How Indigenous women have become targets in a domestic violence system intended to protect them

Heather Douglas and Robin Fitzgerald for The Conversation write:
In our study, we examined Queensland court data on protection order applications and breaches for the year 2013-14. We found a dramatic over-representation of ATSI people – especially women – in the protection order system.
Women are typically much less likely to be respondents in domestic violence cases and charged with breaches of a protection order. However, of the women imprisoned for breaches in our study, 69% of them were ATSI women.
When these women fight back, they may not fit with stereotypical expectations of how a victim should behave: for example, vulnerable, blameless and weak. This might result in police applying for a protection order against them or charging them with breaching an order.
Of urgent concern to us is the plight of ATSI women being incarcerated in ever-increasing numbers in a system originally introduced to protect women from violence.
https://theconversation.com/how-indigenous-women-have-become-targets-in-a-domestic-violence-system-intended-to-protect-them-102656