As a First Nations woman who has spent the past two decades working at the frontline of Aboriginal women’s and children’s safety, I have seen and heard it all.
Despite dedicating my life to advocating for the rights of Aboriginal women and children, I have been silenced and sidelined. But like all other First Nations women, this has never deterred me.
I have known so many women who, having experienced the most extreme forms of abuse and violence, find the courage to speak their truth and seek support only to be dismissed, ridiculed or disbelieved by the very people and systems supposed to keep our women safe.
And, when a woman’s life is taken or she is unable to speak for herself, very often it is the families, ignored or told to go away, who suffer interminable grief.
Disbelieved not only by police but by child protection, justice and other systems we should be able to trust. We also know that system responses are all too often punitive, racist and designed to silence us.
But I have also seen and continue to feel the incredible strength, resilience and courage of Aboriginal women. We have always done the heavy lifting because our lives depend on it.
Twenty-two years ago, together with a small group of Aboriginal women and men, I was instrumental in establishing Djirra, a specialist Aboriginal community-controlled organisation in Victoria. Today, we offer life-saving services including legal and practical support for Aboriginal women and children who experience or are at risk of experiencing family violence.
In the last financial year alone, Djirra made 21 detailed submissions to both national and Victorian public inquiries and committees. The missing and murdered First Nations women and children inquiry was a long-overdue and desperately needed opportunity to find justice and push for change in the names of so many lost to family and community.
This inquiry was a defining moment. An opportunity for so many women and families to step on to a national platform to tell their stories, share their experiences, put their truth on the record.
Djirra gave practical, detailed recommendations for the urgent and wide-ranging systemic change needed to address violence, racism and the targeting of our people – especially by police and systems that are supposed to keep us safe.
We supported courageous women and brave families from across the country to open their hearts and, with trust, to tell their truths, sharing deeply personal, heartbreaking stories and calling for the justice owed to the beloved women and children murdered or brutally disappeared.
There are few words to describe the further trauma and pain caused for survivors and their families in the retelling of their stories. The hope they and we all had was that this inquiry would be different, would be a step toward true safety for our women and children.
For a not-for-profit like Djirra, advocacy work is a huge investment, a cost that diverts much needed and already stretched time, people and resources from the frontline. But advocacy is an essential investment if we are to influence change and keep our women’s voices and experiences front and centre.
We have laboured for years testifying to what’s happening “on the ground”. By showing the way forward and amplifying the voices of First Nations women in the halls and committee rooms where power is centred, our women are seen and heard, so our lives are valued by political leaders and lawmakers. Surely this is not in vain!
Much of what we said to this inquiry – to every inquiry and committee – is not new.
For many, many years we have been highlighting the same issues, the same systemic racism and targeting of our people on one hand, and on the other repeating the same proven self-determined solutions that will bring change.
But are those in power listening to us?
If the federal government is listening – especially after the release of the report last week – here’s what we expect they heard.
The political handballing of issues that directly relate to the safety of First Nations women and children must stop.
State, territory and federal leaders must work together to address the violence against our women and children, the high rates of child removal, the poor and unacceptable health status of our people and the over-incarceration rates.
We must break out of this perpetual cycle of inquiries, submissions and hearings which produce recommendations in reports that sit in government offices gathering dust.
Our governments must stop pointing the fingers of blame and responsibility at each other while our women and children’s lives are taken, families are destroyed, and communities devastated.
We must call out the toxic 24-hour news cycle, with urgent and invasive questions from media outlets that frankly, in many cases, use our women and children as clickbait.
Leaders must recognise the futility and wastefulness of “quick fixes” that see governments pour more and more funding into policing and punitive, racist law enforcement systems instead of frontline services and supports that keep our women safe.
We are stuck in an exhausting and perpetual cycle that never results in any substantial change.
Now more than ever we are looking to all political leaders – regardless of party – for urgent action and change that puts our women’s and children’s safety first.
As First Nations women we will continue to stay the course and speak our truths while politicians, bureaucrats and change leaders will likely remain mystified by lack of progress and ignore the solutions that we consistently advise of.
Truth can be uncomfortable and can be painful. But it must be spoken, and it must be heard.
And we will never be silent or stifled in our fight to make sure our women’s voices and solutions are heard and our demands for action reverberate throughout every corner of the nation.
Governments and the people of this country cannot “unhear” us now.
• Antoinette Braybrook AM is the CEO of Djirra and co-chair of Change the Record
