‘Family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture’, but Katrina knows it too well

I am a 58-year-old proud Palawa woman, living on Gunaikurnai land.

I am many things: the matriarch of my family, a single mother to nine children, a dedicated family violence advocate and deputy co-chair of the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council. I am a survivor of child sexual abuse, a survivor of being criminalised in my youth and made a ward of the state. I am a survivor of 20 years of intimate partner abuse as an adult. Last year, I survived a major stroke that has trapped me in hospital ever since.

As a young woman, I was sexually abused by male relatives. When I lashed out, rebelled and became involved in petty crime, not one person took an interest in understanding why. At 15 years of age I was displaced. I became a ward of the state and spent three months in jail.

Palawa woman Katrina Harrison.Credit: Justin McManus

I’m writing this submission to Yoorrook because my entire life has been disrupted – littered with the injustice of neglect and violence. I have not “slipped through the cracks”, I have been made invisible. The effects of colonisation and oppression have tarnished each stage of my life.

You cannot imagine the depth of grief I felt as a young woman who had been so severely abused and was then abandoned and punished. Aboriginal women make up less than 1 per cent of Victoria’s population, yet in 2020 we represented 10 per cent of all women in the state prison system. It seems little has changed since I was 15.

Children deserve environments where they are cherished and encouraged to be whoever and whatever they want to be. They deserve to be safe. I did not ever experience the joy and innocence children deserve. I grew up in a hostile environment, surrounded by trauma and hurt that manifested itself in the abuse I experienced.

Who cares for Aboriginal youth? Who takes an interest in understanding the trauma that lies beneath the trouble? Who speaks to the injustice of criminalised Aboriginal women?

As I grew out of my youth and into an adult woman, I was determined to break the cycle. I longed to be loved and to build a family of my own. Yet without a healthy point of reference, I quickly fell in and out of destructive relationships.

I spent 19 years with one man, I had a strong desire for a healthy marriage, and I longed to model a respectful partnership for my children. Instead, I was subjected to sexual, physical, emotional, financial and psychological abuse by my husband. I was 35 weeks pregnant during one physical assault that resulted in the loss of my baby girl. My heart still aches for her today; she is my stolen child.

Throughout those 19 years, I worked hard to protect my children. I attempted to leave several times, but each time I hung on to a promise of change from him while I discarded intervention orders from the state. No service walked alongside me or offered understanding, but I felt the judgment of many white institutions. Police were fed up, and the threat from the Department of Health and Human Services of child removal for my supposed failure to protect was a dark shadow following my every move.

Eventually, I found the strength and an opportunity to leave. I worked with the police to achieve a criminal conviction against my abuser that gave me just enough room to start a new life for my children and me. Despite these interventions, no one ever really listened to my whole story.

Katrina Harrison with her sons Vincent and Thomas.Credit: Justin McManus

Studies have shown the prevalence of strokes and acquired brain injuries in victims of domestic violence, particularly women who have been subjected to non-fatal strangulation – women like me. No one ever provided me with a full health check or ongoing medical monitoring. Adequate responses to victims of intimate partner violence are absent for Aboriginal women – we’re not only subject to men’s abuse, but we’re largely invisible within mainstream responses to family violence.

White women focus on dismantling the patriarchy, but that struggle often neglects an understanding of the experiences of Aboriginal women. As a family violence survivor, advocate and practitioner I have seen the impacts of family violence in our communities and relationships.

We must have real recognition that family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture, and that recognition must include an acknowledgement of the injustices that Aboriginal women like me have faced throughout our lives. Each of those injustices are attached directly to the dark, violent history of this country.

‘I am determined to continue to show my children what healing and freedom look like.’

Katrina Harrison

Rebuilding my life involved finding a new purpose – one to help other Aboriginal women and children who had suffered like us. My lived experience informed my leadership in local, regional and statewide family violence prevention and response work. I flourished in finding professional purpose. I established a career that gave me financial freedom and I made new, enduring friendships. I was happy, and I was healing.

In August last year, at the height of one of the most fulfilling periods of my life, I suffered a major stroke. I collapsed at home and my young children found me unconscious in the shower. Quick-responding medical attention, and my determination, meant I survived that too. But life has changed and the sense of freedom and healing I recently felt is once again challenged. I will continue to fight because I have to. Being a mother to my nine children has grounded me in my purpose and given me the reasons to keep fighting.

Aboriginal women are more than our stories of injustice; we are also our stories of resilience and resistance. I am determined to continue to show my children what healing and freedom look like. I will always fight for the rights of my community, my children and all Aboriginal women. I will not privilege other people’s comfort over the need for truth-telling. I will not let the injustices continue.

• Produced for publication with the assistance of The Age Indigenous affairs journalist Jack Latimore.