Systemic racism requires systemic solutions
THE CHALLENGE
The attitudes and understandings measured by the NCAS point towards systemic issues. Systemic racism is embedded in and perpetrated through the attitudes, norms and practices of non-Indigenous people, services and systems. This causes inequality for, and harm to, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
THE WAY FORWARD
The NCAS findings provide insights for initiatives to prevent violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Systems-level change is needed to:
- identify and eradicate systemic racism to create fair, accessible and trustworthy systems and services that are culturally safe, trauma aware and healing informed.
- work in true partnership with Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) to prevent violence against women. ACCOs put self-determination into action by delivering essential, culturally safe services and advocating for communities’ needs. This includes partnerships with mainstream services and systems. Work with ACCOs could include:
- conducting research into why there are gaps in the understanding of the gendered nature of domestic violence and what factors shape attitudes towards violence against women
- delivering education to increase understanding of the high prevalence and negative impacts of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, including education for non-Indigenous people, mainstream media, the police and criminal justice system, and other essential services
- prioritising strengthening capability among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to recognise and report violence and to challenge attitudes that condone or normalise it
- providing and increasing access to culturally responsive services for victims and perpetrators of domestic violence who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to facilitate reporting and access to justice and healing.
Violence against women and children is linked to colonisation
Colonisation is the process through which British colonisers dispossessed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of their lands to establish British colonies in Australia.
These colonisers imposed European ideals, perspectives, structures and systems and intentionally disrupted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, cultures, and family and community relationships.
Colonisation is violent, and its processes and impacts continue today.
In Australia, it has involved dispossession, regulation and control, relocation, physical violence, sexual violence, enslavement, exploitation, forced child removal and assimilation, forced labour, murder and massacre. This violence has been carried out by individuals, governments, organisations and religious groups.
Colonisation results in systemic racism, violence, discrimination and oppression.
Racism is widespread in the attitudes, social norms and practices of non-Indigenous people, systems and services in Australia. This leads to systems consistently failing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
For example, racism can directly impact police responses. Police have distrusted and shown apathy towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims and survivors of violence. These biases can result in inaction, the inappropriate use of responses against victims and survivors themselves, and the deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
Systemic racism and discrimination have led to many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people feeling betrayed by and mistrustful of some non-Indigenous institutions and individuals.
For some, this takes the form of intergenerational trauma, passed on within families and communities. For example, some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people fear that engaging with services will lead to child removal due to past and ongoing government child removal practices and the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care today. This is one reason why violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women is under-reported.
Racist narratives may label violence against women as “just a part of” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. This is not true.
This discriminatory and defeatist attitude can also stop mainstream services and systems from partnering with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to support safety and wellbeing. It overlooks the strengths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Further, it ignores the reality that non-Indigenous men use violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
Gender inequality is a key driver of violence against women, but it is not the only one.
Attitudes towards and understandings and experiences of violence against women are driven and influenced by many intersecting factors including gender, race, sexuality, disability and age. The long-lasting effects of colonisation influence violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children and community attitudes about this violence.
We do not compare results for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents with non-Indigenous respondents.
Such comparisons risk ignoring the strengths and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and overlooking the impacts of colonisation and systemic racism on attitudes and understandings. This decision was made with guidance from the 2021 NCAS Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group of experts.
When talking about the NCAS results, we refer to the attitudes and understandings held by respondents, not by “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”.
This is because the group of respondents who participated was small. This small group is unlikely to represent the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experiences, cultures, traditions and language groups. We therefore cannot assume their attitudes and understandings are the same as those held by all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
FINDING
Violence against women is a serious national and local problem
Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents recognised that violence against women was a problem in both Australia and their local area.
Most also believed that violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women was taken seriously by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the suburb or town where they live (60%).
FINDING
Trust in services and systems is limited
Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents did not trust government, police, courts and other services they interact with.
Fewer than half “agreed” that violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women is:
More than a quarter did not expect confidential or fair treatment by police, courts and other services (26–53%).
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents had higher trust in services than in police and courts.
More than half “agreed” that services would maintain confidentiality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women reporting violence and men accused of violence (59–66%).
However, fewer “agreed” that fair treatment would be provided to these women and men by the police and courts (40–55%).
Some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents felt that the fairness and confidentiality that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people could expect from systems and services would depend on their gender.
More “agreed” confidential treatment by services would be provided to:
More “agreed” that women reporting family violence could expect fair treatment by police and courts (49–55%) compared to accused men (40–45%).
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents’ sexual identity was also linked to their levels of trust.
Respondents who identified as heterosexual were significantly more likely than those who identified as LGBTQ+ to agree that the police would respond appropriately to family violence matters.
Questions about trust in systems and services were only asked of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents. These can help capture how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience systemic racism through system and service responses.
FINDING
Attitudes towards gender equality are positive
Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents consistently disagreed with attitudes that normalise sexism, reinforce rigid gender roles, undermine women’s leadership, deny gender inequality, and condone limiting women’s autonomy.
FINDING
Attitudes show intolerance of violence against women
Most respondents "strongly disagreed" with:
- attitudes that minimise the seriousness of violence against women or shift blame onto the victim (51–91%)
- attitudes that objectify women and that disregard the need for consent (61–90%)
- most attitudes that mistrust women (54–83%)
However, some attitudes had room to improve. For example, a smaller percentage “strongly disagreed” that:
- women going through custody battles often make up or exaggerate claims of domestic violence (26%)
- women exaggerate the extent of men’s violence against women (38%).
FINDING
Increased awareness of the gendered nature of domestic violence is needed
Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents believed that domestic violence is equally committed by men and women (70%) and that men and women are equally likely to suffer physical harm from domestic violence (54%).
These findings should be considered in the context that, while gender inequality is a driver of violence against women, other intersecting factors also influence violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
FINDING
Physical violence is easier to recognise than non-physical violence
Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents identified physical harm or threats of physical harm as “always” forms of domestic violence (79–86%).
There was less recognition that non-physical forms of domestic violence such as controlling behaviours are “always” violence (61–75%).
FINDING
Harmful attitudes towards domestic violence are rejected
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents “strongly disagreed” with many harmful attitudes towards domestic violence, including that:
- women should keep quiet about domestic violence to protect their families’ reputation (91%)
- it is a woman’s duty to stay in a violent relationship to keep the family together (88%)
Some harmful myths about domestic violence do persist.
or more respondents “agreed” (strongly or somewhat) with these myths, including that:
- women going through custody battles often make up or exaggerate claims of domestic violence to improve their case (47%)
- a woman who does not leave her abusive partner is partly responsible for the abuse continuing (29%)
FINDING
Harmful attitudes towards sexual violence are rejected
Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents “strongly disagreed” with harmful attitudes towards sexual violence, such as that:
- if a woman meets up with a man she met on a mobile dating app, she’s partly responsible if he forces sex on her (90%)
- women who are sexually harassed should dea with it themselves rather than report it (89%)
- if a woman doesn’t physically resist – even if protesting verbally – then it isn’t really rape (87%)
- a man is less responsible for rape if he is drunk or affected by drugs at the time (85%)
However, some respondents still “agreed” (strongly or somewhat) with attitudes that mistrust women or disregard consent including that:
- it is common for sexual assault accusations to be used as a way of getting back at men (47%)
- a lot of times, women who say they were raped had led the man on and then had regrets
(28%)
FINDING
Technology-facilitated abuse behaviours are recognised, and harmful attitudes are rejected
Around 2 in 3
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents recognised forms of technology-facilitated abuse as constituting violence (64–70%).
Most also rejected attitudes that condone technology-facilitated abuse.
For example, most “strongly disagreed” that a woman is partly responsible if a man she met on a dating app forces sex on her (90%) and recognise that it is a criminal offence to post or share a sexual picture of an ex-partner on social media without their consent (89%).
However, some concerning attitudes persist.
For instance, while most “strongly disagreed” that a woman is partly responsible if her partner shares a naked picture without her permission (68%), 1 in 5 still “agreed” with this statement (21%).
FINDING
No single factor predicts attitudes towards violence against women
The NCAS also looks at what factors may be shaping or informing harmful attitudes towards violence against women. This can help to understand potential barriers and enablers for implementing initiatives such as violence prevention, education or attitude change programs.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents’ attitudes towards gender inequality were the strongest predictor of their attitudes towards violence against women. Respondents’ understanding of violence against women as well as demographic factors such as gender were also identified as predictors, although not as strongly.
However, almost half of the variance in respondents’ attitudes towards violence against women could still not be explained by these predictors. This indicates that there are more influential factors to be uncovered to inform our responses to prevent violence against women.
ANROWS acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land across Australia on which we live and work.
We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders past, present and emerging.
We value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and knowledge.
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