The Equality Institute

The purpose of the NT Strategic Plan is to ensure that we have a clear direction and strategic goals for the work undertaken in the NT, which will facilitate decision-making about staffing and projects, strengthen collaboration between teams and staff members across locations, and help us deliver on Goal 5: Continue to build a thriving team and impactful feminist organisation.

Researching and working in the domestic, family, and sexual violence (DFSV) sector in the NT requires particular experience and needs a specialised approach that builds upon established relationships and nurtured partnerships. The high rates of violence, history, language and cultural barriers, and challenges of living and working in remote places, are all factors that require a particular skill set.

EQI began working in the Northern Territory in 2020 and has since completed several projects in partnership with Aboriginal organisations and communities. EQI’s NT Strategic Plan seeks to build upon its partnerships and the achievements of work completed in the NT to date.

There are five objectives for the next five years:

1. To grow a team and cultivate EQI as a known and trusted organisation in the NT.
2. EQI develops and fosters Indigenous-led research in the NT.
3. EQI develops partnerships throughout the NT, in different regional and remote contexts, and with different organisations, services, and government agencies.
4. EQI supports organisations and programs working to prevent violence against women throughout the NT with advocacy, research, monitoring and evaluation, and by supporting and creating a culture of collective care.
5. EQI shares learnings and creates communications products and resources which make the evidence base more accessible for a NT audience, particularly for Aboriginal people.

The Northern Territory is an incredibly beautiful place with extremely rich and diverse culture. More than a hundred different Indigenous languages can be heard being spoken fluently every day. People from the Territory (Territorians) have a strong sense of identity and pride in their home, however, there are a number of contextual factors that make living and working in the Territory particularly unique and challenging:

• The NT is not a state, which means it does not have the same legislative and fiscal capabilities as other Australian states. The Territory is dependent on the Federal Government for its funding, which impacts the DFSV sector, as well as things like housing and the criminal legal system.

• The Northern Territory Emergency Response, known as "The Intervention", introduced in 2007 by The Australian Federal Government, suspended the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 to make special legislation for Aboriginal people in prescribed zones. The Intervention imposed a range of measures designed to increase the health and safety of Aboriginal communities that had drastic and unintended impacts on the NT, especially on Aboriginal people.

• The Territory's history of violence and discrimination towards Aboriginal people, and the ongoing impacts of colonisation, are some of the key drivers of the NT’s extremely high rates of violence against women. The NT has the highest rate of domestic and family violence related homicides in Australia and Aboriginal women are hospitalised at 40 times the rate of non-Indigenous women.

• Lack of services, poor infrastructure, and geographical distance and remoteness, are some of the contextual factors which make it difficult for women experiencing violence to seek help or pursue justice in the NT.

• Mainstream interventions – or those developed for wider Australia – are often inappropriate in remote and Indigenous contexts. Researching and working in the domestic, family, and sexual violence sector in the NT requires particular experience and needs a specialised approach that builds upon established relationships and nurtured partnerships.