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Breaking the cycle: A training program for 'Urban' Aboriginalwomen exiting prison in the Perth Metropolitan Area
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Breaking the cycle: A training program for 'Urban' Aboriginalwomen exiting prison in the Perth Metropolitan Area

D. Goulding
Centre for Social and Community Research, Murdoch University
2006
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Abstract

Colonisation and its consequences; dispossession from land and culture and forcible removal of generations of Aboriginal children from their families and communities have had a disastrous impact on Aboriginal people’s general well being and life chances. It is well documented that ‘Aboriginal people suffer entrenched disadvantage in all spheres of life’ (Salomone, 2002:2). Aboriginal women, in particular, are among the most socially and economically disadvantaged members of West Australian society. They endure deep rooted poverty, ongoing systemic racism, entrenched family violence and sexual abuse, high rates of teenage pregnancy, high rates of unemployment, as well as bearing the burden of high levels of mental health problems, alcoholism and increasing substance abuse. Some social indicators of Aboriginal women’s entrenched socio-economic disadvantage include: a life expectancy twenty years less than that of non Aboriginal women; infant mortality rates which are twice those of other Australian infants; they are twice as likely to be sole parents; five times less likely to have a post school qualification; and most disturbingly, they are forty five times more likely to be victims of domestic violence and eight times more likely to be victims of homicide (HREOC Face the Facts, 2005:4/6).

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