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Are Indigenous women 34 to 80 times more likely to experience domestic and family violence?
It is difficult to measure the full extent of domestic and family violence against women as most incidents go unreported, but we know that Indigenous women are much more likely to experience domestic and family violence than non-Indigenous Australian women.
The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022 quotes a figure of Indigenous females being up to 35 times more likely to experience domestic and family violence than non-Indigenous Australian women. And the Productivity Commission’s 2011 Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report says Indigenous women and girls are 31 times more likely to be hospitalised due to domestic and family violence related assaults compared to non-Indigenous women and girls.
The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022 quotes the 2009 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Social Survey as finding that around a quarter of all Indigenous women have experienced physical violence in the last 12 months and that nearly all of them knew their perpetrator.
We also know that Indigenous people are disproportionately victims and offenders in homicide incidents, and that most of these occur between family members.
There is evidence to support the claim that Indigenous women are up to 80 times more likely to experience violence in the “worst areas”. There is also anecdotal evidence and media reporting to support this assertion.
