User:Robnty/sandbox

Violence Against Aboriginal Women
With colonization and later globalization, Indigenous women around the world have repeatedly been subjected to violence. Within the states of Canada and Australia, violence was perpetrated against Indigenous peoples, in order to gain power, land, and state sovereignty. Violent acts regardless of whether they are categorized as self-directed, interpersonal, or as collective violent acts are commonly categorized as physical, sexual, or psychological. Different standards of response to violence should not be applied to Indigenous communities. Violence should not be accepted as natural or inevitable just because it occurs between Indigenous people.[1] (Lawrence 8). Deprivation and neglect can both be considered as forms of psychological abuse, however, with these different forms, they often interact with each other, and form a complex pattern of behavior where psychological violence is combined with physical and/or sexual abuse in some settings[2] (Krantz & Garcia-Moreno 818). The failure to address the issue of violence faced by Indigenous women and communities can be defined as psychological abuse via the state. This avoidance has caused physical and sexual violence targeting specific demographic of those who have been dehumanized and regarded as objects who are acceptable recipients to be mistreated. The negligence of action allows the wider Canadian society to believe that Indigenous peoples are blaming the state for the physical violence against Indigenous women and children without acknowledging or understanding the structure nature of that violence. A state like Canada, with its pride reputation of being polite and multicultural, enacting in such structural violence towards Indigenous women and children, individuals highly regarded in their own communities as the life givers and the future, but ignored and far too often forgotten in the larger society should be a national disgrace. With the expansion of colonial states came the gradual loss of containment of violence. This can be seen when the state allows or takes no action in preventing violence from occurring as was evident with the gendered violence in many states, Canada and Australia included. Both Canada and Australia have history and continued violence against Indigenous women and children and have had little progress in remedying the issues if any progress at all. As the state has the monopoly on the legitimate authority on regulation violence, it therefore has the ability to stop violence if it chooses to[3] (Coronil, Fernando, and Julie Skurski 2). Canada and Australia have failed to protect Indigenous women against violence and both states have also failed to discontinue the violence from continuing to occur. Both western states project a message of unnecessary action in order to discontinue the mistreatment of Indigenous women. This inaction allows other colonial states and the global society to perceive violence and mistreatment as acceptable, therefore, it continues to directly affect Indigenous women and children in their daily lives. The general population can make a difference in stopping the violence occurring, asking questions, getting facts, and standing up to perpetrators of violence. However, without the state accepting the reality of the desperate need for action against this gender specific violence, people will continue to assume that this violence is acceptable treatment for these women to endure. With increase awareness of the dangerous issue, the state is facing more pressure from internal populations within Canada and Australia, and external pressure from international organizations fighting to remedy the situation.