The Disappeared Project

issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and children. And along the path of introducing this issue, we've explained the term disappearance and the disappeared and what that means to this issue and the issue of femicide that we're trying to explore and explain in the context of Australia outside of the language that tends to get used that comes from North America and other countries. But today we've got something big to announce when it comes to this issue

in general. Amy, do you want to tell the listeners today what we're launching this week.

some cases that are shown. I think one year they did have their awareness campaigns around Menique Club, for example, But often in National Missing Person's Week, the parts of this crisis that directly affect our mob are silenced or just not seen as an issue at all. And so this week we're launching a new Indigenous led organization with our colleagues who will get to introduce themselves on the podcast, called.

and director in that. It was last year, yeah, when I received a call from Ginny who called me early on a Sunday morning asking some questions about her her brother who had been disappeared and not seen for some time. I have a background. My professional background is as a social worker, so I find myself supporting individuals and families in a variety of different ways. But that was definitely the first time I think I've supported individuals and families

around disappeared family member. So I guess that's how I've come to the project, and I guess I'm very interested in how we care and support individuals and families going through As Ginny says, you know, an incredible crises that impacts the daily lives of so many So yeah, thanks for having me on.

we do. We'll also be working with some important partners who will introduce soon who will be able to offer supports in very high level places for families in ways that can assist them that have never been offered before.

In terms of my role, I'll be taking on the position of being the sort of senior legal advocate and continuing the role that you've heard me speak about throughout kurtin the podcast, and largely that's going to be supporting family as they navigate dealing with police, the court systems, coronial inquests and really providing guidance so that we can get the best lawyers to work for people wherever they are.

In Australia. Too often families are left on their own and don't have that support and no one stepping up and providing that. So part of what we're going to be doing is urging those on the ground essential workers, whether they be social workers, lawyers, and other people who can provide tracking services, search services to join families wherever

they are. This is a big country and it's just not possible for us to be able to service every family wherever they are, So we're going to be bringing on as many people as we can to support families where they are locally, but also aiming part of what we're doing and have been working on for a long time is looking at both the way the media cover this issue and also issues around data collection and understanding the issue more broadly. Can you speak to where we'll be going with.

many different cases. And one of those really important issues is just a lack of awareness and a continual silencing of what we're seeing around the very unique experiences and traumas that affect First Nations families and so often I've seen over the past ten or fifteen years of looking at these cases, particularly looking at the media, the way

the media covers this cases. It's something that our listeners will know is that when a black fellow has disappeared, when a black fellow is seen missing, there is never the same level of attention that is garnered, you know. And we saw recently in the case of Queensland, we had a young girl tragically go missing up near Bunderberg, near Gimpei Phoebe Bishop and there was widespread coverage all around the nation and particularly in Queensland that led to

the outcome. And what you'll know is when you hear from our colleague Jinny, is that there was nowhere near the level of effort applied in searching for her brother. And that's just a continual pattern that we are seeing. So it's really important. I think what happens often is that we're continually saying this, you know, black fellows know that this racism exists, that there's a racialized logic around policing. There's a racialized way that the media cover these cases.

And yet what we need is the evidence to back up the families. So we need evidence that will support the families fight in however they want to fight, you know, if they want to go to the coronial inquest, if it's like the first twenty four hours and they need support and what they need to do, you know, what do you do first? How do you approach the police? What legal help do you need? How do well when do we approach media? What journalists do we talk to?

How do we put out the stories of those so they're not the violence is not reperpetrated against it.

As we continued the Disappeared Project, and Ginny, I just mentioned your brother and I mentioned a little bit about how this has really emerged organically, I think the project and the necessity for the project. What sort of things do you would you like to see come from the project? Or why do you see it as an urgent intervention in what is currently happening?

for proper investigation. And they also helped me with managing media engagement and conducting community led social media strategies and also helped me with maintaining constant pressure on authorities. And you know, I think within two weeks Dry's case received the attention it deserved because of our.

we hope to produce. Look from the outset, let me make it very clear my political understanding of race and how race operates in this place and so called Australia stems from my own family's tragic circumstances dealing with police. I am named after my grandfather, Kevin Yaye, who was murdered by police and police custody. So I've always had a kind of feeling about police from a young boy, hearing stories of these tragic events that led to my

grandfather's death. So becoming a social worker and working in the youth justice space and supporting young people in their families in that space really opened my eyes to these systems and how intrinsically linked they are, from health to education to the so called justice system. And when Ginny had called me last year on a Sunday morning, I knew it was very important in those first moments to, as Genny says, validate her and her feelings and her

family's feelings in that moment. Amy, you and I have worked on a coronal inquest a few years ago in relation to the disappearance of an Aboriginal woman in far North Queensland, and in that work it was my responsibility to go over the police evidence and have a look at where there could be gaps or holes in their

search and their evidence. And when Ginny called me last year, that come flooding back is my work on that coronal inquest and just to see how police overlooked blaringly obvious signs and so when Genny called, I knew I had to validate her in that moment, and I think Genny was Within two hours me and my partner were out searching the bushlands where JII was living at the time when he disappeared and we found out to be murdered.

My work as a social worker is very much concerned with how do we support black fellows experiencing racial discrimination in all areas, And in this moment, I know that there needs to be more people talking about the disappearance of black follows across so called Australia, and I think the work that we can do with the Disappeared Project could potentially help many families.

could have entrenched a disappearance. And this is something that you know, Martin and I have been talking about a lot on the podcast because we've seen it in so many cases, which are long term missing persons cases in relation to you know, mostly Aboriginal women, is that when an Aboriginal woman goes missing, there's still the suggestion that she might come back or she could have done it

to herself. And that's because when she has disappeared, she can't speak back, and the families are there to speak for her. And I think what we saw with Jy's came we saw immediately that the police refuse to believe.

being silly, like they might turn up. But obviously in so many cases that we've looked at is that the families always have a reason to be fearful and reason the families always have a reason to be concerned because they know what their loved ones, who their loved ones are, you know, and they know when they when they're higher risk. And the police often don't categorize Aboriginal people who go missing as high risk, and I've seen that so many times.

So the reason we picked the Disappeared Project is because disappeared comes with a different connotation. And I think we have mentioned this on the podcast before, but disappearance is more of a framework which acts to absolve, you know, like missing comes with a lot of connotations that do not reflect the reality and in fact work for police.

So things like missing connotes that yeah, they might come back, or they've gone on their own accord, or there's no suggestion of foul play, even when there's evidence suggests that there are perpetrators. So disappearance is a different way of speaking about this issue that directly ties as well to the history of this country and particularly where we all the majority of us work in Queensland, a state that has a history of disappearance and actively eliminating Aboriginal people

from this land. So there's a lot of different reasons why we use this word.

and murdered in Rockhampton in a very similar manner. Again, the police completely failed and as a resultant as we've explained, went on to let a man go who would carry

out more wicked crimes. We've explained about the Bauerville families and the fact that the police very bluntly said to Colleen's mother and her family that she probably had gone walk about when we now know she hadn't, and as a result of the police in action, a serial killer went on to murder two more Aboriginal children and never spent a day in jail and walks around a freeman today. So so much of what we've already done and tried

to explain feeds into this very issue. And we've also discussed cases where Aboriginal mothers have called police with concerns about their children, their daughters, and they've been arrested for crimes that relate largely to poverty, such as unpaid fines.

We've seen the stories like these that we've told end up in Meteor articles, in books and journals, but the people writing those are completely missing the point about the race based issue, the systemic race based issue that is leading to this issue where we have such disparate reactions. As Amy said, a young woman went missing in Queensland and the police had a huge response, as did the media.

We've often referenced cases in Western Australia where the same thing happened, and yet we know at the same time in Western Australia that a number of young Aboriginal men are missing and next to nothing has been done. So that's why the Disappeared project resonated with us so much, because it already reflects what we're seeing on the ground

and the suffering we're seeing families go through. So part of what we also aim to do is bringing experts and one of those experts who has already partnered with us and will help us to help families is doctor Jodie Ward of Forensic HID and she's the pre eminent DNA expert in Australia. And instantly that opens up a lot of opportunities to help us get answers for families and hopefully solve some of the unanswered questions that families have.

We're also working with an enormous organization that will help us build a database so that we can understand and track this issue more broadly, and we'll have more to say about that soon. So a lot of this is about addressing the need where it is at every turn, from providing resources and tools for families to providing the

strategic legal advice, media advice, search advice. And then there's the other side, which tells the family's stories, because as we've seen, the media just can't be trusted to do that in a way that has any humanity at all. And then more broadly is the collecting of the data,

building the database and beginning to understand this issue. As I opened with, we often talk about the way that those who Disappeared in North America become the framework for the way the media speaks about this issue in Australia. But it's just very different, and we know that the data will bear that out, and we know that the stories of families will bear that out. And that's what you'll start to see coming from us at the Disappeared Project in the next weeks, months and years to come.

Given then everything we've discussed, Ginny, I was just wondering, as a final question, if we sort of reflect on what happened to yourself and your family and your brother Jai, how things might have been different the Disappeared Project existed when the tragedy struck your family.

You know, I think this is about investing in justice and healing and truth for First Nations families. I think behind each case is a brother and a sister, or a child or a parent who is desperately missed, and that behind each statistic is a community that bears the weight of loss and uncertainty.

black Cast and produced by Clint Curtis. For more, you can visit us at www dot Curtain Thepodcast dot com, follow us on Twitter at Curtain Podcast, and help to support our work at Patreon dot com backslash Curtain Podcast