University of Queensland researchers have prepared the first comprehensive report on Indigenous violence in Australia.
The report, entitled Violence in Indigenous Communities, was recently released by the Federal Attorney-General Amanda Vanstone and involved a detailed examination of literature and 100 interviews with representatives of Aboriginal organisations across Australia.
The report reveals Indigenous people are eight times more likely to be homicide victims than others and Indigenous women are 45 times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be victims of domestic violence. Some 45 percent of Indigenous people say they believe family violence is a common problem.
UQ's Aboriginal Environments Research Centre (AERC) Director Associate Professor Paul Memmott said the report revealed a scarcity of programs in key areas of violence.
Dr Memmott was the principal researcher on the report assisted by co-authors Rachael Stacy, Cath Chambers and Cathy Keys of the same Centre.
He said the report called for more government resources to be directed into developing much-needed programs to counter the problem of violence in Indigenous communities.
"The report recommends 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," Dr Memmott said.
"Another key level of government involvement is through partnerships between Indigenous program personnel and mainstream services such as police, judiciary, prisons, ambulance and hospitals."
The report identified 12 main forms of violence in Indigenous communities including spousal assault, homicide, rape and sexual assault, child violence, one-on-one adult altercations, suicide, economic abuse and dysfunctional community syndrome.
"The report found alcohol was a contributing factor in these incidents and that some cases continued for years only ending with the death of the spousal victim," Dr Memmott said.
"Unlike the case with Aboriginal suicides, there has been few studies on the underlying issues which contribute to the mental state and socialisation of the male offenders of spouse violence."
He said Northern Territory Indigenous women suffered a disproportionate amount of this form of violence compared to other parts of Australia with 6000 such incidents reported each year.
"Weapons were used in around 50 to 60 per cent of cases of Indigenous spouse attack including sticks, rocks, iron bars, knives, spears, guns, firesticks, bottles and ropes," Dr Memmott said.
"Women were bashed because food was not available; because of sexual jealousy, real or imagined; over money; when they were pregnant; when the man was having an affair; and because of women's greater social and economic success.
"Indigenous women died from domestic violence at a rate 10 times that of non-Indigenous women."
Similarly, Dr Memmott said homicide occurred at much higher rates among Indigenous people than for the non-Indigenous community.
"The Australian Institute of Criminology figures for homicide for 1998 show that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprised at least 13 percent of all homicide victims and 17 percent of all offenders, although they represented only 1.5 percent of the population as a whole," Dr Memmott said.
Senator Vanstone said the violence directed against Indigenous people was unacceptable.
"The violence in some communities has reached such a level that violence is viewed as normal behaviour," she said.
"The Federal Government has been developing strategies, in conjunction with various Indigenous communities, to effectively deal with the different types of crime in Indigenous communities."
The AERC operates as a research and consultancy practice, teaching centre and archive, providing a national focal point on issues of Aboriginal housing and architecture for the academic, government and community sectors. It also offers several undergraduate courses and supervision of undergraduate and postgraduate theses on Indigenous issues.
For more information, contact Associate Professor Paul Memmott (telephone 07 3365 3660) or Shirley Glaister at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2339).
