Victoria is removing more First Nations children from their families than any other state in the country, and at almost twice the national rate, according to new data from the Productivity Commission.
Nationally, the out-of-home care (OOHC) rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children is 57.2 per 1,000. However, Indigenous children and young people in Victoria were removed and placed into care at a rate of 102.9 per 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children — 22.5 times the rate of non-Indigenous children and almost twice that of the national average for Indigenous children.
Out of the 25,916 First Nations children in Victoria, at least 2,668 have been removed form their families.
"We have to remember that every number is a person with a family; a child whose life has been decimated by the colonial system," Yoorrook Justice Commission Deputy Chair, Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter, said.