Aboriginal mothers 17 times more likely to die from homicide, WA study finds.

By Meredith Griffiths

Aboriginal mothers are 17.5 times more likely to die from homicide than non-Aboriginal mothers, according to new research.

The Telethon Kids Institute analysed West Australian data about deaths from external causes from 1983 to 2010 and found about a quarter of Aboriginal mothers who died in that time were homicide victims.

“I think it pinpoints… domestic violence issues that Aboriginal women are sometimes faced with,” report author Carrington Shepherd said.

Overall, Aboriginal mothers were 6.5 times more likely to die from preventable causes than non-Aboriginal mothers.

The main external cause of death was accidents, with about 40 per cent of the Indigenous mothers dying in transport accidents.

“They tend to live in more remote areas where the roads are of poorer standard and speed limits are higher, but also, and this is also connected to areas of poverty and socio-economic disadvantage, they tend to have access to cars that aren’t as safe and wearing seatbelts is an issue as well,” Dr Shepherd said.

The report, published in the BMC Public Health journal, shows about 14 per cent of the deaths were suicides meaning Aboriginal mothers were 3.5 times more likely to kill themselves than non-Aboriginal mothers.

It says risk factors for suicide in Aboriginal people include a lack of purpose and role models and dislocation from family and community.

“In terms of Aboriginal mothers we’re talking about issues of potential sexual abuse and intimate partner abuse that can lead to issues with social and emotional wellbeing and poor mental health,” Dr Shepherd said, adding that the impact of the Stolen Generation was also still being felt in subsequent generations.

Early death of mothers leads to life-long problems among children

The researchers analysed data from the West Australian midwife notification system, death registry, hospital morbidity data system and mental health information system.

The median age of death of Aboriginal mothers was 33 years old and the median age of their youngest child was 4.8 years old.

“When children face maternal loss at this stage of life the evidence is quite clear that this can lead to long periods of grief, and depression and anxiety and stress as well,” Dr Shepherd said.

“It can lead, further down the track, to problems with identity development and also the difficulties associated to the transition to out of home care when that’s an issue.

“An important thing to recognise is that these effects can be long lasting as well, and we’ve seen that they can impact on substance abuse and suicide of these children down the track.”
Aboriginal health professor Rhonda Marriott from Murdoch University said the report was painful to read and raised questions about how society values Indigenous women.

“It’s really important that we don’t blame the victims or blame Aboriginal families,” she said.

“What has happened that the women who were involved have not developed resilience?”

Professor Marriott said many young Aboriginal women had no-one to help them in a crisis, but they also needed more support services throughout their lives.

“The culturally safe birthing experience, culturally safe and secure child health experience, schooling that values your cultural identity and strengthens your cultural identity and through to the choices that you make around your aspirations supporting young people more to have greater aspirations in life,” she explained.

This post originally appeared on  ABC News.