NINEMSN June 13, 1999
http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sun_cover2.asp?id=856
The truth about Aboriginal domestic
violence
Reporter: Helen Dalley Producer: Paul Steindl
This week the Sunday program looks at domestic
violence in Aboriginal communities. It's a controversial
subject, one regarded by many as being too difficult and
too complex for the media to scrutinise. This
overwhelming problem has been ignored by nearly
everyone; government authorities, welfare providers and
even Aboriginals themselves. Many in the past have felt
that there as nothing to be gained from bringing domestic
violence to prominence. There was a shame attached to
admitting the problem affected your family and there was
a sense of political incorrectness for the media in
reporting it.
For this story, Sunday travelled to Aboriginal towns and
communities in Queensland and the Northern Territory,
talking to the people affected the most. For the first time a
story about violence in these places is told by both the
perpetrators and the victims.
New statistics on injury rates and types also presents a
confronting picture of abuse. Figures collated in five
isolated Aboriginal communities by the Queensland
Department of Health show that head injuries to females
are the leading injury, followed by upper torso (hand)
injuries for males. The other area of concern is child
sexual abuse. Health officials are now testing and finding
sexually-transmitted diseases in children as young as 12.
Most Australians wouldn�t recognise these �communities�
as being part of this country. A tour with Alice Springs'
Tangentyere Council�s night patrol into many of the
outlying town camps is indeed a frightening entr�e into an
alien world -- a world that up till now has largely been
hidden from wider scrutiny. The patrol is the front line in
the help and protection role that the council has taken on.
It�s manned six days a week by full-time staff. Sometimes
they drive straight into trouble, breaking up fights fuelled
by cheap grog and depressed living conditions, family
members pushed to breaking point by overcrowding and
poverty. It�s the macro problem being fought with micro
solutions.
The descent of many Aboriginal communities into violent,
out-of-control ghettos has been a downward spiral for 30
years. The figures showing increasing injury and assault
rates only back-up what the social workers in these areas
have known for years. In blunt statistics, indigenous
women are a staggering 45 times more likely to be victims
of violence than women from the non-indigenous
community. Aboriginal reticence in discussing personal
problems is well-known; history has taught them to suffer
quietly and in the main they still do. It used to be unusual
to hear details of alcohol and domestic violence from the
people on the receiving end, but as whole families are
swallowed by endless binge drinking, some are coming
forward to tell the wider community how they are
suffering.
Alice Limbiari says her life has been shaped by the
violence that�s surrounded her family during her 20 years
of marriage. Educated and raised on the Presbyterian
mission on Melville Island, her married life was according
to her �� terrible. My husband used to drink, he used to
go off with other women. He used to come back and beat
me up�. But the damage was done. Her boys copied their
father�s behaviour and soon �� they started drinking.
They got married and when they drink they beat up their
wives�. Worse still for Alice were the times her sons
turned on her, prompting her to take out an apprehended
violence order which ended with one of her sons being
jailed. This depressing tale is significant because Alice
decided to fight back, using the law to tell her story of
violence and suffering.
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