VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA IN RELATION TO INDIGENOUS WOMEN

Violence and Trauma in Relation to Indigenous Women

Violence and Trauma in Relation to Indigenous Women

Introduction

Women are also important element of any society and any crime committed by a woman is also resulted in her imprisonment. There have been various reporting on sexual abuse of women in Australian prisons by their fellow prisoners as well as prison authorities and guards (PHYS.Org, 2012). It is important to know that during this century women are seen at more risk of being sexually abused in prisons across the country because a significant increase has been observed in the number of prisoners in Australia. In fact, there were only half million prisoners in the country in 1985 with small ratio of female prisoners. However, today Australia has more than 2 million prisoners with increased ratio of women. It is also noticeable that number of women in different areas has gone up by 43 percent in comparison of men's 26 percent. At the end of 2011, more than 150,000 women were sent to different federal and state prisons of the country (Suzack et al., 2011).

Discussion

It is also a bitter reality that once these women get in; many of them are sexually abused and given mental torture by the jail officials and other people who are responsible for their safety. It has been reported that rate of sexual abuse is more than 25 percent in some of the prisons in Australia. In addition, researchers have identified that young women, women with mental disabilities and first-time offenders are more vulnerable to sexual abuse. Research also reveals that sexual abuse or rape of women also cause possibility of diseases in women (Suzack et al., 2011). In addition to rape, it is also a fact that prison staff are found in making many women ...