Vic: Aborigines die 17 years early: report

AAP General News (Australia)
12-06-2007
Vic: Aborigines die 17 years early: report

Victorian Aborigines have a reduced life span .. are more likely to drop out of school
or wind up in prison .. and have fewer employment prospects than their non-indigenous
counterparts.

A report .. tabled today in state parliament .. says Aborigines die on average 17 years
younger than non-indigenous Victorians .. and are more vulnerable to crime .. poverty
and chronic disease.

The cycle of disadvantage begins at birth .. with Aborigines more likely to be born underweight.

Aboriginal children are nine times more likely to be exposed to child abuse .. and
almost 40 per cent live in single-parent families.

Fewer than a quarter of Aborigines finish high school .. and about 14 per cent don't
make it past year nine.

Education deficiencies spiral into later life .. limiting job prospects and income.

More than half of indigenous households are on low incomes and Aborigines have twice
the unemployment rate of other Victorians.

They are also 12 times more likely to be locked up in prison or a youth detention centre
.. and three times more likely to be murdered.

The report says the most telling gap in health and wellbeing between indigenous and
non indigenous Victorians is life expectancy.

It says the gap can be thought of as the accumulation of a lifetime of disadvantage.





The Victorian Indigenous Affairs Framework was developed last year to try and close
the life expectancy of the state's 30-thousand Aborigines.

It focuses on improving child health and safety .. justice before the law .. school
participation and employment outcomes.

AAP RTV cmb/gfr/ibw/bart

KEYWORD: INDIGENOUS VIC (MELBOURNE)

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