Speaker 1: Podcast Unite Our Voices.
Speaker 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we expose the disappearances
Speaker 2: of Aboriginal people across this country, shining a light on
Speaker 2: the darkest parts of our justice system.
Speaker 1: We ask who are the victims?
Speaker 3: I'm Anna mcquaire and I'm Martin Hodgson, Senior Advocate at
Speaker 3: the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this series
Speaker 3: contains the names of deceased people and includes distressing content
Speaker 3: that may upset some listeners. Welcome to Season two of
Speaker 3: Curtain the podcast. As regular listeners will know, in season two,
Speaker 3: we've taken a shift and moved our focus to the
Speaker 3: issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and children. And
Speaker 3: along the path of introducing this issue, we've explained the
Speaker 3: term disappearance and the disappeared and what that means to
Speaker 3: this issue and the issue of femicide that we're trying
Speaker 3: to explore and explain in the context of Australia outside
Speaker 3: of the language that tends to get used that comes
Speaker 3: from North America and other countries. But today we've got
Speaker 3: something big to announce when it comes to this issue
Speaker 3: in general. Amy, do you want to tell the listeners
Speaker 3: today what we're launching this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I should also mention that we have two
Speaker 2: really special guests on the podcast today and I'll let
Speaker 2: them introduce themselves.
Speaker 1: But this week National Missing Person's Week.
Speaker 2: It's sort of a national week which is dedicated towards
Speaker 2: raising awareness around the numbers of long term missing persons
Speaker 2: cases all around the country. And obviously, if you've seen
Speaker 2: a lot of the media coverage, you'll see that not
Speaker 2: a lot of coverage is actually given to the crisis
Speaker 2: of Indigenous people who have been disappeared. Occasionally you'll see
Speaker 2: some cases that are shown. I think one year they
Speaker 2: did have their awareness campaigns around Menique Club, for example,
Speaker 2: But often in National Missing Person's Week, the parts of
Speaker 2: this crisis that directly affect our mob are silenced or
Speaker 2: just not seen as an issue at all. And so
Speaker 2: this week we're launching a new Indigenous led organization with
Speaker 2: our colleagues who will get to introduce themselves on the podcast, called.
Speaker 1: The Disappeared Project.
Speaker 2: But first I wanted to bring in our colleagues who
Speaker 2: are here on the program today. I want to introduce
Speaker 2: our listeners to Jenny.
Speaker 1: Jones and Kevin Yeah.
Speaker 2: You, Jenny, would you like to tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit about your mob and country and a little bit
Speaker 2: about how you come to this issue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. I'm Jinny Jones.
Speaker 5: I'm a proud Glomori and Kumer woman, and I'm one
Speaker 5: of the co founders of the Disappeared Project.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 5: Yeah, unfortunately became sort of an advocate for disappeared Aboriginal
Speaker 5: people during one of them devastating times of my life,
Speaker 5: my brother Jai was murdered. I think that experience showed
Speaker 5: me firsthand how our families are fouled by systems that
Speaker 5: weren't built for us. And it also showed me the
Speaker 5: power of First Nations led advocacy, how important that is,
Speaker 5: and how that can change outcomes. And yeah, I guess
Speaker 5: the Disappeared Project exists because we don't want any other
Speaker 5: family to have to navigate.
Speaker 4: That crisis alone.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Ginny, and we're going to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of.
Speaker 2: The issues that Ginny has raised, and Kevin about your mob,
Speaker 2: of your country and how you come to this specific
Speaker 2: issue around disappearance.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me on, Amy and Martin, and yeah,
Speaker 6: good to listen to you, Ginny. As always, my name
Speaker 6: is Kevin Yaye. I'm a walker, walker and South Sea
Speaker 6: and a man my mobile from the Aboriginal community of Cherburg,
Speaker 6: a couple of hours northwest of mcganjin, Brisbane, and I
Speaker 6: grew up on the story on a land of the
Speaker 6: budget of people and Harvey Bay. I'm also South Islander
Speaker 6: on my mom's side, and my Yaye surname denotes that connection.
Speaker 6: I am involved in the Disappeared Project as a founder
Speaker 6: and director in that. It was last year, yeah, when
Speaker 6: I received a call from Ginny who called me early
Speaker 6: on a Sunday morning asking some questions about her her
Speaker 6: brother who had been disappeared and not seen for some time.
Speaker 6: I have a background. My professional background is as a
Speaker 6: social worker, so I find myself supporting individuals and families
Speaker 6: in a variety of different ways. But that was definitely
Speaker 6: the first time I think I've supported individuals and families
Speaker 6: around disappeared family member. So I guess that's how I've
Speaker 6: come to the project, and I guess I'm very interested
Speaker 6: in how we care and support individuals and families going
Speaker 6: through As Ginny says, you know, an incredible crises that
Speaker 6: impacts the daily lives of so many So yeah, thanks
Speaker 6: for having me on.
Speaker 3: So now that we've announced the Disappeared Project, it's time
Speaker 3: for us to explain what we hope to achieve with
Speaker 3: the project, and of course centered at the heart of
Speaker 3: the project is those who have been disappeared and their
Speaker 3: families and so advocating for them, supporting them in every
Speaker 3: way that we can is at the heart of what
Speaker 3: we do. We'll also be working with some important partners
Speaker 3: who will introduce soon who will be able to offer
Speaker 3: supports in very high level places for families in ways
Speaker 3: that can assist them that have never been offered before.
Speaker 3: In terms of my role, I'll be taking on the
Speaker 3: position of being the sort of senior legal advocate and
Speaker 3: continuing the role that you've heard me speak about throughout
Speaker 3: kurtin the podcast, and largely that's going to be supporting
Speaker 3: family as they navigate dealing with police, the court systems,
Speaker 3: coronial inquests and really providing guidance so that we can
Speaker 3: get the best lawyers to work for people wherever they are.
Speaker 3: In Australia. Too often families are left on their own
Speaker 3: and don't have that support and no one stepping up
Speaker 3: and providing that. So part of what we're going to
Speaker 3: be doing is urging those on the ground essential workers,
Speaker 3: whether they be social workers, lawyers, and other people who
Speaker 3: can provide tracking services, search services to join families wherever
Speaker 3: they are. This is a big country and it's just
Speaker 3: not possible for us to be able to service every
Speaker 3: family wherever they are, So we're going to be bringing
Speaker 3: on as many people as we can to support families
Speaker 3: where they are locally, but also aiming part of what
Speaker 3: we're doing and have been working on for a long
Speaker 3: time is looking at both the way the media cover
Speaker 3: this issue and also issues around data collection and understanding
Speaker 3: the issue more broadly. Can you speak to where we'll
Speaker 3: be going with.
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, definitely, And I just want to add Martin.
Speaker 2: What Martin just said is that the Disappeared project has
Speaker 2: really come out organically, and when he talks about it
Speaker 2: being driven by First Nations family, it has come from
Speaker 2: the things we have seen families face continually in so
Speaker 2: many different cases. And one of those really important issues
Speaker 2: is just a lack of awareness and a continual silencing
Speaker 2: of what we're seeing around the very unique experiences and
Speaker 2: traumas that affect First Nations families and so often I've
Speaker 2: seen over the past ten or fifteen years of looking
Speaker 2: at these cases, particularly looking at the media, the way
Speaker 2: the media covers this cases. It's something that our listeners
Speaker 2: will know is that when a black fellow has disappeared,
Speaker 2: when a black fellow is seen missing, there is never
Speaker 2: the same level of attention that is garnered, you know.
Speaker 2: And we saw recently in the case of Queensland, we
Speaker 2: had a young girl tragically go missing up near Bunderberg,
Speaker 2: near Gimpei Phoebe Bishop and there was widespread coverage all
Speaker 2: around the nation and particularly in Queensland that led to
Speaker 2: the outcome. And what you'll know is when you hear
Speaker 2: from our colleague Jinny, is that there was nowhere near
Speaker 2: the level of effort applied in searching for her brother.
Speaker 2: And that's just a continual pattern that we are seeing.
Speaker 2: So it's really important. I think what happens often is
Speaker 2: that we're continually saying this, you know, black fellows know
Speaker 2: that this racism exists, that there's a racialized logic around policing.
Speaker 2: There's a racialized way that the media cover these cases.
Speaker 2: And yet what we need is the evidence to back
Speaker 2: up the families. So we need evidence that will support
Speaker 2: the families fight in however they want to fight, you know,
Speaker 2: if they want to go to the coronial inquest, if
Speaker 2: it's like the first twenty four hours and they need
Speaker 2: support and what they need to do, you know, what
Speaker 2: do you do first? How do you approach the police?
Speaker 2: What legal help do you need? How do well when
Speaker 2: do we approach media? What journalists do we talk to?
Speaker 2: How do we put out the stories of those so
Speaker 2: they're not the violence is not reperpetrated against it.
Speaker 1: So for us, the Disappeared Project is emerging.
Speaker 2: From what we see is necessary in the need to
Speaker 2: support families. So one of those things is actually finding
Speaker 2: out the numbers of Aboriginal men, women and children who
Speaker 2: were continually disappeared and who this is happening for you,
Speaker 2: and not just finding out the numbers, finding out their
Speaker 2: stories and uncovering the patterns, and that is something that
Speaker 2: is urgently needed and that's something that we're going to do.
Speaker 2: As we continued the Disappeared Project, and Ginny, I just
Speaker 2: mentioned your brother and I mentioned a little bit about
Speaker 2: how this has really emerged organically, I think the project
Speaker 2: and the necessity for the project. What sort of things
Speaker 2: do you would you like to see come from the project?
Speaker 2: Or why do you see it as an urgent intervention
Speaker 2: in what is currently happening?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I guess.
Speaker 5: In May of twenty twenty four, my brother Jai disappeared
Speaker 5: from his home in moray Field in Queensland, and he
Speaker 5: was twenty five years old and a young, vulnerable Aboriginal man.
Speaker 4: Our family had reported him missing.
Speaker 5: And I think for me, I immediately and my family
Speaker 5: immediately encountered what so many First Nations families face, which
Speaker 5: is minimal urgency assumptions rather than action, and a system
Speaker 5: that seemed.
Speaker 4: Designed to forget rather than to find. And we knew
Speaker 4: something was wrong.
Speaker 5: As an Aboriginal woman, as his sister, as his family,
Speaker 5: we knew that this wasn't like Jai, and so I
Speaker 5: reached out to Kevin Yao Yi, who immediately validated my
Speaker 5: concerns rather than dismissing them. And then from there we
Speaker 5: were able to mobilize really quickly, connecting with Amy and
Speaker 5: other people who have spent years working in this space,
Speaker 5: and I think together we sort of implemented strategies drawn
Speaker 5: from their experience, you know, collective experience in pushing police
Speaker 5: for proper investigation. And they also helped me with managing
Speaker 5: media engagement and conducting community led social media strategies and
Speaker 5: also helped me with maintaining constant pressure on authorities. And
Speaker 5: you know, I think within two weeks Dry's case received
Speaker 5: the attention it deserved because of our.
Speaker 4: Community and what we were able to pull together.
Speaker 5: And you know, that led to the arrest of two
Speaker 5: suspects who have been charged with his murder. And I think, obviously,
Speaker 5: while their outcome is really tragic, I think we really
Speaker 5: quickly were able to pull together this strategy and it
Speaker 5: provided our family with answers that so many Aboriginal families
Speaker 5: wait years or decades to receive, if they received them
Speaker 5: at all. And yeah, I think we'd witnessed something really
Speaker 5: powerful in that how First Nations led advocacy.
Speaker 4: Can dramatically change outcomes.
Speaker 5: And I think the other side of that is it
Speaker 5: revealed the devastating scale of this crisis.
Speaker 4: The statistics that we do have are alarming.
Speaker 5: You know, Aboriginal people make up what only three point
Speaker 5: eight percent of our population, but approximately twenty percent of
Speaker 5: our Aboriginal women are missing in this country.
Speaker 4: There's no comprehensive.
Speaker 5: National data sets specifically tracking First Nations people and the
Speaker 5: disappearance of First Nations people, and so I think it
Speaker 5: put us in a unique position to figure out what
Speaker 5: can we do to support families who experience these sorts
Speaker 5: of situations.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for that, Jinny. I'm Kevin.
Speaker 2: Jinny mentioned as well your role when Joi disappeared. You
Speaker 2: came in and you really helped validate her concern. I
Speaker 2: wanted you to bring you in as a social worker.
Speaker 2: How do you see families being treated by police but
Speaker 2: also like the lack of help around these cases from
Speaker 2: your experience and did you want us anything you want
Speaker 2: to respond to in relation to what Ginny just said
Speaker 2: as well?
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks Amy, and thank you Ginny for resharing that
Speaker 6: story of your brother and those tragic events that led
Speaker 6: to his murder. I think it really solidifies why this
Speaker 6: work is so important. So families and individuals can hopefully
Speaker 6: be supported by the Disappeared Project and the work that
Speaker 6: we hope to produce. Look from the outset, let me
Speaker 6: make it very clear my political understanding of race and
Speaker 6: how race operates in this place and so called Australia
Speaker 6: stems from my own family's tragic circumstances dealing with police.
Speaker 6: I am named after my grandfather, Kevin Yaye, who was
Speaker 6: murdered by police and police custody. So I've always had
Speaker 6: a kind of feeling about police from a young boy,
Speaker 6: hearing stories of these tragic events that led to my
Speaker 6: grandfather's death. So becoming a social worker and working in
Speaker 6: the youth justice space and supporting young people in their
Speaker 6: families in that space really opened my eyes to these
Speaker 6: systems and how intrinsically linked they are, from health to
Speaker 6: education to the so called justice system. And when Ginny
Speaker 6: had called me last year on a Sunday morning, I
Speaker 6: knew it was very important in those first moments to,
Speaker 6: as Genny says, validate her and her feelings and her
Speaker 6: family's feelings in that moment. Amy, you and I have
Speaker 6: worked on a coronal inquest a few years ago in
Speaker 6: relation to the disappearance of an Aboriginal woman in far
Speaker 6: North Queensland, and in that work it was my responsibility
Speaker 6: to go over the police evidence and have a look
Speaker 6: at where there could be gaps or holes in their
Speaker 6: search and their evidence. And when Ginny called me last year,
Speaker 6: that come flooding back is my work on that coronal
Speaker 6: inquest and just to see how police overlooked blaringly obvious
Speaker 6: signs and so when Genny called, I knew I had
Speaker 6: to validate her in that moment, and I think Genny
Speaker 6: was Within two hours me and my partner were out
Speaker 6: searching the bushlands where JII was living at the time
Speaker 6: when he disappeared and we found out to be murdered.
Speaker 6: My work as a social worker is very much concerned
Speaker 6: with how do we support black fellows experiencing racial discrimination
Speaker 6: in all areas, And in this moment, I know that
Speaker 6: there needs to be more people talking about the disappearance
Speaker 6: of black follows across so called Australia, and I think
Speaker 6: the work that we can do with the Disappeared Project
Speaker 6: could potentially help many families.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Ginny and Kevin for sharing those experiences.
Speaker 2: I think one of the things for me in you know,
Speaker 2: being meeting Euginny and also being involved with Kevin was
Speaker 2: and the thing that just changed my understanding of these
Speaker 2: cases is that I was actually seeing what was happening
Speaker 2: sort of in real time and how the police, you know,
Speaker 2: could have entrenched a disappearance. And this is something that
Speaker 2: you know, Martin and I have been talking about a
Speaker 2: lot on the podcast because we've seen it in so
Speaker 2: many cases, which are long term missing persons cases in
Speaker 2: relation to you know, mostly Aboriginal women, is that when
Speaker 2: an Aboriginal woman goes missing, there's still the suggestion that
Speaker 2: she might come back or she could have done it
Speaker 2: to herself. And that's because when she has disappeared, she
Speaker 2: can't speak back, and the families are there to speak
Speaker 2: for her. And I think what we saw with Jy's
Speaker 2: came we saw immediately that the police refuse to believe.
Speaker 1: The fear of the family.
Speaker 2: You know that when we talk about validating families concerns,
Speaker 2: there's this feeling that, you know, because black flaws are
Speaker 2: always talking down to they immediately refuse to believe us.
Speaker 2: And then you sort of think, oh, well, maybe I'm
Speaker 2: being silly, like they might turn up. But obviously in
Speaker 2: so many cases that we've looked at is that the
Speaker 2: families always have a reason to be fearful and reason
Speaker 2: the families always have a reason to be concerned because
Speaker 2: they know what their loved ones, who their loved ones are,
Speaker 2: you know, and they know when they when they're higher risk.
Speaker 2: And the police often don't categorize Aboriginal people who go
Speaker 2: missing as high risk, and I've seen that so many times.
Speaker 2: So the reason we picked the Disappeared Project is because
Speaker 2: disappeared comes with a different connotation. And I think we
Speaker 2: have mentioned this on the podcast before, but disappearance is
Speaker 2: more of a framework which acts to absolve, you know,
Speaker 2: like missing comes with a lot of connotations that do
Speaker 2: not reflect the reality and in fact work for police.
Speaker 2: So things like missing connotes that yeah, they might come back,
Speaker 2: or they've gone on their own accord, or there's no
Speaker 2: suggestion of foul play, even when there's evidence suggests that
Speaker 2: there are perpetrators. So disappearance is a different way of
Speaker 2: speaking about this issue that directly ties as well to
Speaker 2: the history of this country and particularly where we all
Speaker 2: the majority of us work in Queensland, a state that
Speaker 2: has a history of disappearance and actively eliminating Aboriginal people
Speaker 2: from this land. So there's a lot of different reasons
Speaker 2: why we use this word.
Speaker 4: Martin.
Speaker 2: I wanted to bring you in because I remember when
Speaker 2: I talked to you about the Disappeared Project, there was
Speaker 2: immediately this feeling that it's a bit similar to our
Speaker 2: other work around wrongful conviction, and I think a lot
Speaker 2: of our listeners would think as well about the Innocence
Speaker 2: Project networks around the world and.
Speaker 1: Even in Australia. Did you want to speak a bit
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: I think that's being born out over the eight years
Speaker 3: of the work we've done on it in the podcast
Speaker 3: and what we've tried to explain about this issue that
Speaker 3: over this period of time, there was if we look
Speaker 3: at the initial reason we started Kurt and what happens
Speaker 3: to Linda, there was no care by the police or
Speaker 3: concern about justice for Linda or her family. It quickly
Speaker 3: brought us to learning about Queenie Hart, who was disappeared
Speaker 3: and murdered in Rockhampton in a very similar manner. Again,
Speaker 3: the police completely failed and as a resultant as we've explained,
Speaker 3: went on to let a man go who would carry
Speaker 3: out more wicked crimes. We've explained about the Bauerville families
Speaker 3: and the fact that the police very bluntly said to
Speaker 3: Colleen's mother and her family that she probably had gone
Speaker 3: walk about when we now know she hadn't, and as
Speaker 3: a result of the police in action, a serial killer
Speaker 3: went on to murder two more Aboriginal children and never
Speaker 3: spent a day in jail and walks around a freeman today.
Speaker 3: So so much of what we've already done and tried
Speaker 3: to explain feeds into this very issue. And we've also
Speaker 3: discussed cases where Aboriginal mothers have called police with concerns
Speaker 3: about their children, their daughters, and they've been arrested for
Speaker 3: crimes that relate largely to poverty, such as unpaid fines.
Speaker 3: We've seen the stories like these that we've told end
Speaker 3: up in Meteor articles, in books and journals, but the
Speaker 3: people writing those are completely missing the point about the
Speaker 3: race based issue, the systemic race based issue that is
Speaker 3: leading to this issue where we have such disparate reactions.
Speaker 3: As Amy said, a young woman went missing in Queensland
Speaker 3: and the police had a huge response, as did the media.
Speaker 3: We've often referenced cases in Western Australia where the same
Speaker 3: thing happened, and yet we know at the same time
Speaker 3: in Western Australia that a number of young Aboriginal men
Speaker 3: are missing and next to nothing has been done. So
Speaker 3: that's why the Disappeared project resonated with us so much,
Speaker 3: because it already reflects what we're seeing on the ground
Speaker 3: and the suffering we're seeing families go through. So part
Speaker 3: of what we also aim to do is bringing experts
Speaker 3: and one of those experts who has already partnered with
Speaker 3: us and will help us to help families is doctor
Speaker 3: Jodie Ward of Forensic HID and she's the pre eminent
Speaker 3: DNA expert in Australia. And instantly that opens up a
Speaker 3: lot of opportunities to help us get answers for families
Speaker 3: and hopefully solve some of the unanswered questions that families have.
Speaker 3: We're also working with an enormous organization that will help
Speaker 3: us build a database so that we can understand and
Speaker 3: track this issue more broadly, and we'll have more to
Speaker 3: say about that soon. So a lot of this is
Speaker 3: about addressing the need where it is at every turn,
Speaker 3: from providing resources and tools for families to providing the
Speaker 3: strategic legal advice, media advice, search advice. And then there's
Speaker 3: the other side, which tells the family's stories, because as
Speaker 3: we've seen, the media just can't be trusted to do
Speaker 3: that in a way that has any humanity at all.
Speaker 3: And then more broadly is the collecting of the data,
Speaker 3: building the database and beginning to understand this issue. As
Speaker 3: I opened with, we often talk about the way that
Speaker 3: those who Disappeared in North America become the framework for
Speaker 3: the way the media speaks about this issue in Australia.
Speaker 3: But it's just very different, and we know that the
Speaker 3: data will bear that out, and we know that the
Speaker 3: stories of families will bear that out. And that's what
Speaker 3: you'll start to see coming from us at the Disappeared
Speaker 3: Project in the next weeks, months and years to come.
Speaker 3: Given then everything we've discussed, Ginny, I was just wondering,
Speaker 3: as a final question, if we sort of reflect on
Speaker 3: what happened to yourself and your family and your brother Jai,
Speaker 3: how things might have been different the Disappeared Project existed
Speaker 3: when the tragedy struck your family.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that. I guess the most important thing
Speaker 5: to mention is that I think the Disappeared Project we
Speaker 5: exist because we want Aberginal and to Austraight Islander communities
Speaker 5: and families that may be listening to this to know
Speaker 5: that you know they have a right to be taken
Speaker 5: seriously and that you should trust your instincts and that
Speaker 5: you are the best position people to know your loved one.
Speaker 5: And when we find ourselves in situations like this, what
Speaker 5: is the best way to navigate these sorts of things.
Speaker 5: You know, I think this is about investing in justice
Speaker 5: and healing and truth for First Nations families. I think
Speaker 5: behind each case is a brother and a sister, or
Speaker 5: a child or a parent who is desperately missed, and
Speaker 5: that behind each statistic is a community that bears the
Speaker 5: weight of loss and uncertainty.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: The Disappeared project, you know, emerged from tragedy, but it
Speaker 5: represents hope. And I hope that First Nations families will
Speaker 5: have the support that they need, that our people will
Speaker 5: be remembered with dignity, and that the systems that have
Speaker 5: failed us for too long will finally, you know, hopefully
Speaker 5: we begin to change. We know that aberagal led advocacy
Speaker 5: works because we've lived it, and now we want to
Speaker 5: make sure that every family has access to that same power.
Speaker 3: In the next episode, we'll speak to one of the
Speaker 3: experts who will join us to help First Nations families
Speaker 3: around the country and will begin to introduce stories of
Speaker 3: those who are experiencing having a loved one disappear over
Speaker 3: the coming weeks. And I should say that the best
Speaker 3: way to follow the work that we're doing will be
Speaker 3: to follow the Instagram page the Disappeared Project where those
Speaker 3: stories will begin to emerge. That was episode twelve of
Speaker 3: Curtain the Podcast. This episode was brought to you by
Speaker 3: black Cast and produced by Clint Curtis. For more, you
Speaker 3: can visit us at www dot Curtain Thepodcast dot com,
Speaker 3: follow us on Twitter at Curtain Podcast, and help to
Speaker 3: support our work at Patreon dot com backslash Curtain Podcast