MEDIA RELEASE

Thursday, 02 May 2024

RE: Andrew Barr MLA’s Statement: National Cabinet on Gender-Based Violence

Failure to invest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander female-led organisations and solutions will only sustain the systematic discrimination and violence we face everyday

Tahlia-Rose Vanissum, Woppaburra woman and Chairperson of Sisters in Spirit Aboriginal Corporation (Sisters) welcomes the ACT Government’s renewed commitment to supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experiencing family violence in the ACT.

“We need to remember that the issue of violence against Aboriginal women is not an Aboriginal problem, it is embedded in the societal fabric of our nation. A nation that continues to dismiss us, undervalue us, and consistently fails to uphold our human rights,” says Ms Vanissum.

Sisters, the ACT’s only dedicated and all female governed Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisation, knows that without targeted investment in self-determined solutions their community will continue to face violence, at home and in public.

“To date we have not seen any significant or long-term investments in Aboriginal women. The last meaningful consultations of Aboriginal women in the ACT were held in 2009, resulting in the We Don’t Shoot Our Wounded Report… and where limited attempts at implementation of the report’s recommendations have been made, they have been inadequate and underfunded,” says Barkindji woman and Sisters Executive Director, Rachelle Kelly-Church.

While Sisters welcomes a renewed focus on the safety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, they believe that the extent of any government’s commitment to date is overstated.

““Maintaining a focus on missing and murdered First Nations women and children”, assumes there has previously been one. This is not the case, our women have never been heard, we aren’t even counted based on the data limitations in the ACT” said Ms Kelly-Church.

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous women and girls’ movement seeks to recognise how colonial violence as well as racism and sexism against Indigenous women and girls 2

has become entrenched in everyday life. It is present in interpersonal forms of violence, our public institutions and service systems like education, health care and justice systems, laws and policies, embedding intersectional discrimination in the structures of our society.

“This has never been a focus or priority of any government, we need funding and time, to heal, to grow, to reconnect with our men, and build the sustainable, sovereign female-governed organisations needed to lead the required systemic change into the future,” says Ms Vanissum.

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For further information and media enquires:

Tahlia-Rose Vanissum Chairperson, Sisters in Spirit Aboriginal Corporation admin@sisters.org.au

About Sisters in Spirit Aboriginal Corporation

Sisters In Spirit Aboriginal Corporation (Sisters) was founded in 2017 and officially launched in 2021, built on the principles of Respect, Rights and Recognition. We are ACT’s only dedicated and all female governed Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisation. We represent the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women of the ACT and surrounds.

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