Aboriginal life today

Aboriginals nowadays are now westernised. Some Aboriginals still live in remote areas and still practice some of their traditional ways of life but these groups are scarce. Most Aboriginals life in cities or former church mission sites. There are many issues facing aboriginals these days including:

Poverty and low income.
Poor education.
Poor access to medical assistance in rural areas.
Drug, alcohol and smoking abuse.
exposure to violence.
racial abuse and cultural differences.
social pressures

One the major problems for aboriginal is life expectancy. Aboriginals live around 17 years less then non-indigenous Australians. Most aboriginal students leave school earlier than non-indigenous Australians. 39% of indigenous students stayed on to year 12 at high school, compared with 75% for non-indigenous Australians. This poor education leads low income which also leads to a lower standard of life.

Crime is also a problem for the aboriginal communities statistics show that aboriginals are 11 times more likely to be in prison than non-indigenous Australians which is very bad. According to the 2001 census aboriginals are 3 times more likely to be unemployed.

Substance abuse is a major issue facing aboriginals today there is a lot of violence and gang rapes due to alcohol consumption. To fight this problem the Australian government have made places “dry zones” or alcohol free zones but there are many disputes over this program.

Aboriginal life today is of a very low standard and their needs to be immediate action to bring the standard up and help the original owners of our land.

Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#Issues_facing_Indigenous_Australians_today

http://www.apex.net.au/~mhumphry/aborigin.html

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