We walk alongside Aboriginal women and their children on their journey to safety and wellbeing.
Welcome to Djirra
Djirra is safe place where culture is shared and celebrated.
We offer a range of practical supports to Aboriginal women and children in Victoria, particularly those who are experiencing, or are at risk of experiencing, family violence.
The work we do is designed by and for Aboriginal women, with self-determination at its heart.
Through supports, programs and loud advocacy, we are committed to a future where Aboriginal women don’t just survive, we thrive.
What we do
Legal Service
Upcoming Events
If you are experiencing family violence and need support please call 1800DJIRRA (1800 354 772).
If you are in immediate danger, call 000.
Our CEO @Antoinette_Braybrook AM, spoke without compromise at yesterday’s National Family Safety Summit in Perth. She called out the systemic violence and racism that Aboriginal women experience when seeking safety:
“Seek safety and you are likely to lose your children. Seek safety and you are likely to be criminalised and misidentified as the primary aggressor. This is not prevention. This is punishment. This is racial targeting.”
Aboriginal women must have an advocate to navigate racist and punitive systems.
Governments must stop investing in systems that are designed to target the most vulnerable and disadvantaged and must start investing in proven solutions. An urgent increase in funding to Djirra, for our specialist frontline work and early intervention prevention programs, is a good place to start.
Antoinette`s message was clear: Aboriginal women deserve safety and justice. Join us in advocating for change now. Share this post to back our calls.
#OchreRibbonWeek #DontSilenceTheViolence #AboriginalWomensLivesMatter #FamilySafetySummit
Another two Aboriginal women were killed during Ochre Ribbon Week.
Djirra CEO @Antoinette_Braybrook AM said, “How many more women must die before we are heard? These deaths are preventable. We won’t stop holding governments to account. Government must stop diverting funding away from our specialist services and start investing in women.”
We have made recommendation after recommendation to Federal and State Inquiries, given evidence at Royal Commissions and the Yoorrook Justice Commission, yet our life saving frontline work and early intervention programs remain chronically underfunded.
Our submissions to these Inquiries speak women’s truths about the gendered nature of violence and the systemic racism we as Aboriginal women are constantly confronted with. We demand change. We demand investment into our life changing and lifesaving services NOW.
Over two decades of working with and for Aboriginal women, we have only seen things get worse. It is unaccepted that still today, Aboriginal women in Victoria are 45 times more likely to experience family violence than other women and over 10 times more likely to have police use force against them than other women.
The evidence is clear. Women are being racially targeted and murdered at alarming rates.
Where is the political will to change this devastating realty?
Where is the investment?
Where is the accountability?
WE DEMAND ACTION NOW.
#OchreRibbonWeek #DontSilenceTheViolence #AboriginalWomensLivesMatter
Homelessness in Australia is a growing crisis.
The rates of homelessness for Aboriginal people are rising almost four times faster than the rest of the Victorian population.
Family violence is the leading cause of homelessness for Aboriginal women.
Too often Aboriginal women experiencing violence face an impossible choice: stay and be unsafe or leave and lose everything.
Djirra works with Aboriginal women who are living on the streets with their children or couch surfing. We also work with women who stay. Leaving is the most dangerous time for women.
What makes this worse is the lack of secure housing and limited access to our specialist service which leads to criminalisation and imprisonment. We work with Aboriginal women who are forced to breach bail because their bail address is unsafe to return to due to family violence.
Women are punished, not supported.
This is structural violence. We witness it every day in our work with Aboriginal women.
Djirra will not stay silent. We stand with Aboriginal women, and we stand against these punitive systems.
Djirra’s specialist wraparound services ensure women receive the support they deserve.
#OchreRibbonWeek #DontSilenceTheViolence #AboriginalWomensLivesMatter @antoinette_braybrook
Family violence is the leading cause of Aboriginal children being removed from their mothers and families. We must confront this reality.
An Aboriginal mum calls police because she is being assaulted. She is terrified for her children. Instead of being supported, she is scrutinised. Within hours child protection is at her door, not to hold the perpetrator to account but to question her.
This is not an isolated incident. It is a deliberate pattern driven by racist and punitive systems.
The latest Closing the Gap report confirms it. More of our children are being removed, not less. In Victoria, Aboriginal children are taken into out of home care at almost double the national rate.
Removal severs culture and identity. Trauma is compounded across generations.
Aboriginal women hear the message clearly. Seek safety and risk losing your children. Too many women Djirra supports fear the system more than the abuser.
For more than a decade Djirra has called for a Child Protection Notification and Referral System in Victoria. It is our self-determined solution and would ensure Aboriginal women are immediately referred to Djirra when child protection becomes involved.
Early legal advice and wraparound support can prevent child removal and ensure mothers escape violence safely with their children. The solution is endorsed by Yoorrook, Recommendation 12.
@antoinette_braybrook AM, Djirra CEO, said:
"The Victorian Government is not listening to our decade long call to invest in our Child Protection Notification and Referral System. Our solution has been sidelined. We will not be silent while our women and children are denied support to escape violence safely together. Delaying investment is not neutral. It entrenches harm. There is no justification for denying Aboriginal women direct access to their legal rights.
Aboriginal women and their children deserve better, together."
Enough harm.
Enough broken promises.
Call for immediate investment in Djirra’s self-determined solution.
Misidentification is not a mistake. It is a systemic failure rooted in racism, and it is devastating for Aboriginal women.
At least one in four women supported by Djirra’s legal team have been misidentified as the person using violence.
Let’s call this what it is: racial profiling embedded in a system that does not see, hear or believe Aboriginal women.
The consequences are catastrophic. Wrongful criminalisation. Incarceration. Child removal. Loss of housing. Loss of employment. Deep, compounding trauma. Lifelong stigma. These are not side effects - they are predictable outcomes of a justice system that continues to punish Aboriginal women for the violence inflicted on them.
Every single Aboriginal woman Djirra supports in prison has experienced family violence. 86% are mothers. All are women who deserved safety - not prosecution.
Without Djirra and other specialist Aboriginal community-controlled services, many Aboriginal women would be left to navigate racist systems alone.
If governments are serious about ending violence against Aboriginal women, they must stop funding the systems that harm us and start properly investing in our self-determined solutions.
We know what works. We have been leading this work for decades. We need adequate funding to enact our solutions.
Share this post.
Name the injustice.
Stand with us in demanding systemic change and long-term funding for Aboriginal women-led solutions.
#OchreRibbonWeek #DontSilenceTheViolence #AboriginalWomensLivesMatter @Antoinette_Braybrook
On this day 18 years ago, the Federal Government apologised to the Stolen Generations. We pause to acknowledge those who were taken. We acknowledge not only their pain, but their strength and resilience in calling for change. We acknowledge the many who never returned home.
We also pause to acknowledge the many children who continue to be taken today. Too many children are lost in the system, losing their identity and connection to culture.
The Closing the Gap Report released yesterday shows that only 4 of the 19 targets are on track to be met. Governments are failing to close the gap on our children being taken. Instead, the gap is widening. This demands a new way.
In Victoria today, Aboriginal children are taken from their mums and families at a rate that is double the national average (105.9/1000).
In our work, we see how the system perpetuates the violence that Aboriginal women experience. We see the racist and punitive responses and how our women are blamed and punished for the violence they experience, rather than supported to escape the violence safely with their children.
The only way that this will end is by introducing a new way that does not involve investing in punitive systems.
Our CEO @Antoinette_Braybrook says, “Today we honour our stolen generations. We see you, we hear you and we honour your truth. It is unacceptable that our children are still being taken at vastly disproportionate rates and lost in a punitive and racist system. Governments must stop investing in these systems and start investing in our specialist services that keep women and children safe and together. Our women deserve safety, not surveillance or control.”
Djirra continues to urgently call on the Victorian government to implement and resource Yoorrook rec #12 and establish a Child Protection Notification and Referral System to ensure mums are referred for immediate legal advice and representing when child protection becomes involved. This is our self determined solution - it is a game changer. We will not allow governments to take what we know works, and manipulate it to suit their agendas.
#OchreRibbonWeek #DontSilenceTheViolence #AboriginalWomensLivesMatter
Today is the start of Ochre Ribbon Week – a national Aboriginal-led campaign to end the devastating violence against Aboriginal women and children.
Initiated by @aboriginalfamilylegalservices 11 years ago, Djirra has used the campaign in Victoria to demand change, amplify Aboriginal women’s voices and centre our experiences.
Despite years of advocacy, violence against Aboriginal women continues to rise at an appalling rate. This is more than a national crisis - we have an epidemic unfolding right in front of us.
It is unacceptable that still today, Aboriginal women in Victoria are 45 times more likely to experience family violence than other women.
@antoinette_braybrook AM, CEO of Djirra said:
“Already this year, of the six women murdered, three are Aboriginal women. Every life tragically taken is a reminder that urgent action is needed. We stand firm in calling for more funding to specialist Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services (FVPLSs) that put women and children’s safety first.”
Over this Ochre Ribbon week, Djirra will join the dots highlighting the connection between gender-based violence, systemic violence and racism, and the unique and devastating impacts on Aboriginal women and our children.
Come on this journey with us to understand the experiences of our women and children.
Stand with us and back in our calls for greater investment into specialist services like Djirra.
Aboriginal women deserve an advocate. Aboriginal women and children deserve to be safe and thriving.
#OchreRibbonWeek #DontSilenceTheViolence #AboriginalWomensLivesMatter
This morning, our CEO @Antoinette_Braybrook attended the historic launch of Our Ways - Strong Ways - Our Voices, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Plan to End Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence 2026–2036.
For over a decade, Antoinette has stood alongside other First Nations women calling for a dedicated plan to end violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children. Today, these calls were heard.
Djirra welcomes the announcement made by @tanyaplibersek when launching the plan today, for an additional $218 million investment over 4 years for up to 40 Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.
Our CEO @Antoinette_Braybrook says, “This plan together with the funding announced today represents a tangible commitment towards ending the devastating reality faced by too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in our country. Now it’s time for action.”
Djirra, together with other specialist Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services, look forward to working with government and other stakeholders to ensure that all Aboriginal women, no matter where they live, have access to specialist services that put their safety first.
#wehavethesolutions #selfdetermination
📸 @tanyaplibersek @sueanne_hunter @maria.dimopoulos
2026 has begun with heartbreak and outrage.
Six women have been killed by male violence this year. Three are Aboriginal women.
This is not a coincidence.
This is a national crisis.
Aboriginal women experience family violence at far higher rates than other women, with devastating impacts on families, children and communities.
Two in three Aboriginal women supported by Djirra’s legal service have experienced violence from a non-Aboriginal partner. Violence against Aboriginal women is a gendered issue and must not be mislabeled as “violence in Aboriginal communities”
Djirra CEO @antoinette_braybrook said, “Aboriginal women are being killed because male violence continues to be minimised, tolerated and inadequately responded to. We need political will across all levels of government to prioritise the safety of all women, and urgent investment into our specialist services that save lives”
Women’s safety demands:
• Decisions not reviews
• Funding not pilots
• Urgency not delay
• Accountability not statements
