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A PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE—

Victims Rights in a Human Rights Framework Conference

 “Addressing the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the victims of crime”

Presented by Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner

Rydges Capital Hill, Canberra          16 November 2005

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting, the Ngunnawal people.

I thank Robyn Holder and Helen Watchirs for hosting this event and inviting me to speak. I also acknowledge my fellow speakers and distinguished guests.

I stand here as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and also as an Ambassador for White Ribbon Day, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. My presentation today will generally focus on issues faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women as victims of crime.

Almost 20 years ago, on November 29, 1985, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus a Declaration of the basic principles of justice for victims of crime and for the victims of the abuse of political and other forms of power. There is real cause to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this event. Twenty years ago, governments’ responses to crime were largely focused on ‘catching criminals’, with little regard to their victims.

Today the victims of crime are acknowledged and offered support including – where possible – being provided with redress and restitution. In Australia, the influence of the Declaration can be seen in victim’s rights now enshrined in state and territory legislation: for example, the right to victim’s compensation or to have Victim Impact Statements admitted at trials.

Victims rights are of particular importance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as they are far more likely to the victim of violence that non-Indigenous people in Australia.

(Slide 2)

For example, the Australian  Bureau of Statistics’ National Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Survey (what I will refer to as the ‘NATSISS’) indicates that Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people aged 18 years or over experienced double the victimisation rate of non-Indigenous people in 2002.¹ However, the NATSISS is likely to under-report the true extent of the problem. I say this because it did not survey Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in institutional settings – notably hospitals and prisons - the very places one might expect to find a high concentration of victims of crime.

Indeed, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in their excellent biannual report The Health and Welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males were hospitalised for assault at almost 7 times the rate of the general population males, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females at 30 times the rate of that of females in the general population in 2003-2004.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics note, however, that there is likely to be an undercount. While the Bureau does not spell it out, it is not too hard to imagine how this might be so, with assault victims attributing injuries to other causes, to avoid scrutiny and the potential involvement of the police.²

I also note that in the Health and Welfare report that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths from assault were, for various age groups reported at, 10 to 18 times higher than the rate in the general population for males and 6 to 16 times the rate for females over 1999 – 2003.³

There are also particular crimes that are almost certainly significantly under-reported.

First are crimes of sexual violence.  It should be no surprise that in the same way sexual violence is often shrouded in secrecy in the general community, it is even more difficult to estimate with any accuracy the extent and experience of Aboriginal victims of rape. However, I note one study carried out in New South Wales in 2002 that found more than 40% of Aboriginal women in prison identified as victims of sexual assault as an adult⁴; and another in Western Australia that found 67% of Indigenous women incarcerated in October/November 2001 reported having experienced abuse as children or adults.⁵

There is a consistent pattern in relation to these studies on incarcerated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women that have been victims of assault and sexual assault at some time in their lives - notably how the separation between 'victim' and 'offender' is not clear at all. In reality many Aboriginal people, both men and women, in the criminal justice system are both offenders and victims.

In this and so many other ways crime victimisation feeds a vicious cycle in communities. I believe that a good deal of the mental health problems reported in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities – low self-esteem, depression, guilt, fear and relationship difficulties, substance abuse through to self-harm and suicide – are as much a result of exposure to violence and crime, as drivers of it. Crime victimization feeds into a broader pattern of trauma experienced by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and that must be acknowledged by governments and policy makers.

I also want to reflect on why many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women do not report sexual assault. Reasons given in studies that address this question included: intimidation by authority figures and white people in general; the closeness of communities leading to fear of reprisals or shame; the relationship of the victim to the victimiser; unfamiliarity with legal processes; and a fear that the victimiser will be sent to prison. Aboriginal women have also been reported to receive poor responses from police to complaints about violence and other disturbances.⁶ One reason suggested for under-policing in relation to alleged assaults is a perception that family violence is part of Aboriginal culture or a 'tribal norm'.⁷ Another connected reason is the view that Aboriginal women are undeserving of police protection. While I acknowledge that many police forces have worked over the past fifteen years to ensure they are more responsive to the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, there is room for improvement here as is many areas.

The second area where crime is likely to be underreported is in relation to crimes within the family. In particular, crimes against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, which are all too often reliant on medical and social services authorities to expose. Substantiated child protection orders data does provide some insight into the extent of this – that is, where a child is legally determined to have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused, or neglected by his or her family or carers. And the rate for which these orders are made is far higher in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children than non-Indigenous children. Again referring to data in the Health and Welfare report, in 2003 -2004 in Victoria, orders were made at ten times the rate of those made in relation to non-Indigenous children, and in WA and SA, eight times the rate.⁸

I note that for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women, the cycle of victim and victimiser and the normalisation of violence begin in the family, in the home, and in the community, even if they were not directly victimised themselves. In my opinion, any child that witnesses family violence is also a victim of crime.

Now having surveyed the potential extent of the problem, the first question I want to address is - Why is this happening? What are the reasons? Well, my first observation is that in many, although certainly not all, cases it is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are the perpetrators of violence against other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly within communities.⁹

In my opinion, the high levels of victimisation reflect a real crisis - a breakdown of community and family structures and a deterioration of traditional, customary law and practices - processes used for generations to regulate the behaviour in communities. All these were integral component of the operation of Aboriginal families and societies.

A related issue is that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are exposed to high levels of chronic stress on a regular basis; through poverty, lack of education and employment prospects, racism and discrimination, and cultural dislocation. Because of these things, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have little sense of how to control their lives, as individuals, communities and as a distinct cultural and racial group within Australia¹⁰. They may also be traumatised by, for example, being removed from their families as a child, or be carrying the intergenerational effects of such removals. To the degree these things cause chronic stress they can manifest as mental health problems¹¹ and as substance abuse – as already noted - drivers of violent crime. Also, men’s violence against women has been linked to male offenders’ perceived lack of control over their lives.¹²

 Slide 3

So what to do about it? Well, while acknowledging the important place of victims support services in a total response, I also make the point that prevention is obviously a far better option. Responses are needed now rather than later. The NATSISS , for example, reported a doubling of reported threatened or actual violence being experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over 1994 (the year of the first survey) and 2002 when the second survey occurred.

At its broadest, an address to the issue of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victimisation is related to a much broader response to the systemic issues that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities – an address to poverty and overcrowding in communities is required, for example. And to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as individuals, communities and as cultural and racial groups to take control of their lives. However, I do not want to dwell on that now.

Below this broad level, a number of interventions are required. To that end, I welcome the recent focus on family violence in communities and the roll out of family violence prevention services over the past few years and programs like the Indigenous Women’s Leadership Program developed by Kerrie Tim and her team at the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination. I also welcome initiatives such as the recently announced National Emotional and Social Well Being Framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People and some of the new Shared Responsibility Agreements that seek to encourage communities to address family and community safety – through for example, establishing night patrols in communities where there is little if any police presence, through empowering and strengthening women, or through encouraging the community’s men to work closely with family violence prevention services.

However, more needs to be done.

• There is a need for more Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people to be trained as mental health professionals and para-professionals to work in communities. And also the need for mainstream services to be more attuned to the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. To that end, I note, for example, the excellent work being done at the Djirruwang Program at Charles Sturt University to train an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health workforce.

• I also highlight the need for more and integrated primary mental health, substance abuse and family violence services in communities. Services that are controlled by the community they serve.

• There is also a need for greater linkages between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities and the justice system. I highlight, for example, the impact of circle sentencing and specialist Koori Courts on getting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people out of the cycle of crime and violence. A significant feature of this approach is empowering Aboriginal elders in the community through the sentencing process and by providing a safe place for victims of crime to be involved in the process, if they so choose. While these processes need to be specifically tailored to the cultural circumstances of each community in which they are to operate, and do not provide a panacea for all social problems facing Indigenous communities, the early signs are highly encouraging in bringing meaning into the criminal process for offenders, particularly chronic offenders.

 Finally, what about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights as the victims of crime? Are they accessing the support and other services available? Well the evidence suggests that in some cases Yes, and in others No. For example:

• Western Australia: At the Western Australian Victim Support Service, for example, in the last 12 months 11.6% of referrals were for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, approximately four times their representation in the Western Australian population (about 3%¹³)  For the country/regional services, the referral figure is 24.8% and for the metro region it is 2.1%. I understand that the metro region figure is much smaller than the country regional figure at least in part because of a lack of rigor around identifying the Indigenous status of service users, starting with the police who often refer people to the services.

• Northern Territory: Victims of Crime NT does record Indigenous status.  In 2003-04, 9% of referrals were for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and in the current financial year this has increased to 12%. While the increase is to be welcomed, this figure still represents less than half of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ representation in the NT population (about 30%¹⁴).

However, in the main, we just don’t know. Although I do not want to single particular support services out here, I highlight that, while they provide an important service and their professionalism is not questioned,  a number of state and territory victims support services and victims compensations services, in particular, do not record Indigenous status of their clients. This in my eyes is a significant oversight – how is a service to know it is meeting the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people if monitoring is not taking place? From a human rights perspective, it is essential that all Australians enjoy the same opportunity to access and use these services.  And equality of opportunity must be related to relative needs of different population groups. As such it is incumbent on such services to proactively ensure they are meeting the higher need for victims support services of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This is particularly important given that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and particularly women, are a vulnerable and easily marginalised population group.  However, the first step in this direction is monitoring.

Further steps are then of course required: for example:

• Establishing or strengthening linkages with hospitals and prisons, and Aboriginal legal and medical services;
• Greater efforts must also be made to establish services or outreach services in remote communities to ensure people there can access them. Ideally, these would be integrated into mental health, substance abuse and family violence services;
• In general, there is also room for awareness raising and the promotion of victims support services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
• I am also a strong believer that we need to continue to focus our efforts to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to educate people about violence and send a strong message that it is not part of Aboriginal culture.

A final point I want to make is that its is important for victim support services to recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may not approach issues like family violence, or victimisation in the same way as non-Indigenous people. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims of crime and family violence the solutions to that problem are seen to lie in strategies that attend to the needs of all members of the community, particularly in ‘healing’ rather than punishing the victimisers.

This point of difference was discussed in my Social Justice Report 2004 in relation to the post-release needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Victim support services need to acknowledge and address that fully engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ‘victims’ and women in particular may require a quite different set of capabilities and quite a different approach. Again, such services are best designed and delivered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

In closing I remind you that White Ribbon Day is just over a week away – on the 25 November – and I would encourage everyone here to show their support for ending violence against women on that day by participating in some of the activities occurring around the country, even if that support is expressed by nothing more than wearing a white ribbon.         

Thank you

Notes:

Last
updated 24 November 2005