The paper seeks to give an overview of issues facing Indigenous peoples and communities in addressing sexual assault.

Firstly and by way of introduction I will outline research concerning the nature and extent of sexual assault within Aboriginal communities, and also the necessity of locating sexual abuse within a historical context that includes an understanding of the harms of colonisation, in particular the past practices of Aboriginal child removal.

Secondly, review the growing societal awareness, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, of the seriousness of the problem for Aboriginal people, and reflected in government inquiries including the QLD Taskforce, The Gordon Inquiry and most recently the Australian Crime Commission Taskforce into Aboriginal Child Abuse.

Thirdly, an examination of the legal system’s responses to Aboriginal victim/survivors shows that Aboriginal women are still encountering discrimination and unequal treatment based on their race and gender. The discrimination is systemic and extremely difficult to address, especially while Aboriginal women are forced to occupy a marginal place within the justice system.

To conclude, I will consider the ways in which the Aboriginal community may become more empowered to address sexual assault, in particular, exploring the usefulness of the recent high profiled claims concerning the nature of sexual abuse and its relation to Aboriginal culture.

Dr Kyllie Cripps, a Indigenous (Palawa) woman, is a CIPHeR Post Doctoral Research Fellow in the Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit at The University of Melbourne.  She has been working in the field of Indigenous family violence and sexual assault for the past 13 years.  In 2005 she was awarded her PhD entitled Enough Family Fighting: Indigenous Community Responses to Addressing Family Violence in Australia & the United States.  She has also been involved in the development of national policy in this area.  Her current work focuses on the social context of violence and how policy/programs can support Indigenous communities in responding to the problem. 

The Little Children are Sacred report released in June 2007 contained 97 recommendations that called upon the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments to designate the issue of Aboriginal child sexual abuse as an issue of urgent national significance, and to immediately establish a collaborative partnership to address the problem. Of critical significance was the recommendation that ‘both governments commit to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people in designing initiatives for Aboriginal communities whether these be in remote, regional or urban settings’. To date the federal government initiatives which are at various stages of implementation across the Northern Territory have focused largely on a top down approach that is heavily influenced by a law and order agenda with little support being given to existing Indigenous models of intervention or indeed programs already in operation responding to the problems inherent in these communities.

Evidence is widely available which suggests that mainstream approaches (of the type being applied in the Northern Territory) to Indigenous family violence and sexual abuse rarely address the determinants of violence at multiple levels. Rather, such mechanisms tend to focus on victim or perpetrator behaviour and experience without delving into the familial or cultural context in which the violence has occurred. I would also add that they rarely adopt strategies for community healing that have been advocated by many Indigenous peoples both in Australia and around the world. Of course, the impact of violence on victims of assault is a paramount concern, and in the case of child sexual assault I acknowledge that foremost consideration should be given to developing appropriate practices to ensure that Indigenous families can be reunited in a way that gives due recognition to the impact of the assault on the victims. Nevertheless, any response to violence in Indigenous communities must recognise that men, women and children are interconnected through a system of kinship and mutual obligations, and remain so even after violence has occurred.

Against this background this paper/presentation will explore initiatives occurring in Hollow Water, Canada. The community of Hollow Water (based on the east shore of Lake Winnipeg, Canada) is an international example of a successful community-developed response to sexual abuse. In 1984 the community began to develop a healing strategy that involved detailed protocol on how to manage issues of child sexual abuse. The process that they developed charted all steps from the initial disclosure, to confronting the perpetrators, to preparing all parties for the Special Gathering – in which all parties speak about the incident and its impact on their lives and the lives of their loved ones, and finally, the development of a ‘healing contract’ for perpetrators. These ‘healing contracts’ are not necessarily intended to replace criminal sanctions, but rather involve developing a detailed commitment by perpetrators of violence to undertake specific actions to change their behaviours. This paper/presentation will provide details about the work taking place in Hollow Water and explore its applicability in the Australian context.