WHAT ARE THE PARTICULAR ISSUES FOR ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER WOMEN?
- The worsening in health and wellbeing and their determinants among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples clearly shows that current strategies are failing, and that the directives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have not been supported.
- Potentially the women experiencing the greatest vulnerabilities are those in prison. They now comprise 34% of all female prisoners compared to 2% of the overall Australian population (ALRC, 2017). Although the majority of people in prison are male (97%), Aboriginal women are the most rapidly growing population of prisoners, with rates increasing by 150% since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, twice the rate of other females and double the rate of Aboriginal males from 2000-2016 (The Guardian, 2017). These women have often experienced poverty, grief and loss, violence, racism and poor mental health.
- Further, the trajectory from juvenile detention to adult incarceration is clear; Aboriginal youth aged 10-17 years are 20–26 times more likely to be in detention than others, and Aboriginal adults in prison are more likely to have been in juvenile detention than others (AIHW, 2018). There has been no commitment to gender- and culturally-informed programs to reduce or prevent incarceration and reincarceration. Instead, international evidence also shows the damaging impact of parental incarceration and poor maternal health and wellbeing.
- In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled health organisations (ACCHOs) have been reported as more effective, timely and appropriate and as having greater reach, although demand outstrips supply, for all populations including female prisoners. They also have episodes of care and better outcomes than mainstream health care. ACCHOs are a vital element of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s action to self-determine, a right articulated in Article 3 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to which Australia is party.
