What the inquiry found is precisely what First Nations women have been saying for decades: that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children are disproportionately impacted by men’s use of violence.
That their stories and lives are ignored by mainstream media.
That police often fail to adequately investigate, search for, or respond to calls for help from First Nations women and children.
And that the data is shockingly incomplete and inadequate. No one is accurately keeping count.
As Janet Hunt from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research submitted to the inquiry, there is a gender bias in public policy:
Despite the fact that a comparable number of First Nations women have died as a result of violence against them, as First Nations men have died in custody, it is the latter issue that attracted far more public policy attention, including through an early Royal Commission […] There is now data on deaths in custody. There is still no data on national deaths of First Nations women by violence.
Extreme rates of violence
Despite the flawed data, those that were captured show the extreme and disproportionate rate of violence against First Nations women.
First Nations women represented 16% of all Australian women homicide victims, despite comprising between 2–3% of the adult female population.
First Nations children represented 13% of all child homicide victims.
Counting missing First Nations women and children was equally problematic, somewhat owing to some jurisdictions not recording Indigenous status in their figures.
