Tag: indigenous communities

DAY EIGHT: Death in Geraldton: how Joyce Clarke became another Indigenous statistic

Aboriginal women continue to voiceconcern about state indifference and violence that contributes directly and indirectly to the violence against women and children.

Hannah McGlade

Featured image: Death by police in the NT: murder trial is only the second in 41 years. Source: https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/07/21/death-by-police-in-nt-second-cops-murder-trial-after-41-years/

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains reference to community members who have died.

On 7 September 2019, Joyce Clarke was shot by police as she walked down a suburban street in Geraldton, Western Australia (WA). She was carrying a large bread knife in one hand and small pink scissors in the other. Hours earlier, she told her family she was going to die.

At 6.30pm that night, her prediction came true. It took the police officer charged with her murder 16 seconds to arrive at the scene and fire the shot that ended her 29-year life. Last Friday, the officer was found not guilty of murder.

Aboriginal women in Australia have been described as “the most incarcerated group of people in the world“.

Over 475 Aboriginal people have died in custody since the end of the 1991 royal commission. In New South Wales, the number of Aboriginal people charged by police increased by 67% between 2010 and 2020. Western Australia has the highest rates of incarceration and deaths in custody of Aboriginal people in the country.

Clarke’s trial was shrouded in secrecy. A suppression order was placed on the officer’s name due to safety concerns for his family. The media was allowed in, but the public was refused entry to the court.

This isn’t the first time the WA Supreme Court has suppressed information over those charged with murdering Aboriginal people. In 2016, the same court issued a suppression order over the name of the Kalgoorlie man who killed Elijah Doughty, a 14-year-old Indigenous boy. The man was eventually given a road traffic conviction.

There were no Aboriginal people on that jury and there were none in the murder trial for Clarke.

Clarke’s family, including her sister Bernie Clarke, maintained their steady presence through the trial, although it was hard for them to hear the final details of her life.

During a demonstration of how a taser works, defence barrister Linda Black began laughing loudly. She later told the jury that Clarke was a “walking time bomb” and a person who “needed to be taken down”. In her opening address, Black said the case had “nothing to do with race”.

Seven days before her death, Clarke had called 000 because she wanted to end her life. This was known by Senior Constable Barker on the day she died. He had approached her with his hand out, wanting to “communicate”, when the constable responsible for her death appeared and shot her.

Barker, who was only a few metres away from Clarke, was clear in his evidence that Clarke had not moved in a threatening way. Other officers gave similar evidence that she had not moved when shot — evidence that contrasted with that of a civilian witness who, at some distance, claimed Clarke, arms in the air, had lunged at the officers before being shot.

There’s no doubt Clarke was in a bad way. She had recently been released from the overcrowded Bandyup prison for stealing a mobile phone she believed was possessed by spirits. The prison is known for its appalling conditions, with reports of abuse of Aboriginal women.

Just two weeks after her release from Bandyup, Clarke was admitted to Geraldton hospital following a suicide attempt. She was discharged, and less than a week later was admitted to St John of God Hospital in Perth for mental health issues. Anne Jones, whom Clarke called mum, asked a nurse not to release her due to concerns she wasn’t well enough to leave. Clarke was discharged because there was no evidence she was still experiencing psychosis.

She left the hospital on Friday, September 13, taking a bus back to Geraldton to stay with relatives. The next Tuesday, in a state of distress, she went to the Wajarri Aboriginal community organisation. She called a relative, warning she was going to die.

A relative called the police to try to get her taken back into the hospital. That was when police arrived — a total of three police cars and eight officers.

The jury took just a few hours to hand down the not guilty verdict, accepting the defence argument that the officer had acted in self-defence. Aboriginal women have long been seen as angry, violent and unworthy of legal protection.

Clarke’s family were distraught. Aboriginal elders began crying outside the court in disbelief that so little had changed. Although police told the defence not to exit the court’s front door, defence lawyer Linda Black did so, telling the family — surrounded by a police barricade — that her client was “sorry” but did what had to be done.

In their case study on Indigenous femicide, that is, the systemic ways in which Indigenous women are subject to conditions that render them unsafe and exposed to violent deaths in settler states of Australia, Canada and the US, the authors write:

‘Indigenous women are targeted and criminalised from birth. In many cases, women who should have been afforded protection by authorities have instead been treated with extreme violence by them’.

We must learn from Joyce Clarke’s life and death. Aboriginal women have consistently voiced concern about state indifference and violence that contributes directly and indirectly to the violence that is blighting the lives of too many women and children. We have argued for a stand-alone National Action Plan to combat the systemic and structural discrimination that contributes to and underlines violence. And we demand recognition of our fundamental right to self-determination as critical to all dialogue and responses on addressing violence to Aboriginal women.

Further reading:

https://www.deathscapes.org/case-studies/indigenous-femicide-and-the-killing-state-in-progress/
An open letter in response to the lack of public concern or response to the killings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women

Author’s Bio:

Dr Hannah McGlade is a Noongar woman from Western Australia and her career has focused on justice for Aboriginal people, race discrimination law and practice, Aboriginal women and children, family violence and sexual assault.

Currently Dr McGlade is a Senior Indigenous Research Fellow at Curtin University and an Advisor to the Noongar Council for Family Safety and Wellbeing. Dr McGlade is also a member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues, Western Australia Mental Health Tribunal and the Medical Board of Australia.

Day Four | Tackling Gender-Based Violence in Indigenous Communities

Written by Dixie Link-Gordon


I see you, I hear, I feel you

sisters in so much quietness,

all reaching to break the code of silence bearing us down,

with almost no relief,

Our voices whisper across land and sea seeking to be free of shame and pain.

Dixie Link-Gordon

On a beautiful winter day in Sydney in August 2018 we moved as one up the Grand Parade of UNSW. With nothing but the sound of our clap sticks (traditional instrument) Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander Fiji, Maori, Tongan and Cook Islander women brought our stories through our language of resilience, sharing with our sisters and supported hand in hand by the UNSW Gender Violence Research Network.

Layers of oppressive legal policies and processes that directly impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia have prevented so many practices, including the trading of information and resources about family, domestic and sexual violence with our Pacific sisters.

Silences

Authority

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sisters were silenced as children from sharing the most intimate of violations. Many of us were stolen from our families. We were placed in homes, orphanages, hospitals or schools. We were not allowed to talk to each other about what was happening to us. We learnt very quickly to block our emotions. We played down our injuries and were outcast by dominant society. We were policed and silenced.

Family

Women from childhood have been silenced by our families. As women in relationships we, of course, knew of rape and understood the pain. But to articulate and say what had happened to us was another thing. It is the same for domestic and family violence. We had no knowledge of where to seek appropriate support, and became lost in fear. Being empowered to have a safe living family is something so many of us work towards for our future generations. This issue always comes up when we are sharing with each other and, at times, with professionals and cultural healing groups.

Religion

We were told to go to church to engage spiritually in a safe place. There were things you just didn’t talk about.  If you were sexually abused, you had no pathway to enable you to disclose. We practised silent prayers of hope and change.

Community

There are layers of oppression in Indigenous communities, too. For a long time, it has seemed that all other matters of injustice are more important than issues of  rape and domestic violence in our communities.

Breaking Silent Codes across Australia and the Pacific allows us as women to rediscover long-ago practices and trade stories, bringing us into an era of re-engagement and speaking as a movement of Indigenous women. We speak of the multiple atrocities that have sadly played out both in wider society and in our intimate relationships; sexual assault and domestic and family violence. It is the acts of sexual abuse that remain some of most heinous.

Breaking Silent Codes is a unique and aspirational project, and possibly the first time that Indigenous women across the Asia Pacific have gathered to discuss their stories of surviving sexual and domestic violence and collectively celebrate their resilience and strength.

Sharing and continuing this work is crucial and provides the potential for all people affected by sexual and domestic violence to realise the importance of sharing their experiences and benefiting from the support of others.

By taking our voices to the University of NSW, we created a whole community approach to share the rebuilding our cultural ties to the Pacific and each other.

We have now started work on:

  • The preparation and publication of a hardcover book offering a collection of stories and art depicting women’s narratives of survival.
  • A presentation about Breaking Silent Codes at the Healing Our Spirit Worldwide International Indigenous Gathering in Sydney from 26-29 November 2018.
  • Generating much needed support for Breaking Silent Codes events in Aboriginal communities across Australia and the Pacific. Events will be led by the women who attended the Breaking Silent Codes forum at UNSW in August 2018, to continue conversations about sexual assault and domestic and family violence started at the forum.
  • Consolidating links between Aboriginal, Torres Strait and Pacific Islander women and the UNSW Gendered Violence Research Network
  • Developing a safe online space for Aboriginal, Torres Strait and Pacific Islander women to continue to Break Silent Codes, sharing stories and triumphs of cultural and spiritual responses to the issue of family and domestic violence and sexual assault in communities across Australia and the Pacific.

Many thanks to UNSW Staff including Professor Megan Davis, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Indigenous Associate Professor Jan Breckenridge, Mailin Suchting, and Kat Armstrong from the Gender Violence Research Network.

Dixie Link-Gordon is a community educator with the UNSW government.