Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Women: Article Analysis

The issue of violence against Aboriginal women is my chosen subtopic that strongly contributes to the history of Aboriginal women’s struggle for rights and identity in Canada. To search relevant newspaper articles for this topic, the databases that were used were Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, as well as Canadian Newsstand Major Dailies. The reason these two databases were chosen was because Canadian Newsstand offered articles from multiple newspapers in the country, therefore providing me with diverse news in different provinces other than Ontario. The article I obtained from Canadian Newsstand was Canada Called on to Stop Violence Against Aboriginal Women from the Leader Post newspaper in Saskatchewan. Lexis Nexus provided one article I

Being born on Australian soil for the Indigenous was regarded very important culturally, if a baby was born on the land, they were considered traditional owners of the land. Australian Indigenous women birthing was renowned traditionally as “Women’s Business”. The birthing process involved preparing a hole in the ground, covering the hole with soft leaves and grass as well as red, soft sand. The midwives that assisted the mothers in labour were grandmothers and other women in the community who could offer physical and emotional support that alleviated the discomfort, pain and fear of the birthing process (Jones 2012). Pre-colonisation evidence suggests that Aboriginal women very rarely had medical complaints during pregnancy, the diet women had was very strict and would consist of

The injustice of stereotypes begins with depictions of diverse groups as uniform. For Indigenous Australian stereotypes, there are prevailing negative views of laziness, welfare abuse, substance abuse, and criminality (Perkins, 2014). Initial negative stereotypes of Indigenous Australians were based on social-Darwinist theories (Harrison & Sellwood, 2016). However, contemporary stereotypes might be attributed to ignorance of Australia’s past paternalistic colonialism on contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Stereotypes negatively impact the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This is clear in constructing identity, and the expectations others have of Indigenous Australians.

It is without denial that aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people are treated differently in our society especially by the media. They are often represented as, trouble makers, violent and drunks. These remarks used by the media are giving bad impressions on Aboriginal people. Tonight, on Media Matters we will unmask the truth on the media’s treatment of the famous Sydney Swans footballer Adam Goodes. The media has heavily criticized this athlete making unfair statements causing them to break the journalist’s code of ethics, the very rule book they should be following. The code of ethics applies to all journalists and is designed to keep their reports fair, non-judgemental.

Throughout history, women have been the victims of oppression in society. In specific, Aboriginal women have suffered through racism, sexism, domestic violence, and over-representation. Through the implementation of the Indian Act, Aboriginal women have been forced to abandon their culture in order to assimilate into Canadian society. The effects of colonization has changed the way Aboriginal women are treated; emotionally and physically, and therefore are the source of oppression today.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have faced disadvantages in various areas, particularly housing. The disadvantages these people face now are the result of policies introduced by the European settlers, then the government. The policies introduced were protection, assimilation, integration and self-determination. It is hard to understand the housing disadvantages faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people if their history is not known.

Aboriginal women face disproportionate challenges throughout their incarceration which impacts their successful community reintegration. Over the last ten years, inmate assaults involving Aboriginal women have exponentially grown, almost doubling, while use of force incidents have more than tripled. Rates of self-injury involving incarcerated Aboriginal women are seventeen times higher than that of non-Aboriginal women. To agree with Baldry, Carlton, and Cunneen, using Indigenous women as a focus point is beneficial because their "experiences embody and exemplify the intersections between colonial and neocolonial oppression and the multiple sites of gender and disadvantage and inequality that stem from patriarchal domination." Cunneen highlights that Indigenous women actually live in "many prisons"; the prison of misunderstanding; the prison of misogyny; and the prison of disempowerment. Patricia Monture insists that one way women can resist oppression and facilitate social change is by telling their own stories. The Task Force for Federally Sentenced Women developed a report called Creating Choices, which attempted to relocate the power to make choices in womens' lives out of the hands of prison officials and back to the women themselves because, according to the findings of the Task Force, it is only when people are treated with respect and when they are empowered can they take responsibility for their actions and make meaningful decisions. Monture-Okanee reflects on the irony of the final report

Inequality in health is one of the most controversial topics within Australian Health Care. Inequality in relation to health is defined as being “differences in health status or in the distribution of health determinants between different population groups” (World Health Organization, 2012). Within Australia inequality affects a wide range of population groups; however Indigenous Australians are most widely affected therefore this paper will focus on how inequality has impacted their health. Research shows that Australia’s Indigenous people suffer from a multitude of social and economic inequalities such as inadequate access to nutritious food and health care, being socially and

“The status of Indigenous health in contemporary Australia is a result of historic factors as well as contemporary socio-economic issues” (Hampton & Toombs, 2013, p. 1).

Marmot, M. (2011). Social determinants and the health of Indigenous Australians. Med J Aust, 194(10),

As health professionals, we must look beyond individual attributes of Indigenous Australians to gain a greater understanding and a possible explanation of why there are such high rates of ill health issues such as alcoholism, depression, abuse, shorter life expectancy and higher prevalence of diseases including diabetes, heart disease and obesity in our indigenous population. Looking at just the individual aspects and the biomedical health model, we don’t get the context of Aboriginal health. This is why we need to explore in further detail what events could have created such inequities in Aboriginal health. Other details that we should consider are the historical and cultural factors such as, ‘terra nullius’, dispossession and social

The following report will explain what “Koolin Balit” outlines and its specific objectives to reach the ultimate goal: to improve Aboriginal health in Victoria over the period of the next ten years, as a strategic administration conducted by the Victorian government. This report will then address one of its priority areas, “A healthy start to life” which is designated to improve the health conditions of Aboriginal mothers and their infants that are deemed two at-risk groups. Lastly, three specific determinants of health related to the specific priority area: early life, addiction and social support will be amplified how they connect with this priority area and related health outcomes for aboriginal babies.

If you are not a white man in the 20th century there are forms of oppression. Aboriginal women and children are minorities that have been oppressed and controlled by the provincial government during the 1960s. Aboriginal people believed the government and eugenics board used sterilization and the sixties scoop to oppress them. The sixties scoop is the movement of Aboriginal children being taken from their homes. Aboriginal people saw the sixties scoop movement as a way to oppress them and their culture once the children were adopted by non-aboriginal people. The provincial government created different acts, such as the Family Services Act to support the movement of the sixties scoop. These acts were followed out by social workers entering their

In Canadian histories classes, the birth of Canada as a country is taught as a glorious experience for Europeans. What is not taught, however, is the mistreatment of Aboriginal peoples who retreated here for many years prior to the Europeans. This mistreatment was especially hurtful to women of aboriginal cultures. This essay will discuss the horrific treatment of Aboriginal women by removing their statuses and rights as Aboriginal peoples. It will discuss ways in which colonists took away their rights, followed by the impacts this mistreatment had both immediately and even now. This essay will then mention the restitution Aboriginal women have been given, followed by implications for my role as a social worker.

For several generations, the issue of missing indigenous women has been overlooked. Aboriginal families have always questioned the unreasonably high numbers, but due to under-reporting of incidents and a lack of an effective database, these violences have not been addressed. As each day passes, the number of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls continues to grow. A study completed by the Ontario Native Women’s Association reveals that Aboriginal women make up sixteen perfect of all murdered women and eleven percent of missing women in Canada. From the first glance, these numbers seem quite low, however, it is important to keep in mind that Aboriginal women only make up 4.3% of the Canadian population. One of the main problems to