"Can I just share my story?" Experiences of technology-facilitated abuse among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in regional and remote Australia

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are disproportionately affected by violence against women, in all its forms, and are overrepresented as domestic, family, and sexual violence victims. Access to technology is vital to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women can safely report and access support services. Whilst technology can be helpful and life-saving for women experiencing violence, technology can also be misused by perpetrators to stalk, intimidate, coerce, harass and humiliate their victims. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in regional and remote areas face additional and multiple forms of oppression (coercive control, lateral violence and racist violence) owing to their status as both women and living in low-resource settings. The context in which they are living further present barriers and obstacles in seeking and receiving help. This paper demonstrates these multiplicities of vulnerabilities by amplifying the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their specific experiences to present the ways in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women identify different forms of online violence and their responses to them. These voices along with key findings from interviews with frontline services are the basis for recommendations for programmatic and policy responses to prevent and reduce the harm of technology-facilitated abuse.