“Their fear is the removal of their children”

“Their fear is the removal of their children”
Image: A mural at the Block in Redfern

More Indigenous women die in domestic situations than ony other group, says Charmaigne Weldon, due to their fear of contacting police and social services.

As a specialist Aboriginal worker at Sydney Women’s Domestic Court Advocacy Service, Ms Weldon should know. She also appears in Tidda’s Marumal: A Time to Heal a new video produced by the Redfern Legal Centre aimed at raising awareness about the support services available for indigenous women.

Ms Weldon said the deaths most commonly occur because women fear losing their children.

“It’s probably [due to] not reporting the violence and not having trust in government departments either,” she said.

“Their fear is the removal of their children.”

“All that support is so important and if you embrace it you can have a quality of life and it’s not just about yourself, it’s about your children as well.”

Originally from Western NSW, Ms Weldon has firsthand knowledge of domestic violence and the fear of contacting police.

“You know, I’ve been a victim myself. I’ve experienced domestic violence at its worst. I can say I never reported it to police,” she said.

“It wasn’t until I started working in a woman’s refuge that I went, ‘all this support that’s around, I could have accessed some of that, it could have helped me’.”

Susan Smith is the coordinator of the Domestic Violence Service at the Redfern Legal Centre. The service is for women and children seeking the protection of a court order and is funded by Legal Aid.

Indigenous women don’t contact police and community services, Ms Smith said, because they fear their children will be taken from them. But in fact the opposite is true.

“Aboriginal women get concerned that this might mean that their children might be assumed into care but we would be reassuring women,” she told City Hub.

“If they get an apprehended violence order to protect themselves and their children from the violence, well the Department of Community Services would see that as protective behaviour.”

Ms Smith said her organisation provides services for all women at four inner city courts, and while there is a large number of women seeking help, there are many more cases that go unreported.

“It is a big issue, we see about 1500 to 1800 women a year,” she said.

“So they’re just the women who come to court and are seeking the domestic violence orders.”

You can watch Tidda’s Marumal here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_SegqyZIoE

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