Rita Panahi: Activists strangely silent about Indigenous violence victims
Black Lives Matter activists who are willing to hold marches during a pandemic are more preoccupied with pushing false narratives about police brutality than about violence against women and girls in Indigenous communities, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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The activists who supposedly care so much about black lives that they’re willing to hold marches during a pandemic are strangely silent about black-on-black violence and the victims of family violence in Indigenous communities.
When news broke last week that the Closing the Gap agreement was being revised to remove a target to halve the number of Indigenous women and girls who are victims of violence, there was barely a peep from social justice activists.
That’s not surprising given the activist class is preoccupied with the rights of those in custody. It seems the only black lives that matter to the inner city race-agitators are the ones that fit the “white oppressor” narrative.
The decision to drop a specific target in the agreement and replace it with platitudes about “significant and sustained reduction” is a shameful capitulation. How can you have a target that is not clearly defined and measurable?
It’s telling the final draft of the Closing the Gap agreement has strengthened specific targets for reducing the number of Indigenous adults in custody, according to The Australian. So the primary concern isn’t for the victims of abuse, but their abusers who sometimes end up in jail.
When you push for a reduction in incarceration rates, you are prioritising offenders over victims. As Indigenous leaders Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine have pointed out, most Indigenous people in jail are there for crimes of violence.
Domestic violence is not just a crisis in Indigenous communities. It is an epidemic that deserves far greater national attention. If Closing the Gap doesn’t have clearly defined and quantifiable targets for reducing violence against women and girls, then what’s the point of it?
There can be no greater priority given the appalling rates of abuse that see Indigenous women 35 times more likely to be hospitalised due to family violence than other Australian women.
That is among the most shameful statistics in modern Australia.
It should fill every single one of us, regardless of colour or creed, with despair that we have a segment of our population 3500 per cent more likely to end up in hospital due to being beaten by a supposed “loved one”.
In some parts of the country, that figure is even higher.
“In the Northern Territory, the rate of hospitalisation is up to 86 times higher for Aboriginal women. In Central Australia, this figure is 95 times,” Curtin University researcher Hannah McGlade wrote in 2016.
In the age of coronavirus, it is easy to become distracted but the crisis in our Indigenous communities deserves immediate action. Sadly, many taxpayer funded domestic violence groups refuse to honestly tackle the issue.
Who can forget Our Watch releasing a report in 2018 that blamed “the ongoing impacts of colonisation” for the rates of violence experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women?
Price, an Indigenous campaigner against family violence, is appalled by the latest development.
“The new Closing the Gap targets demonstrate a lack of motivation toward protecting Aboriginal women and children and ending family violence,” she told the Herald Sun.
“It instead supports offenders with more emphasis on reducing rates of incarceration after a crime has been committed instead of discouraging crime and family violence.
“For those of us who have been victims, who have supported victims and who fight for our human rights to be upheld, it is deeply insulting, humiliating and utterly careless.”
Former Indigenous Advisory Council chairman Mundine is also against incarceration reduction targets that make it less likely violent offenders will be locked up and will put “pressure on police and prosecutors not to bring charges, even when justified by the severity of the offence”.
“Minister (Ken) Wyatt needs to get serious about domestic violence in Indigenous communities,” Mundine said.
“He needs to have a target to reduce crime, violence and reoffending, not incarceration rates. It’s not rocket science … no victims, no incarceration.”
Indigenous academic Anthony Dillon believes the activist and media class’ focus on race politics is counter-productive in directing attention where it’s needed.
“While some may argue that a target must be precisely defined as opposed to just stating “significant”, I am more concerned about how the reduction will be achieved,” Dr Dillon says.
“The biggest hindrance to this reduction are distractions such as Coon cheese, treaties, preliminary voices, BLM lies, and accusations of racism for openly raising the topic.”
If only more cared about rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls as much as they do about changing the name of Coon cheese and trying to shift Australia Day.
IN SHORT: We must not forget about Melbourne academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert who has been sentenced to 10 years prison in Iran on trumped up spying charges. Now, she’s been transferred to Qarchak prison, notorious for torture and extrajudicial killings. Australia must do all it can to save Kylie.
Rita Pahani is a Herald Sun columnist