Are Indigenous perpetrators homogeneous?

The provocative title of my paper Are Indigenous perpetrators homogeneous? has been expressly calculated to challenge societal positioning on the hideous scourge of family violence that has afflicted Indigenous communities throughout the nation.

The vexed question posed by my title will no doubt shape an array of emotions: from outrage for my audaciousness of proposing a notion that potentially links all Indigenous men as perpetrators of violence against women and their children - to intrigue at the prospective scope of my considerations of a topic that is often placed in the too-hard basket by political leaders, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Domestic violence and family violence, is viewed by people in this specialised field as an actual or threatened violence in a domestic or family context where an adolescent or adult family member, partner or ex-partner attempts to physically, sexually, psychologically or economically dominate or harm other adult family member(s).

Prominent Indigenous academic Sonia Smallacombe refers to the term violence in a generic sense: “It covers sexual violence including incest, physical violence, emotional violence and self harm. It also includes women who commit violence on men, children and other women.”

Ms Smallacombe’s definition draws light on an often overlooked occurrence of women as the perpetrators of violence. The assault may be a provoked response by the woman that may in fact constitute a defendable criminal claim of retaliation. On an ascending scale of severity, an assault case could refer to harming their child, sibling or intimate male or female partner. The perpetrator may very well be a troubled woman in need of psychiatric assistance for a mental condition.

Nevertheless it is important for all practitioners of family violence to remain impartial on the culpability of offenders under investigation - irrespective of gender. However, statistics show that offenders in most family violence situations are men.

The basic premise of theories concerning the intergenerational transmission of abuse is that being a victim of physical abuse, or witnessing the abuse of other family members teaches boys to become violent.

The identified interrelated theoretical mechanisms that may be at work - identification with the aggressor, vicarious reinforcement, and positive reinforcement of aggression - allow people to assess personal concerns against their circumstances. In the area of intergenerational violence children may conclude that physical violence is sometimes a necessary and effective strategy for achieving behavioural change in family and intimate relationships.

On International Women’s Day in 2003, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan said: “There is no time to lose if we are to reach the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015. Only by investing in the world’s women can we expect to get there.”

The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women 1993 refers to article 2 as “violence occurring with the family” and Article 4 that requires “States to punish acts of violence against women perpetrated by the State or by a private person(s)”.

Article 4 of the declaration is worthy of considered praise in relation to recent debates over customary law, as it refers to “custom, tradition or religion cannot be used as a justification to avoid eliminating violence against women”.

Several years ago I became embroiled in a customary law controversy when I publicly called for an appeal on the leniency of sentencing an elder for an unlawful sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl in the Northern Territory.