8 Family, Sexual and Gendered Violence

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experience extraordinarily high rates of family and sexual violence. Despite being only 3% of the population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were 16% of female homicide victims between 1989–2023.¹⁸ Indigenous women are thirty-four times more likely to be hospitalised following family violence.¹⁹ Between 2022 and 2023, five Indigenous women were killed by an intimate partner, and four by a family member.²⁰

Of recorded First Nations victims of sexual assault, 77–91% of them are women.²¹ In most states and territories, most First Nations women who experienced sexual assault were under 18.²²

For reasons outlined below, Indigenous women are made vulnerable to family violence because of the long-term and ongoing consequences of colonisation. These include current structural discrimination and bias in the application of law and access to support and resources. Some of the most urgent drivers of both violence and poor responses to violence against women include:

These are explored further in this chapter.

Indigenous women are the largest group in First Nations communities that experiences family and sexual violence. For this reason, most of what this chapter covers will apply to them. It’s important to note, as we do below, that other groups in First Nations communities experience violence too and may require unique approaches and understandings. It’s also important to note that Indigenous women are not a uniform group and the way that they experience violence and responses to violence will be different from woman to woman, especially across location (urban, regional, rural and remote), socioeconomic status, LGBTQSB+ community membership, disability, and age.

For a more comprehensive information base on the wellbeing of children and young people, see 7 Children and Family Law in this Bench Book. For further information on childhood sexual abuse, see Sexual Abuse below. See also ANROWS’ Framework to address the impacts of domestic and family violence²³ and New Ways for Our Families,²⁴ a framework for systems response when young people experience or witness family violence.

As noted below and in 7 Children and Family Law, children are considered to be in contact with violence for the purposes of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) if they observe or observe the consequences of family violence. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are overrepresented in their experience of family and sexual violence, and experience it in unique ways, for many complicated reasons: ‘These include racism, violence to women, intergenerational trauma, poverty, inequality, and disadvantage … Research indicates [Aboriginal] children are often sexually assaulted by persons known to them and their families, and offenders may be Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal’.²⁵ Experiencing family violence or observing it as a young person impacts child development and the ability to form relationships, as does the experience of childhood sexual abuse.

There is an increasing push to listen to and support children in their own right in circumstances of family and sexual violence, not just as an extended stakeholder of the violence around them. Young family and sexual violence advocates, including Indigenous young people, developed this statement at the 2025 ANROWS Conference: Centring children and young people to end violence:

There is also a push to prioritise Indigenous community-led responses to children’s experiences of violence:

This could include, as recommended by the New Ways for Our Families framework:

Family and sexual violence in Indigenous communities takes place in many different romantic and familial configurations, with people of all gender identities. Despite this, there’s not much published research on the prevalence of violence experienced specifically by First Nations LGBTQSB+ people. We know that in Australian surveys, 3 in 5 LGBTQ+ people have experienced intimate partner violence at some point in their lives and almost half have experienced sexual assault.⁴⁰ Combined with the high rates of sexual and family violence experienced by Indigenous people (described above), this is suggestive of a high vulnerability to violence.

The characteristics of violence experienced by First Nations LGBTQSB+ people may be different. Unique emotional and social aspects of violence against LGBTQ+ people generally include:

First Nations LGBTQSB+ people are also vulnerable to isolating components of family and sexual violence, with some experiencing difficulty maintaining cultural and familial ties that might be protective and some also experiencing a gap in culturally-appropriate LGBTQSB+ services.⁴¹ There is also a difficulty experienced by some First Nations LGBTQSB+ people in getting help for the violence they experience, because some support services or systems have difficulty understanding violence in LGBTQSB+ relationships. In one study of LGBTQSB+ Indigenous people at work, an Aboriginal lesbian reported being unable to access a support fund at work designed for people experiencing violence because there was poor recognition that lesbians could experience intimate partner violence from other lesbians.

Some family violence experienced by LGBTQSB+ Indigenous people can be experienced as homophobia or transphobia from community members ‘expressed more through emotional rather than direct physical violence’.⁴³ However, some also experienced threats of physical harm from community members in relation to their gender and sexuality.⁴⁴ Karen Soldatic et al describe what this might broadly look like and how it might impact:

The Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia, in conjunction with the Lowitja Foundation, undertook a state-wide First Nations gender study in 2019.⁴⁶ They found that, for LGBTQ First Nations people,

And that,

Discrimination, in particular transphobia, adds to the experience of violence:

Courts should pay particular attention to these gaps of understanding and ensure they are not contributing to it: ‘In discussing family violence and Indigenous LGBTIQSB+ people, it is … important to expand heteronormative understandings of genders, sexuality, and relationships’.⁵²

First Nations Judge David Woodroffe said:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men do experience family and sexual violence, albeit at lower rates.

First Nations men are less likely than First Nations women to experience violence from intimate partners. Instead, the ‘homicide and violence’ burden for First Nations men comes from violence ‘spread across’ family members (including parents), acquaintances and partners.⁵⁴ First Nations women are also twice as likely as First Nations men to report physical harm (from any source) to police and more likely to seek help than First Nations men.⁵⁵

It’s important to note that First Nations men are also sometimes part of communities at higher risk of experiencing family and sexual violence listed in this chapter, including LGBTQSB+ communities, people with disability, older people and Elders, and of course as young people and boys.

Older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Elders are vulnerable to particular forms of abuse, including humbugging. Humbugging is discussed below at 8.2.4.5 Financial. Elders and older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are also vulnerable to neglect and physical abuse when they are in settings requiring heightened care, whether that’s at home or in a facility or hospital.⁵⁶

Indigenous people over 50 have particular vulnerabilities that can be drivers of Elder abuse and the abuse of older people. These include higher rates of functional dependency, chronic illness, lower levels of home ownership, higher rates of receiving income support, mental ill health, disability requiring care support, substance use, financial stress, cognitive issues, and for some, the impacts of trauma from having survived the Stolen Generations.⁵⁷

Indigenous older people are overrepresented in Elder abuse hotline calls.⁵⁸ Over 2014–15, 7% of Indigenous people over 50 experienced physical violence, and of those 86% knew the person assaulting them.⁵⁹ In states that record data, Indigenous older women were 1.6 times more likely than Indigenous men to have experienced and reported violence to police.⁶⁰

We refer readers looking for more information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People with Disability to 2 Background: First Nations Perspectives.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a disability can experience many different kinds of family and sexual violence, including institutional violence and neglect. The evidence base supports that First Nations women with disability are at greater risk of family and sexual violence, and victimisation of violence generally, than non-Indigenous people.⁶¹ For instance, First Nations women with restrictive long-term health conditions were more than twice as likely to experience violence by a current partner and more than three times as likely to experience coercive control as non-Indigenous women with disability.⁶² Compared to First Nations people without disability, First Nations people with disabilities are more likely to experience violence perpetrated by partners, family, friends, colleagues, fellow students, neighbours and strangers.⁶³

The Wangkiny Yirra ‘Speaking Up’ Project, a project that spoke to Indigenous women and children with disability and their experiences of family and domestic violence found:⁶⁴

This report also pointed to guardianship and administration systems as breaching the rights of First Nations women with disability, with high control over their lives and decision-making. This sometimes includes being removed from their families into care facilities where their health needs are neglected or being isolated from their culture, kin and Country.⁶⁹ Importantly, guardianship and administration laws are not uniform across jurisdictions. For more on guardianship as a site of violence and control, see the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability Volume 6.

First Nations people with disability also have unique vulnerabilities to being exploited, abused and subjected to violence. These include:

First Nations people with disability who are experiencing violence may have their disability used against them in legal assessments. The Royal Commission gives the example of Shontaya:

Indigenous young people with disability, particularly those in out of home care or prison, may also be subjected to restrictive practices of high physical and psychological control. This includes the use of physical restraints and uses of force.⁷⁵ They are also subject to interpersonal violence in out of home care or prison, the Royal Commission notes:

The Royal Commission found that access to cultural practices, Country, kin and community can safeguard against or mitigate violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.⁷⁷

Worimi man Dr Scott Avery, writing on how First Nations people with disability talk about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, found that:

Men are the predominant users of family and sexual violence across all communities in Australia.

Where data is available, First Nations men are convicted of family violence offences at higher rates than First Nations women.⁷⁹

First Nations women who experience intimate partner violence from men experience it from men from a variety of backgrounds, not just Indigenous men.⁸⁰ In urban centres, most First Nations people are in relationships with someone who is not also Indigenous.⁸¹ Kuku Yalanji woman Antoinette Braybrook writes:

For models explaining the predominance of men’s use of violence, see 8.3 Contextualising Violence below. See also the Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book. For a comprehensive study of the impact of personal and intergenerational trauma on Aboriginal men as a potential driver of violence, see Dr Caroline Atkinson’s thesis.⁸³

Multiple Indigenous-led organisations emphasised the need for Courts to consider the needs of First Nations men who use or are accused of using violence in order to ‘minimis[e] the risk of future violence’. The Central Australian Aboriginal Congress recommended to the Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children Inquiry that to address those needs Courts must be culturally safe; involve senior Aboriginal community members to ‘assist with understanding the factors driving offending’; and include access to specialist therapeutic advice to understand underlying issues and offer referrals to appropriate services.⁸⁴

The most commonly recognised form of family violence is at the hands of an intimate partner.

Many First Nations women who experience violence are subjected to it by a non-Indigenous intimate partner.⁸⁵

First Nations women who have experienced violence are most likely to have experienced that violence from an intimate partner. It is still experienced as family violence. The interlinked nature of relationships First Nations communities means that families are involved in both healing and protecting their members from violence, and sometimes in enabling it.

Intimate partners include former intimate partners, dates, casual partners, spouses, and co-parents.

The relationship of trust and nurturing between parent and child can become a site of violence. It occurs within all communities, including First Nations communities. Indigenous children can also receive violence from non-parental caregivers who are legally placed into parental roles, like foster parents or kinship carers, or from older family members who have a parental cultural role.

First Nations people are overrepresented (16%) as committers of filicide, in a study of cases from 2010–2018.⁸⁶ Of these (and in the Australian community writ large), men were more likely to commit filicide.⁸⁷ Of the women who committed filicide, most were experiencing intimate partner violence.⁸⁸ The authors of this study stress that:

For information on violence by children against their parents or other family members, see below 8.2.3.4 Siblings and Other Children. For information on Indigenous children as victims of violence, see above 8.2.2.2 Children.

For guidance on the lawfulness of physical punishment by parents against children, consult the AIFS physical punishment legislation resource.⁹⁰

Family and sexual violence can be perpetrated by children and young people, including between siblings, though these dynamics are complicated and are treated differently to other kinds of family and sexual violence.

Because Indigenous cultures have expansive familial relationships beyond the Western nuclear model, family violence can occur within a range of relationships. It is not just the relationship that is expanded but ‘the context of a range of violence forms’.⁹⁹

In this context, Paul Memmott et al¹⁰⁰ describe the following unique features of family violence within extended kin networks:

At the same time, kinship and community connection generally are also understood to be protective or mitigating factors against the impacts of family violence.¹⁰² In other forms of family violence like coercive control from intimate partners, kinship and community networks can be the target of strategies that isolate the person experiencing violence from potential care and support.¹⁰³

Isolation from these networks can also be the basis or consequence of cultural and spiritual violence (see 8.2.4.4 Cultural and Spiritual Violence). For First Nations cultural health and wellbeing, connection to kin and community are essential.

Authority figures can be involved in the perpetration of family and sexual abuse. This is a phenomenon across all communities, societies and cultures. Their authority can make it hard to seek help for family violence. Their authority can also provide opportunities for sexual abuse. There is a significant history of childhood sexual abuse of First Nations children by non-Indigenous adults within church and secular institutions during the Stolen Generations.¹⁰⁴

In some First Nations communities, authority figures are not just institutional figures like teachers, doctors, politicians, clergy, police, or coaches. They can also be figures of community and cultural authority whose influence may be less obvious to people outside of their communities.

One notable authority figure is a police officer. Recent attention has been given to the use of family violence by police officers. People who experience violence from police officers can struggle to find neutral or safe places to seek help, which only compounds existing barriers to help seeking for First Nations people. They can also experience a sense that those they seek support from will provide information to the officer they accuse of using violence. One First Nations person (pseudonym ‘Holly’) told this story to a study on the criminalisation of coercive control:

For general information on physical violence, see Chapter 3.1.1 of the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book.¹⁰⁶

For general information on sexual and reproductive violence, see Chapter 3.1.2 of the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book.¹²³

For information on childhood sexual abuse, see below.

For general information on emotional and psychological violence see Chapter 3.1.4 of the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book.¹³²

For general information on social violence see Chapter 3.1.7 of the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book.¹³³

We consider these resources to be comprehensive. We highlight in particular that some people who use violence make threats to self-harm, and the coercive and emotional impact that can have on people who experience violence. A practitioner expert from Gunbalanya Safe House told an NT inquest into numerous family violence homicides:

For general information on cultural and spiritual violence see Chapter 3.1.5 of the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book.

Cultural and spiritual violence is commonly experienced in family violence as part of coercive control. It can mean depriving a First Nations person of their ability to experience or pass on culture and identity, and to fulfil cultural and familial obligations. It can look like:

These kinds of violence can have the impact of disconnecting someone from their family or culture, isolating them from support networks and from a proper sense of self. They also have impacts on the emotional and mental health of the person experiencing them.¹³⁵

For general information on financial abuse, we refer you to Chapter 3.1.3 of the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book.¹³⁶ We also refer readers to 13 Australian Consumer Law.

Financial abuse takes place in all communities. It has particular culturally-specific features in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, where resource-sharing is an expected cultural norm and declining this obligation ‘could lead to the person losing invaluable supports and being ostracised from their immediate and extended family’.¹³⁷ These obligations can increase risk of financial abuse, or make it harder to identify.

One example of how this cultural obligation can be escalated into financial abuse is humbugging. Humbugging ‘refers to behaviours such as demand sharing, asking or pressuring a family member or other person for money or other economic assistance in a way that may be bothersome’:¹³⁸

Humbugging is commonly experienced by Elders and older family members, but can be experienced by everyone.

Indigenous people also experience similar financial abuse to other groups.

We note that Indigenous people face higher hurdles than others in accessing services meant to address financial abuse, including physical distance from supports, language barriers, the undesirability of reporting people on whom one is also mutually dependant, legal controls and constraints on finances (including income management),¹⁴⁰ and tensions in discussing financial harm or strain.¹⁴¹ Indigenous people in some contexts are also uniquely vulnerable, with unscrupulous retailers targeting them with unfair practices, or the widespread use of Centrepay meaning many mob might not be aware of what contracts are drawing on their resources.¹⁴² See the Australian Consumer Law for more.¹⁴³

The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), s 4AB offers ‘examples of behaviour that might constitute economic or financial abuse’ as:

Under multiple recent amendments to the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), the economic impact of family violence (including economic or financial abuse) must be taken into account when:

The Australian Financial Complaints Authority have also issued an Approach to family violence and financial abuse of older people for the finance and banking sector. These can offer structure to industry codes of practice and complaints to the regulator. They also offer useful examples of warning signs and guides to identify family violence and financial abuse.

Coercive control is a predictor of future intimate partner violence homicide. In NSW, 97% of IPV homicide victims experienced coercive control from the person who killed them.¹⁴⁴ Identifying and addressing coercive control is critical in preventing future harm and death.

Coercive control is defined above in 8.1.1 Glossary. It is crucial to understand how coercive control operates as its own form of violence, and as an enabler of other violence. It is relevant in particular for this Bench Book because it occasionally involves using courts and other legal settings as part of exerting control, depriving people of power, and isolating them. People who use coercive control can exert it through court powers and processes to surveil, monitor, humiliate and threaten. This has a particular context of threat for First Nations people for whom contact with legal institutions can sometimes result in adverse outcomes like child removal,¹⁴⁵ criminalisation,¹⁴⁶ or community retribution.¹⁴⁷ Wirringa Baiya, an Aboriginal women’s legal centre in Sydney, reports:

They also report that clients who experience coercive control have been denied the right to practice their culture or spiritual beliefs, visit Country, and pass culture and identity on to their children.

For more information on coercive control, see the Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book, 3.2. Coercive control.¹⁴⁹

The criminalisation of coercive control is controversial in some First Nations communities. There are concerns that it could misidentify Indigenous women as perpetrators for behaviours they use to survive and adapt to violence in their lives, like fighting back, talking to community members about the violence, trying to shame the person using the violence, or gathering resources to leave.¹⁵⁰ There are also concerns that it will escalate rates of criminalisation and imprisonment for First Nations men and lead to an increase in deaths in custody. There are also fears that expanding criminalisation to cover coercive control will lead to increased child removals from First Nations families.¹⁵¹ This may be a concern that First Nations women have when approaching the Family Court in particular.¹⁵²

The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) includes some elements of coercive control in its definition of family violence in s 4AB, including stalking; derogatory taunts; economic or financial abuse; preventing the family member from making or keeping connections with friends, family or culture; and unlawful deprivation of liberty.

Technology-facilitated abuse is one subset of violence that sometimes falls under family and sexual violence, but also occurs in other settings. In First Nations communities, it includes:

Seven in ten First Nations people who responded to a 2022 survey had experienced TFA before.¹⁵⁴ Two in five had used TFA before.¹⁵⁵

TFA has significant impacts on those who experience it. They can precipitate physical violence, lead to community and family isolation, elicit mental ill health, and create a sense of fear and shame. Those who experience it may have to end or alter their digital practices or relocate, further isolating them from important support networks and from important digital infrastructure like communications, banking or paid work.¹⁵⁶

Some First Nations women may be reluctant to seek help for TFA. For some (in work done on cyber safety in remote communities), this is because of shared preferences to deal with conflicts personally or with cultural resolution practices.¹⁵⁷ Others (in urban settings) don’t seek help because of shame, fear of family or perpetrator retribution, the normalisation of abuse in some communities, poor digital literacy, sharing devices with others, or a belief that the incident isn’t serious or violent enough.¹⁵⁸

Some First Nations people who experience TFA experience challenges in providing sufficient evidence of the abuse,¹⁵⁹ something judges might take into account in making protection orders. Protection orders can include constraints on digital contact and tracking.¹⁶⁰

The eSafety Commissioner has resources for support workers and those experiencing TFA here.¹⁶¹

The Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) creates obligations for online service providers to meet Basic Online Safety Expectations, with civil penalties.¹⁶² A person experiencing adult cyber abuse can report it to eSafety to investigate.¹⁶³ Adult cyber abuse is content that is intended to cause serious harm and is menacing, harassing or offensive in all the circumstances.¹⁶⁴ There is a civil penalty regime administered by the eSafety Commissioner for image-based abuse.¹⁶⁵

There are federal criminal penalties under the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) for using a carriage service to:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are frequently mis-identified as primary perpetrators of violence. Sometimes this occurs because of racist personal bias in policing that sees Indigenous women as inherently violent, and sometimes because of systemic bias that expects idealised victims.

Almost half of women killed by an intimate partner in Queensland had previously been identified by police as perpetrators of family violence.¹⁶⁶ Police sometimes also describe Indigenous women as ‘uncooperative’ or ‘unwilling’ to work with them when they try to seek help.¹⁶⁷

Indigenous women especially can be penalised for using self-defence. Indeed, as Our Watch identify: ‘[m]any have been convicted of offences used in self-defence against violent partners, often following previous unsuccessful strategies to deal with their own victimisation’.¹⁶⁸ First Nations women may use defensive and retaliatory acts of physical violence to protect themselves when they believe that police, their family or other systems won’t.¹⁶⁹ A recent study in NSW found that Aboriginal women were more likely than non-Indigenous women to use violent resistance like yelling back, fighting back, using weapons in self-defence, and becoming emotional or agitated.¹⁷⁰

The proportionality of their responses should be understood in the broader context of threat that family and sexual violence poses to Aboriginal women:

It should also be understood in the context of First Nations women’s general relationship to the criminal justice system. Studies have identified Aboriginal women as the fastest growing incarcerated cohort,¹⁷² with ‘ongoing contact with the justice system driv[ing] cycles of re-incarceration’.¹⁷³ First Nations women are also more likely than non-Indigenous women to be charged for minor, non-violent offences and receive harsher sentences¹⁷⁴ and are 15.7 times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be held in custody while awaiting trial.¹⁷⁵

Cross-application for protection orders is also observed at high rates in Indigenous communities.¹⁷⁶ It is also present in the broader community. It can sometimes be used as a tactic of control against First Nations women. First Nations women are significantly overrepresented as respondents to protection orders, in contravention prosecutions, and in custodial sentences for contravention.¹⁷⁷

Multiple submissions to the Family Violence Order parliamentary inquiry recommend Courts more proactively use the powers given to them to deal with parties using vexatious, frivolous or vexatious applications to control and use emotional violence against First Nations women. These powers are detailed under the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), Part XIB.¹⁷⁸

First Nations people who experience family and sexual violence can often have this used against them in parenting orders or by child protection authorities as a failure to offer a safe environment.

Removing Indigenous children from their families creates new traumas, new experiences of violence and isolation from support networks, and threats to the continuation of culture. For more on how removing Indigenous children from families can compound trauma and create new violence, see 7 Children and Family Law.

The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), s 68B and in other provisions provides the Court the power to make orders or grant injunctions as it considers appropriate for the welfare of the child. It must also take this into account in making parenting orders in the best interests of the child. We also draw attention to s 60CC which requires the court to take a First Nations child’s right to their culture into account in considering their best interests. This includes their right:

A Court must also have regard to ‘any kinship obligations, and child-rearing practices, of the child’s Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander culture’.²⁰¹

For more on these requirements, see 7 Children and Family Law.

It is important to consider other mechanisms for keeping children safe other than removing them from their families, including supporting parents who are experiencing violence.

There are numerous support programs in each state and territory that help First Nations people experiencing violence explore their housing and living arrangements in ways that keeps them and their children safe. We refer readers to a non-exhaustive list of these support programs here.²⁰²

People who experience family violence, it seems obvious to say, are in periods of enormous difficulty in their life. This difficulty can touch all aspects of their life, see 8.4 Impact of Violence.

Sometimes, the compounded difficulties of experiencing and trying to survive family and sexual violence and its aftermath see First Nations people become ensnared in legal systems, particularly the criminal legal system or other forms of penalty.

Financial abuse might see them saddled with the debt and fines of others²⁰³ with 1 in 4 of Aboriginal women experiencing financial abuse from their partner,²⁰⁴ threats to their safety may make it difficult to move about freely to get to appointments mandated by a court, or the mental load may make meeting complicated legal obligations unusually hard.

In the worst scenarios, First Nations women might find themselves criminalised for things completely unrelated to family and sexual violence when that violence brings them in contact with state systems. This is what killed Ms Dhu.

In the context of violence, two broad kinds of trauma are at play. Trauma directly experienced by a person who experiences or uses violence; and intergenerational trauma. They can’t be viewed separately, and intergenerational trauma can create the conditions in which someone directly experiences new trauma. Intergenerational trauma in First Nations communities stretches all the way back to early colonisation.

Atkinson (an Aboriginal researcher of trauma) showed a statistically significant proportion of Indigenous men in prison for violent offences had experienced cumulative traumatic and violent events in their youth.²⁰⁹ She noted the failure to support them as people who had experienced the intergenerational transmission of abuse both failed them as people, and failed to interrupt their subsequent transmission of trauma.²¹⁰

This podcast and presentation from a keynote by Prof Victoria Hovane and Dr Mark Wenitong go on to explain intergenerational trauma and family violence in First Nations communities.²¹¹ They explain a few ways that trauma begets violence, and that violence begets trauma.

But in doing so, they also suggest strengths and protective factors in First Nations communities that can disrupt this cycle at various points.

Prof Judy Atkinson, an Aboriginal expert on trauma, similarly backs the necessity of community-led responses to trauma.

Colonisation has disrupted kin networks and ways that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people relate to one another. This impacts the care networks that people can draw on. It also disrupts traditional attachment models, as well as interrupts the identity formation of individuals and communities. This disruption is especially pertinent in the context of child removals by the state. See 7 Children and Family Law in this Bench Book for further information. See also the social health and wellbeing impacts of kinship disruption in this paper from the Indigenous Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Clearinghouse.

Colonisation has also disrupted traditional gender roles in Indigenous cultures. Some research and community discussions suggest that this plays a role in the subjugation of women and in the alienation of men in some First Nations communities. In doing so, these disruptions might create a space for violence or precipitate it.

The Wiyi Yani U Thangani First Nations Women’s Safety Policy Forum draws from this partly-explanatory model of disrupted traditional gender roles to propose that family violence initiatives ‘be culturally grounded, informed, and secure’.²¹³ In subsequent reports about broader gender justice reform aimed at preventing violence, they mandate that First Nations women should, as a priority, be treated as ‘empowered leaders in both worlds’ with cultural rights and women’s knowledges being ‘secured, practiced and lived’.²¹⁴

Shame is an important component of some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities’ cultural and social life. Shame in First Nations communities goes beyond the Western concept of the word. It is a sense of one’s role or place, and a mechanism of social enforcement if one steps outside or beyond that.

It is sometimes relevant in First Nations women’s reluctance to report family and sexual violence or seek help outside of their close family.²¹⁵ Shame can sometimes come with stigmatisation and ostracism from community life.

Shame, in the Western sense, has an explanatory role in violence generally, with men’s shame being understood as one contributing factor to family violence.²¹⁶

One major concern that informs First Nations people’s reluctance to seek help for family and sexual violence is a fear of criminalisation. This includes criminalisation of themselves in cases of misidentification and sometimes includes criminalisation of the person using violence against them.

See above at 8.2.5 When Violence is Misunderstood or Misapplied for concerns about the criminalisation of First Nations people who experience violence. On this point, the Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices) First Nations Women’s Safety Policy Forum usefully observed:

First Nations communities are vigilant against deaths in custody. This vigilance extends to hesitation about sending Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men in particular into prisons. Some First Nations people report both their own hesitancy to see the people who use violence against them put in prison,²²⁰ and related wider community and family pressure to not involve the state.²²¹ This also extends sometimes to help-seeking from non-state institutions when First Nations people have (often well-founded) concerns that they would call police.

First Nations people as a cohort have a higher level of contact with police and courts than their non-Indigenous peers. Indeed, as outlined in 8.2.5 When Violence is Misunderstood or Misapplied, many First Nations women who go on to be killed by family violence were initially identified as perpetrators of family violence by courts and police. First Nations people who are already in contact with police and courts as defendants or respondents are unlikely to trust or rely on those same systems to keep them safe, especially if that contact involves misidentification as a user of violence.

First Nations people who appear before courts also commonly report racism, disrespect and disengagement. This may inform an unwillingness or reluctance to report or seek help from those systems. See 8.5 What Does This Mean for the Court?.

There are other state interventions that inhibit some First Nations people who experience violence from seeking help or reporting their violence.

Family violence against women is a leading reason for the disproportionate number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being removed from their families.²²² First Nations children are more than ten times more likely to be in out-of-home-care than non-First Nations children.²²³

The fear of First Nations children being removed from their families if they seek help is well-founded in First Nations women’s experiences. First Nations women live with knowledge that if they speak out they risk being flagged in the system as ‘unable or unwilling to protect their children from violence’.²²⁴ and will subsequently risk legal ramifications where their children face further displacement from them rather than the holistic supports they require. For children experiencing parental incarceration, they are more likely to be removed and placed in out-of-home facilities.²²⁵

The Family Matters Report²²⁶, led by SNAICC — National Voice for our Children in collaboration with the National Family Matters Leadership Group, highlights systemic issues present in the child protection system and emphasises the need for reforms that prioritise cultural connection, family preservation, and community leadership through four key building blocks that highlight how vital a child’s connection to their culture and community is. For more information on the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child removal system, see 7 Children and Family Law.

In the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), s 67Z, the Court must be notified if a parenting matter involves allegations of family and sexual violence or child abuse. Child abuse includes if a child is subjected or exposed to family violence, defined in s 4AB (and as outlined at 8.2.2.2 Children). A party must notify the Court if one of the parties in proceedings has committed or if there is a risk they will commit family violence. This then triggers a notification to child welfare authorities in the state and territory of the child. Family violence orders must, if a party is aware of them, be brought to the Court’s attention.

The Court should, in considering these duties to notify in its issuing of parenting orders and of other matters, be wary of the hazards of mandatory reporting. In particular, it should be mindful of the hesitancies it can produce in help-seeking for First Nations families experiencing violence.

It should also be mindful of the impact that incarceration has on intergenerational trauma and family disruption. Two studies in NSW found that ‘[f]or Aboriginal participants, 32.0 per cent of adults and 66.4 per cent of young people reported a previously incarcerated parent. Women were more than twice as likely as men to report that their mother had been in prison’.²²⁷ At least 40% of criminalised people have dependent children, and of this figure 47% are First Nations.²²⁸

When First Nations people who experience violence do report, they don’t always receive the right support or get heard in the right way. They may experience racism, particularly in being mis-identified as the primary user of violence. They may experience racism from service providers.

For some, there are issues in being heard in the first place. First Nations people whose first language isn’t English or Deaf First Nations peoples might find reporting or help-seeking inaccessible because they aren’t adequately understood.

Services may also be culturally unsafe for First Nations people experiencing violence. A report in partnership with Djirra and Safe+Equal found (among other insights) that:

First Nations people experiencing violence, particularly women, can experience community and family pressure to not report or seek external help for violence against them.

A fear of community and family retribution is also reported by First Nations people experiencing violence as a reason they don’t seek help or report. This isn’t limited to fears of physical retribution, but can also include social and cultural exclusion or isolation.²³⁰ Seeking help or reporting violence can be seen as a betrayal of other family and community members who also experienced violence and made the choice not to report it.²³¹ It can also be difficult for people who experience violence to have trust in the confidentiality of services in close-knit communities.

Even if First Nations people don’t report violence to police, they may also be reluctant to seek medical or other help ‘for fear their community would believe they were reporting the incident’.²³²

Socioeconomic and lifestyle concerns influence the use of violence, as well as the vulnerability that First Nations people have to experiencing violence and the impact it can have on them and their families. It is well established that First Nations community wellbeing and social determinants have an impact on violence.²³³ Moreover,

What follows in this section is a high-level overview of a very complex body of evidence and research. Some of these are generalist observations that impact First Nations people, others are specific to First Nations people. For the most relevant and up to date information on these factors, we recommend visiting the ANROWS resource library here: anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/home.

In many communities across Australia, Indigenous or otherwise, jealousy can be used as a way to justify family and sexual violence. In some Aboriginal communities, ‘jealousing’ commonly describes public behaviours and responsive possessive violence related to perceived sexual or romantic transgressions in a relationship. It is closely related to coercive control, but culturally distinct.

Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group gave these examples in their submission to the Review of Legislation and the Justice Response to DFV in the NT:

The normalisation of jealousing in some communities goes to attitudes around romantic and sexual relationships themselves.

Community-led initiatives are aiming to shift acceptance of jealousing as a mode of family and sexual violence against First Nations women.

It is again worth emphasising that family and sexual violence are not part of First Nations culture, and that many other communities in Australia have attitudes around jealousy that can enable violence.

Trauma can be experienced as PTSD, and the prevalence of PTSD in people who experience family violence is well documented.²⁸⁹ Trauma can also present in other forms in the longer term for First Nations people who experience violence, including ongoing isolation from social supports, persistent feelings of fear, and depressed mood.²⁹⁰ Family and sexual violence may also be partially driven by trauma itself, where violence experienced later becomes violence committed.²⁹¹

Adults who were the subject of maltreatment when they were children can find early critical years of parenthood difficult because of trauma responses.²⁹² In First Nations communities,

Family and sexual violence is a major contributor to physical impairment and illness in many communities, including First Nations communities.²⁹⁴

In the 2018 Australian Burden of Disease Study, intimate partner violence contributed to 2.1% of the total disease burden and 30 deaths of First Nations women.²⁹⁵ The study linked intimate partner violence to the following disease burdens among First Nations women:

Where relevant to their jurisdiction and appointment, Courts should consider referring Indigenous persons to the Indigenous Lists, which ‘adopt a degree of informality’ and ‘there are specialist support services’.³⁰¹

There are also Indigenous Family Liaison Officers who can assist in the following ways:

Consider referrals to, or modelling for orders from, the organisations or programs detailed below.

Courts should also be aware of the generalist hazards in hearings and procedure concerning family and sexual violence.

The following are useful reference points to the relevant parts of the Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book:

The DFV Bench Book also offers more substantial advice on Family Law proceedings and family and sexual violence generally.

Courts should also, where possible:

Courts might also consider, in crafting FVOs, how conditions of the FVO could best support what the person experiencing violence needs (which may include conditional contact with the person using violence).³⁰⁶ Equally, family court orders, including parenting orders, must be upheld irrespective of FVO conditions which may contradict them, creating a complex web of enforcement that is difficult to follow and often met with criminalisation, failures to protect people experiencing violence, and the removal of children.³⁰⁷ Courts should consider the contradictions and difficulties in meeting all these conditions when making orders.

Djirra, an Aboriginal-led family violence service in Victoria, also advises that:

Recently, child protection authorities have been legally mandated to share information with the Family Court.³⁰⁹ Judges should keep it in the front of their minds that much of this information is obtained through mandatory reporting, which is a significant reason that some First Nations people do not report violence or seek help for it.

The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), s 67ZA also creates a mandatory reporting obligation for Family Court personnel. This includes a responsibility to report a child being subjected or exposed to family violence. Alongside a general hesitance to seek help for family, there is reason to believe that:

Research suggests that this might interfere with First Nations’ women’s willingness to initiate an application or engage with the family and federal court system. Notably, unless another family member or partner initiates an application, these are largely jurisdictions that First Nations victims of violence will need to self-initiate under. This is unlike state- and territory-based jurisdictions where charges or protection orders can be initiated by others. Courts might consider ways to build trust and mitigate this fear.

All of this must be understood in a context where First Nations people seeking help for sexual and family violence are also concerned with the violence of state action that might follow.

Courts might also consider how lawyers, police and third parties might treat First Nations people who experience violence, and the impact that has on whether they trust the Court. We refer readers to a Mudgin-gal report and series of yarning circles discussing these breaches of trust:

For information on safety and fair hearings, see the Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book, Chapter 5 Fair Hearing and Safety.

For evidence-giving generally, see the Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book, Chapter 6 Evidence Issues.

For some First Nations community members appearing before the court, English will not be their first language. They may require access to an interpreter.

See 3 Language and Communication for further information.

For people who experience and use violence who may face barriers to communicating in Court (including First Nations people), the Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book offers some cautions on the use of translators and interpreters:

Courts should refrain from making or enforcing orders where those subject to them do not understand the order, don’t understand the consequences of the order, or have not had it adequately explained to them.

There may be circumstances in which a child cannot have contact with an Indigenous parent who uses violence under parenting arrangements and is instead cared for by a non-Indigenous parent. Nevertheless, the Court must still consider how that arrangement can keep that child connected with their culture, community, and Indigenous kin networks.

The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) s 61F requires the Court, in making determinations of parental responsibility, to have regard to kinship obligations and child-rearing practices of a First Nations child’s culture. This may mean that an order concerning parental responsibility can be given to a kin carer so they can make major decisions (schooling, medical, residency) for the child in their care and offer them certainty or stability.

The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) s 60CC also requires the Court to, when determining a child’s best interest:

As outlined in sections above, culture is often described as a protective factor in contexts of violence.³¹⁴ Extended supportive kin networks considered crucial to a First Nations child’s wellbeing and development.³¹⁵ Cultural connection is crucial for Aboriginal young peoples’ resilience and healing from childhood adversity.³¹⁶ We refer readers to 7 Children and Family Law for more information on First Nations children, wellbeing and community and cultural connection.

Courts should also consider whether alternative arrangements exist that can keep children connected with their family and culture, including through the services and programs listed here on the SNAICC website.

Courts should ensure that any orders they give relating to cultural connection are compatible with cultural practices. In particular making sure they relate to the child’s cultural understanding of family and that they don’t breach any avoidance protocols within that family.

For more information on child wellbeing and maintaining cultural connection, see 7 Children and Family Law.

Men’s behavioural change programs are growing in prevalence in Indigenous communities.

They focus on respectful relationships; healing from and managing trauma, mental illness and other life adversities; and healthy coping mechanisms. They help First Nations men who use violence become accountable for their actions and address patterns of violent behaviour. They sometimes address underlying stressors that contribute to or enable their use of violence, including substance misuse.

While the evidence base for behavioural change programs is contested, there are gold standard evaluated examples, like ones developed by the Tangentyere Council Aboriginal Corporation’s Family Violence Prevention Program. This Program developed Central Australian Minimum Standards for men’s behavioural change programs:

When not done well, men’s behavioural change can inadvertently reinforce or collaborate with violence.³²⁰ To be effective they must:

When considering referrals or recommendations for change programs, ANROWS has compiled ‘quality practice elements’ for behavioural change programs (note: the evidence base here, and from the examples above, comes from the NT and may not be appropriate for other contexts).

Other Indigenous-specific resources for men’s behavioural change and support are:

In the National Community Attitudes Towards Violence Against Women Survey, First Nations people reported having higher trust in services than in police or courts.³²³

Criminal law is not built well to address to complex circumstances of family and sexual violence. It is adversarial and often hostile to witnesses who allege that they experienced violence,³²⁴ it has few remedies beyond punishment,³²⁵ and incarceration can drive some recurrence of violent behaviour.³²⁶ For some First Nations people, it is a useful, if temporary, disruptor to violent patterns and is the only support they can access. For some, it is considered a pathway to justice for violence they experienced. For First Nations people on the whole, criminal justice and punitive responses are complicated and limited.

Criminal justice responses often fail to recognise the full context of First Nations people’s responses to family violence. They may incorrectly interpret women’s defensive response to ‘be equivalent to the kinds of coercive and controlling violence that those women themselves have been subjected to, and charging women with assault as a result’.³²⁷ Failure to interpret these responses correctly can result in women being taken into custody, wrongfully imprisoned, subject to scrutiny from child protection agencies, and ultimately may contribute to their death.³²⁸

In contrast, First Nations community-led justice and support initiatives offer alternatives to mainstream criminal justice responses for First Nations peoples. Diversionary and prevention programs provide at-risk people with safe spaces, support, and referrals.

See below for some examples of community-led initiatives.

First Nations models prioritise community self-determination and healing. They recognise complex issues behind violence like mental illness, homelessness, and substance use alongside structural and intergenerational harms after colonisation, including men’s attitudes towards women. By setting cultural safety and resilience as the foundation, such models keep people who use violence accountable to their communities and make family and sexual violence everyone’s business.

Primary prevention, or social and attitudinal change about gender and violence, is a focus of current preventative work. Rigid gender norms and attitudes are understood to be a driver of family and sexual violence. This is also the case in First Nations communities. In the 2021 National Community Attitudes Towards Violence Against Women Survey, 70% of First Nations respondents said they believed that domestic violence is equally committed by men and women.³²⁹ 47% believed that women going through custody battles made up or exaggerated claims of violence. But 91% disagreed that women should keep quiet about domestic violence to protect their families’ reputation.

The theory of change behind primary prevention is that a more equal society will see fewer drivers of violence against First Nations women. There are numerous primary prevention programs run by or accountable to First Nations people and communities.

Our Watch’s Changing the Picture has produced a national resource to support prevention of violence against First Nations women and children. A summary resource can be found here. It offers actions that are within the remit of Courts in some of their matters, notably:

Girls can, Boys Can³³¹ is a project led by the Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group. It aims to promote equal and respectful relationships between girls and boys at a young age. Its messaging includes allowing boys to be sensitive and express emotions and girls to be adventurous. In an evaluation and survey, 90% of respondents had shifted their understandings towards believing girls and boys could do the same things.³³²

Our Watch have a public case study on this prevention project here.

Mudgin-Gal is run by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and families in metropolitan Sydney and is considered a leader in First Nations violence prevention. These include the provision of a dedicated family support worker, who assists families with a range of needs, and a family violence worker, who supports women currently experiencing or recovering from family violence. The centre welcomes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women irrespective of whether they are in crisis.

Mudgin-Gal also recently released a podcast on their work and approaches to violence, child protection, housing, incarceration, and accessing services. These prioritise the voices of inner-city Aboriginal women in their experiences, but also in their visions for better responses and futures beyond violence. You can find the podcast here, along with the accompanying report.

In these yarning circles, First Nations women emphasised how important Mudgin-gal was in particular, because it was ‘culturally safe’, understood them, was immediately accessible in the community, not just focussed on responding to violence but on supporting them as full people, and because it had no criteria to satisfy as a condition for access.³³³

Visit mudgin-gal.org.au for more information.

Night patrols are Aboriginal community-led alternatives to policing, driven by predominately female local Aboriginal Elders and leaders. They support community safety by relying on the cultural authority of Aboriginal Elders, usually women Elders, in their communities, targeting not only violence but drivers of violence like heavy alcohol and other substance use. Each night patrol is different and tailored to the community who leads it.

Example functions of night patrols include:

Aboriginal researcher Amanda Porter describes some of the caring and violence prevention work of these patrols:

The evidence base for night patrols is that they are strongest when holistic, not just focused on violence but on the broader needs of the community that might inform why violence gets used.

There is an evidence base for various night patrols across Australia. Some positive outcomes they’ve driven include:

Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group has been a driving force behind the conversation on family violence over the last decade. Their projects are community driven from Mparntwe, particularly from Town Camp, acknowledging and celebrating their ‘skills, knowledge, history, connections and relationships’.³³⁷ They offer training for family safety, perform public advocacy and develop anti-violence resources.

Shirleen Campbell, a core and publicly prominent member of Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group has written about their approach for IndigenousX here:

The National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book is an in-depth resource for judicial officers on legal issues relating to domestic and family violence, covering a range of forms of domestic and family violence.

This book is a memoir of privileged insight into strong family ties, the intricacies of relationships and the unspoken expectations within urban Aboriginal communities. This is a very personal account of love, loss, addiction, motherhood and domestic violence. Ashlee chronicles the profound impact of life on the margins on herself, her family and her community.

This website provides guidance on the lawfulness of physical punishment by parents against children in Australia, covering the types of punishment that are lawful in each state and territory.

This is a resource from the Queensland Government’s Child Safety Practice Manual which provides information on children who have been sexually abused by other children, discussing its prevalence and the barriers victims face to report this abuse.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates at the ANROWS Second National Research Conference on Violence against Women and their Children delivered a statement which provides an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspective on domestic and family violence and a pathway forward for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

This is a podcast of recordings of yarning circles in which inner city Aboriginal women share stories with each other about their experiences with the police, housing, community and government services, when they sought help with domestic and family violence.

This short documentary outlines the journey that the leaders of Tagentyere Women’s Family Safety Group have embarked on to address family and domestic violence in their communities.

This podcast episode is a keynote from Professor Victoria Hovane and Dr Mark Wenitong at the Second National Research Conference on Violence against Women who discuss intergenerational trauma and family violence in First Nations communities, explain the impact of intergenerational trauma and provide encouraging examples of trauma-based work in ending violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. A copy of their corresponding presentation slides may be found at this link.

This research report explores how First Nations women who have experienced family and domestic violence engage with the family law system. The report explores the barriers to their engagement and disadvantages they experience when engaging with this system.

This report arises from the Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices) First Nations Women’s Safety Policy Forum which was held in September 2022 to consider how to address the root causes and drivers of violence against First Nations women and children, and ensure their voices are central in the discussion. This report summarises the interaction of intergenerational trauma, colonisation and the present dynamics of family and sexual violence and outlines the necessary requirements for designing policies and plans to end violence against First Nations women and children.

This Research Report explores the impacts of domestic and family violence on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in eight different communities in Queensland. The Report presents findings from participatory action research conducted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chief investigators, community researchers and practitioners working in community-controlled child and family services in Queensland.

This report provides a framework for policy makers and practitioners working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who have experienced domestic and family violence and have been involved with the child protection system. The framework is strengths based and trauma informed which has been designed to be implemented locally. A set of principles, drawn from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values, to support the implementation of the framework are outlined.

This Research Report provides findings on how First Nations women and children with disability experience family and domestic violence. The report finds that some Indigenous women with disability experienced sexual abuse in childhood, that some Indigenous women with disability were disabled through violence, that Indigenous women with disability lacked access to crisis accommodation when they experienced violence; and that Indigenous women and children with disability experienced barriers to assessment and diagnosis.

This report discusses how guardianship and administration systems for people with disability can be a site of violence and control as many people with disability have decisions made on their behalf. The Report discusses how to better support the autonomy of people with disability.

This inquiry examines the deaths of First Nations women and children and discusses the systemic causes of violence, including sexual violence, against First Nations women and children.

This report examines the social health and wellbeing impacts of kinship disruption for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

This research report discusses the use of violence by young people across Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia and provides evidence on the legal and policy responses to this issue in justice and service contexts.

This report presents the findings from the yarning circles from the Mudgin-Gal Yarns (UTS Impact Studios, 7 October 2025) podcast about the response of the service delivery system to domestic and family violence experienced by urban Aboriginal women.

This PhD thesis provides a comprehensive study of the impact of personal and intergenerational trauma on Aboriginal men as a potential driver of violence.

This report offers actionable solutions to address violence against First Nations women and children including; increasing access to justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, addressing racialised power inequalities and amending discriminatory policies and practices and challenging the condoning of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women by challenging both racist and sexist attitudes and social norms. A summary resource can be found here.

This annual report examines what governments are doing to turn the tide on overrepresentation and the outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. It highlights Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led solutions and calls on governments to support and invest in the strengths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to lead on child wellbeing, development and safety responses for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.