do not focus directly on any particular kind of violent behaviour, rather their efforts are aimed at either preventing at-risk people from falling prey to their vulnerability, or they attempt to heal the emotional and spiritual injury that is causing them to behave violently. Therefore, while the possibility of self-harming behaviour is reduced, rates of other forms of violence such as physical assault leading to homicide, spousal assault, rape and sexual assault and child violence might also be influenced...

The implementation of composite programs, particularly in communities displaying multiple forms of increasing violence, is shown to be an emerging and preferred approach that reflects a more systematic way of combating violence, combining both proactive and reactive methods which target different age and gender groups.

The report notes that a sensitive aspect of governments introducing services is how to best trigger such programs in communities where they are obviously needed while at the same time creating a climate whereby the programs are community-originating, motivated and controlled. Memmott recommends ‘that government agencies take a regional approach to supporting and coordinating local community initiatives, and assisting communities to prepare community action plans with respect to violence’.

Ensuring access to justice for Indigenous women

A matter of great concern in relation to current debates about addressing family violence in Indigenous communities is the lack of attention paid to issues of access to justice for Indigenous women.

ATSIC have noted that ‘Indigenous women have been identified as the most legally disadvantaged group in Australia’. A matter of particular concern is the limited ability of funding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (ATSILS) to provide access to justice for Indigenous women through legal representation and family violence services.

ATSIS note that:

ATSILS are required to prioritise provision of services in accordance with ATSIS’ National Program Policy Framework for ATSILS (“The ATSILS Policy Framework”) affording priority assistance to those clients who potentially face custodial sentences. Accordingly, in face of sheer demand for assistance, ATSILS predominantly provide legal aid services for criminal matters (89% of case and duty matters in 2001-02; compared with only 2% family matters and 2% violence protection matters).

This trend has, ATSIS state, ‘discouraged Indigenous women from approaching ATSILS for assistance initially, particularly given the likelihood of ATSILS defending the perpetrator’.

The Family Violence Prevention Legal Service Program (FVPLS) has been introduced as a response to Indigenous women’s lack of access to Legal Aid services. However with only 13 services across Australia, they do not provide coverage to all regions. ATSIS notes that ‘This relatively small and under-resourced program is unable to address the barriers Indigenous women face in accessing Indigenous Legal Aid services, nor to provide the range of legal services available through ATSILS’. They express concern that:

There is an urgently growing demand for ATSILS to provide child protection, civil and family related, (including family violence) services. However, providing these services as well as continuing assistance in criminal matters will require additional resources or, alternatively a change in the priorities set for provision of legal aid services. If priorities are reset then this will simply postpone unmet demand that will be unlikely to be satisfied through referrals and alternative services.

ATSIC/ATSIS note further that while they and the ATSILS that it funds are committed to stamping out family violence, the prioritising of scarce resources to criminal matters means that ‘in practice, victims are not assisted while those responsible, are’. Accordingly, constraints of existing resources for legal support limits the capacity of ATSIC/ATSIS ‘to give its own policies concrete substance. This contradiction will be overcome only through additional resourcing of ATSILS and Indigenous women specific legal service providers’.

There is an urgent need to ensure appropriate funding levels for ATSILS in order to provide a greater focus on the legal needs of Indigenous women as well as a greater focus on preventative action and community education. At the very least, there is also an urgent need for the federal government to allocate additional, quarantined, funding to expand the Family Violence Prevention Legal Service Program. Such funding needs to be new money as there is clearly no capacity for ATSIS/ATSIC, through its support for ATSILS, to re-allocate existing resources.

Community justice responses to family violence

The criminal justice system is extremely poor at dealing with the underlying causes of criminal behaviour and makes a negligible contribution to addressing the consequences of crime in the community. One of the consequences of this, and a vital factor that is often overlooked, is that Indigenous victims of crime and communities are poorly served by the current system.

Accordingly, the current system disadvantages Indigenous people from both ends - it has a deleterious effect on Indigenous communities through over-representation of Indigenous people in custody combined with the lack of attention it gives to the high rate of Indigenous victimisation, particularly through violence and abuse in communities. Reform to criminal justice processes, including through community justice initiatives, must be responsive to these factors.

The past decade has seen an increased emphasis on restorative justice mechanisms for addressing criminal behaviour in Indigenous communities to address the needs of victims (including of family violence) as well as to make the system more meaningful to offenders.

The most accepted definition of restorative justice is that of Tony Marshall which states that it is ‘a process whereby all the parties with a stake in a particular offence come together to resolve collectively how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future’. The Law Commission of Canada provides a useful commentary on restorative justice as:

fundamentally concerned with restoring social relationships, with establishing or re-establishing social equality in relationships. That is, relationships in which each person's rights to equal dignity, concern and respect are satisfied... As it is concerned with social equality, restorative justice inherently demands that one attend to the nature of relationships between individuals, groups and communities. Thus, in order to achieve restoration of relationships, restorative justice must be concerned with both the discrete wrong and its relevant context and causes.

This does not necessarily seek to return a relationship to the position prior to the commission of some wrongdoing, but instead to address the underlying issues. Restorative justice can thus incorporate concepts of restitution and healing, while focusing on the transformation of relationships.

There are numerous new initiatives in Australia developing community based justice mechanisms for Indigenous people which are based on restorative justice principles. Some of these processes, such as Law and Justice Committees in the Northern T

Site navigation

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Social Justice navigation

Ending family violence and abuse in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities – Key issues

An overview paper of research and findings by the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2001 – 2006

Section 1: Introduction

Section 2: Summary of main findings and messages on ending family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities

Family violence – key messages

Ten key challenges in addressing family violence and abuse

Defining family violence in Indigenous communities

Designing programs to address family violence

A human rights based approach to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage

Recognising Aboriginal customary law consistently with human rights

Balancing customary law with human rights standards

Resolving conflicts between human rights and Aboriginal customary law

Indigenous women, imprisonment and post-release support needs

Indigenous youth and criminal justice systems

Restorative justive models

Victims of crime

Mental health

Substance abuse issues

Section 3: Addressing family violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities – Key issues

Section 4: Extracts of materials on family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities

a. Review of progress in addressing family violence

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Addressing family violence in Indigenous communities, Chapter 5, Social Justice Report 2003

Site navigation

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Social Justice navigation

Ending family violence and abuse in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities – Key issues

An overview paper of research and findings by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2001 – 2006

Section 1: Introduction

Section 2: Summary of main findings and messages on ending family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities

Family violence – key messages

Ten key challenges in addressing family violence and abuse

Defining family violence in Indigenous communities

Designing programs to address family violence

A human rights based approach to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage

Recognising Aboriginal customary law consistently with human rights

Balancing customary law with human rights standards

Resolving conflicts between human rights and Aboriginal customary law

Indigenous women, imprisonment and post-release support needs

Indigenous youth and criminal justice systems

Restorative justive models

Victims of crime

Mental health

Substance abuse issues

Section 3: Addressing family violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities – Key issues

Section 4: Extracts of materials on family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities

a. Review of progress in addressing family violence

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Addressing family violence in Indigenous communities, Chapter 5, Social Justice Report 2003

An overview paper of research and findings by the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2001 – 2006