Today marks the beginning of Ochre Ribbon Week, an annual Aboriginal-led advocacy campaign that runs annually from 12-19 February. Now in its tenth year, Ochre Ribbon Week raises awareness about the devastating impacts of family violence on Aboriginal women. 

Chief Executive of Djirra, Ms. Antoinette Braybrook AM, says that each year organisations and community unite to call for action, championing self-determined solutions that will see Aboriginal women and their children thrive and live free from violence and despite this, nothing has changed.

“We have been advocating strongly for many years, but we have not been heard, and our solutions have not been invested in. Aboriginal women’s and children’s lives are still not valued.

“We need system wide change to address the ongoing systemic violence and racism that Aboriginal women and children experience, because the rates of abuse against our women keep rising.

“The first woman to die because of family violence in 2025 was Aboriginal. Nationally, Aboriginal women are still thirty-four times more likely to be hospitalised and eleven times more likely to die due to family violence. Here in Victoria, we are forty-five times more likely to experience family violence than other women.

“This is a national disgrace, and the ramifications are devastating; beyond the physical trauma, family violence has social, cultural, and economic impacts that reverberate through families and generations.”

While she acknowledges the Federal Government’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Plan to end gendered violence is a positive step, Ms. Braybrook says the Close the Gap Target 13 to reduce family violence and abuse against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children by at least 50% by 2031 is a long way off, especially when the government consistently relies on data that is over six years old.

“What we need is a fundamental change in systems and approach. Government must set aside its historical insistence on knowing what is best for us and recognise, value, and invest in the expertise of specialist organisations such as Djirra and other Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal services.

“An important step in the right direction would be funding for our early intervention and prevention work, case management and counselling to complement our specialised legal services. We have the solutions because we are the women.”

Without this change, Ms. Braybrook says the gap will remain; Aboriginal women and children will continue to suffer and lose their lives.

“Lack of understanding and critically inadequate funding will drive the failure of the Close the Gap targets. Target 13 is a prime example of this.

“Now is the time to commit to meaningful reform and long-term investment because we do not want a future of ongoing intergenerational trauma, we want to thrive.

“Make this Ochre Ribbon Week different for our women and children. Support our demand that government hear our voices and invest in our solutions, our way, because the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal women and children is not negotiable.”