Missing & Murdered First Nations Women & Children
The landmark report handed down yesterday tells a story of genocide, and yet another failed government response.
According to Four Corners research:
“At least 315 First Nations women have either gone missing or been murdered or killed in suspicious circumstances since 2000. What we do know is that First Nations women are being murdered at up to 12 times the national average. In some regions, their deaths make up some of the highest homicide rates in the world.”
For the last two years, evidence has been given to the Senate Inquiry into Missing & Murdered First Nations Women & Children. Yesterday, the inquiry handed down their report.
It was weak as piss.
The report delivered 10 recommendations for governments (federal, state and territory) to implement.
They include: auditing the attorney-general’s department, the creation of a First Nations role within the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission, best practice domestic violence and cultural safety training for police, increasing police recruitment of First Nations people and improved standards for media reporting on murdered and disappeared First Nations women and children.
These ten recommendations do not adequately reflect the serious nature of the evidence provided. They do not incite the action necessary to respond urgently to this national emergency. Yet again, First Nations women and children are let down at the highest level. These women who are disappeared and murdered at disproportionate rates are being widely ignored, forgotten and are seeing no justice.
Responding to the report, Greens senator for Western Australia, Dorinda Cox, told the Senate:
“This report is about deliberate actions and failures of a system that has at its heart racially and gendered violence. It is, in fact, a form of genocide when the system doesn’t properly respond to save the lives of First Nations people, and there must continue to be outrage about this happening in a modern day country like Australia.”
“Problems have in fact been identified but the recommendations don't contain many solutions. Where solutions are presented, they are presented far too broadly.”
Cox pointed to one of the most obvious omissions of the report, which is improvement in tracking data of missing First Nations women and children. When we don’t have accurate numbers, we do not know the extent of this form of genocide.
In looking towards what could and should have been recommended by the report, I want to highlight an expert: Karen Iles.
In February this year, Karen gave evidence to the inquiry. Karen is the founder of Violet Co Legal & Consulting, she is also the Director and Principal Solicitor. Karen is a First Nations woman, a survivor, an advocate, and one of the best people I’ve ever met. Karen is a champion, she is also a friend.
I don’t want to write these horrific facts without mentioning the personal. Not only is it important to acknowledge the context in which I write this and my connection to one of the key advocates in this story, but to remind ourselves how close this inquiry sits to you personally. There are people you smile at in passing, those you go to parties with, friends you know from school, coworkers, loved ones that are deeply impacted by this ongoing emergency. People you plan brunch with, live next door to and follow on Instagram not only have experienced awful things personally, or carry intergenerational trauma, but are changing the world by holding the powerful accountable. These facts and experiences are not far from your home: they are the reality of it. These truths are hard to look away from, but if we do, we other those at the heart of them.
Before reading Karen’s evidence, you can make a donation to the sexual assault victims justice fund to support Karen’s work. By donating, you help fund independent legal representatives for women and gender diverse people who have been victims of sexual assault. You also fund the campaign to increase police accountability when victims come forward with reports of sexual assault.
I have been communicating with Karen about this inquiry for a couple of weeks now, and this morning when we spoke about yesterday’s report, she raised the lack of recommendations and their continued failure to address the problem: systemic racism, sexism and homophobia in the police force:
“The law isn’t the problem, we have adequate laws around sexual assault, abduction and murder. The issue is the application of the law by police, who are continually allowed to self-regulate. It’s the deliberate, wilful ignoring of their duty to First Nations citizens in this country.
The problem in this picture is the lack of policing on this issue. This is racism, sexism and homophobia at an institutional level.
The disparity between police, media and community response to the abduction, sexual assault and murder of non-First Nations children and women is clear.”
Now, to the evidence. This is an extract from Karen’s evidence delivered to the Senate Inquiry. These are some of the recommendations that could have been adopted:
“These are some of the solutions I have posed, in consultation with other First Nations women.
I want to focus on seven solutions [...] I provide these solutions and actions as a legal practitioner with experience in this area and as someone with my own lived experience. I've been given permission to pose these solutions by other Aboriginal women who I hold in high regard. [...]
National principles on how police investigations must, at a minimum standard, be conducted. Unenforceable police codes of conduct, operating procedures and victims' charters of rights are not cutting it. Victims must know what to expect and get it, no matter who they are, what colour their skin is, what mob they're from or when they report to police. These minimum standards must be enshrined in the law in states and territories so that justice can be applied evenly and without gender based and race based discrimination. That was a recommendation from the Australian Law Reform Commission report in 2018, Pathways to justice—an inquiry into the incarceration rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The recommendations said that the law should be: “… enforced fairly, equally and without discrimination with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.” That includes victims and their families.
A national and nationwide duty of care is owed by police to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims or, if they're dead, their families. Police must not harm and must not traumatise victims and their families through negligent actions and deliberate actions. This should be enshrined in law, nationally and in the states and territories. Police must be held to the same standard as other government officials and professionals. Police action can cause harm, and they must have a 'do no harm' ethos. Their fundamental role in our society is to protect every single person—not to pick and choose and exercise discretion but to protect every single person equally and without discrimination. The duty of care must be extended to victims-survivors of sexual assault and the families of abducted and murdered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This is not a duty of care to every woman and her dog but to a limited amount of people in our society who have already suffered unspeakable crimes. A duty of care means having a duty of care to mental health and wellbeing, and it means police not acting with negligence or recklessness when carrying out their duties.
A national state and territory police complaints integrity corruption commission is needed, and it needs to follow the Northern Ireland model. Bodies in each state and territory are routinely criticised for their lack of transparency, accountability and justice. The Yoorrook commission has just reported on the inquiry into the LECC in New South Wales, which happened last year. The conflict of interest of police investigating police is absolutely laughable and Orwellian. We wouldn't accept it in any other profession. I believe the Northern Ireland model is an instructive model, and I would urge the commission of inquiry to recommend a deep dive into how that body could be set up nationally in Australia. Essentially, it is an independent body that is not staffed by police or former police. When they receive a complaint, if they determine it and find that the police were negligent or lacking in proper conduct, they have the power to refer it to prosecution, and they have the power to reinvestigate, rather than giving the victims back to the same police force who wronged them so badly. That model has been recognised and recommended in the Yoorrook commission and also the commission of inquiry in Queensland by Judge Richards, which I referred to earlier.
A national independence complaints and compensation scheme to address police negligence, with all states and territories contributing. States and territories are conflicted in claims against them, just as we've seen institutions like the Catholic Church struggle with this. As a society, we set up the royal commission and a national redress scheme. We must provide access to some form of justice to end the unresolved trauma for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in the aftermath of murders, sexual assaults and abductions.
Research into the connection between poor police responses to abduction, sexual assault and murder, and the suicide of the victim or the victim's family members. I've spoken about that in camera. We simply don't have the numbers, just the qualitative examples. Suicide as a result of poor interaction with police is widespread. From what I'm aware of and privy to through my networks and clients, I believe that at least every week a victim of sexual assault or a family member of a victim who doesn't get justice commits suicide. They're driven there by the helplessness that an absence of access to justice leaves. Police truly do have the blood of victims on their hands.
A national truth and justice commission regarding the abduction, sexual assault and murder of First Nations women and children. This must be accompanied by state-funded legal representation for victims-survivors and their families, restorative justice and compensation schemes, just like there were for victims of institutional child abuse. In the case of the truth and justice commission, it must include scope for an inquiry into violence—not just crimes by individuals but crimes by the instruments of the state, such as police—and the physical and mental harm that retraumatisation causes by the interaction with victims and families.
A national alternative to police for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims and their families for those who have been abducted or murdered or are victims of sexual assault. We must provide alternative pathways to access to justice. We need legislation to empower a civilian body at a nationwide level to receive reports of harm and to be able to coordinate a response. This will eliminate the need for victims-survivors and their families to be interacting with police as much as possible. I come from an employment law background. In employment law, we would treat this through a risk assessment lens. You need to eliminate the hazard. Police are the hazard to our people. Police are the hazard to our mental health and wellbeing. Of course there can be training, and there has been for decades. Of course there are individual police officers who are doing a fabulous job, and I'm sure that those First Nations officers who are sitting behind me in this inquiry today are doing a fabulous job. However, inquiry after inquiry finds that, systemically, the police force consists of sexist, misogynist and racist culture. We can never get justice. Until that is resolved, police are not safe for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims and their families to deal with.”
It is easy to criticise a government response, but often harder to understand (especially without robust reporting on the inquiry) what should be recommended and actioned instead. These solutions articulate what is being asked of our government, from a legal expert and a lived experience expert.
The murders of First Nations women and children are, as Senator Cox stated, a form of genocide. This story won’t be adequately covered in the mainstream media, but it should be our front page news. First Nations women and children are being abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered. By not acting appropriately, our government is permitting it.
This report has not taken adequate steps to change that.
I’ll be popping back on Monday with resources, recommendations and a new piece.
H.
Thanks for reporting on this Hannah. As a dv and sa survivor it makes me so angry how little is being done to productively support women and children in these situations… but the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are more likely to experience it, and more likely to be missing or murdered, and still don’t have dedicated action of any significance is just fucked. Like you said, this should be front page news, and yet it’s the first I’m hearing of any government inquiry (however disappointing the result). It’s shameful. Others reading don’t forget to share this widely because it should be part of the conversation in every home, at every dinner table.