‘Protect Australia’s indigenous women’
SYDNEY: Australia is failing to protect its female indigenous people from violence, which is aggravated by high levels of inequity, the UN said yesterday.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians rank near the bottom of every social and economic indicator, which exacerbates tension in communities of the world’s longest continuous civilisation.
“They are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of domestic/family violence and up to 3.7 times more likely than other women to be victims of sexual violence,” Dubravka Simonovic, UN special rapporteur on violence against women, said in Canberra.
Simonovic, who said the figures were likely to underestimate the extent of the problem, said aboriginal women were often caught in a cycle of violence, beginning in childhood.
Indigenous children are about seven times more likely than non-indigenous children to be subjected to abuse or neglect and about 10 times more likely to be in out-of-home care, the UN said.
With a troubled upbringing, a disproportionately high number of indigenous woman end up in prison, a figure exacerbated by government policies, most notably incarceration for unpaid fines, which Simonovic said affected indigenous people more than the non-indigenous people.
Australia’s indigenous peoples are also far more likely to experience racism than any other minority in the country, according to a separate survey released late on Sunday.
Over 6 000 people were surveyed for the study, with most having encountered racism at one point or another, but over two-thirds of indigenous people said they had been taunted with names, and treated without respect.
Professor Claire Smith of Flinders University said that the “everyday” racism cited in the report by Western Sydney University, is not just a concern for indigenous people.
“I think everyday racism against Muslim people, against Asian people, against Aboriginal people, occurs often through exclusion,” Smith said. Reuters and Xinhua