TRANSCRIPT:
Alison Bairnsfather-Scott works in the domestic violence sector.
She gave a submission to an inquest last year following the death of her sister Jessica at the hands of her husband in 2019.
"Bringing up that story is heart-breaking every time. It opens wounds. It's too raw. We don't like upsetting each other and seeing each other like that. It's still something, to this day five years later, that we really struggle to open up to and talk to each other about."
A Senate inquiry has just concluded into the disproportionate rates of murder - and disappearances - of First Nations Women and children, and it's found Australia's judicial system has largely failed them.
According to the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, fifty-three per cent of missing children are First Nations children.
Sisters Inside and the Institute for Collaborative Race Research say that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women represent 20 per cent of females currently missing in Australia.
But over the course of the two-year Senate inquiry, the committee has heard harrowing stories of indifference from police and systemic oversight.
Karen Iles is a lawyer and founder of Violet Co Legal and Consulting - a woman-led, Indigenous-led social enterprise - and sexual assault survivor.
She says the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and police is fractured.
"It can certainly be said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and families do not have a trusting relationship with police in this country. Many Aboriginal women when they attend police stations to report family violence, or to report sexual assault, or the fact that they suspect one of their children has been abducted, they're met with suspicion, they're met with disbelief, and some of them are actually charged with offences themselves."
The landmark report, tabled in the Senate, has made ten recommendations.
Among them is a review into police practices in each jurisdiction.
Advocates say police must be held accountable for systemic discrimination and prejudice against Indigenous people.
Ms Iles says the current system fails to recognise the intergenerational trauma of First Nations families.
"The process for families in advocating over multiple decades for the most basic humanity and justice is absolutely destroying. It leads to poor health outcomes, it leads to suicide, it leads to lower educational attainment, mental health issues, so much."
Greens Senator and Yamatji-Noongar woman Dorinda Cox introduced the original motion for the inquiry and was a member of the committee.
She says the recommendations do not go far enough.
The Senator wants to see improved data collection about missing and murdered Indigenous women and children.
"The problems have in fact been identified, but the recommendations don't contain many solutions. There are no performance indicators to make sure that progress can actually be measured. And speaking of measurements, the glaring omission is the targets for improving data-gathering."
But advocates remain hopeful of positive change.
The report has recommended an increase to the geographic spread and capacity of family violence prevention legal services, as well as sustainable funding for support services for First Nations people.
Ms Iles says there also needs to be better reporting systems for victim-survivors, to make sure they don't slip through the cracks.
"So whether it's about having dedicated specialist Aboriginal police offers, about dedicated and more specialist sexual assault specialist police officers, and other ways of reporting that don't involve police. That's what we need to make sure that victim-survivors and their families come forward so that they can access justice and be assured that when they do, they're met with a very kind, caring and responsive experience."
The report also urges the government to co-design solutions with Indigenous communities.
It has recommended a First Nations person be appointed to advocate on behalf of Indigenous women and children and address the issue of violence against them.
Ms Bairnsfather-Scott says community-led solutions is definitely the way to go.
"So moving forward Aboriginal people need to be leading in this space. We need to be holding government to account, doing that ourselves. We don't need people speaking for us. We don't need anything minimised anymore. We need to have access to the resources we need to be able to do this properly. So we need people across all areas of the work, in leadership positions driving this change to make sure that these deaths don't keep on happening and people don't keep on disappearing."
