You can obtain character references, however your new potential employer would obviously want to know the reasons for no work to date, and possibly what you have been doing with your time.
It would be really good at this point to advise how what you have been doing has contributed to your learning and development, and what skills you can pull from this. i.e. a stay at home mum would more than likely be great at multi-tasking with all the things that come with juggling house-work, child care, shopping etc.
Alternatively, you could take on some temp work with your character references, and then could use the work references from here to help you in your new work?
Good Luck
Jet