18 April 2023

Jacinda Ardern Says Goodbye

“I cannot determine what will define my time in this place. But I do hope I have demonstrated something else entirely. That you can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother, or not, an ex-Mormon, or not, a nerd, a crier, a hugger – you can be all of these things, and not only can you be here – you can lead.

Just like me.

No reira tena kotou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.”

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has delivered her farewell speech to New Zealand parliament. In a moving address, she talked about the challenges of her time in power – including Covid, March 15 and the climate crisis – as well as the progress she is proud of. Included in her proudest achievements were banning conversion therapy, banning of military style semi-automatic weapons, decriminalising abortion, improving pay equity, putting period products into schools, and reaching 50% representation of women in parliament.

Read her speech in full.

Around the Country

• Despite gradual improvements in community understanding of gender inequality and sexual violence between 2017 and 2021, the newly released National Community Attitudes Survey revealed attitudes rejecting domestic violence have stalled.

• Watch: Liberals to oppose Indigenous voice referendum, will 'actively' campaign against it.

• A two-month extension to the Yoorrook inquiry's second interim report to August 2023 has been granted. A further interim report is to be handed down in December 2024 and the inquiry's final report will now be handed down twelve months later than planned, on June 30, 2025.

• Controversial comments made at a no campaign against the voice event “reinforce racist stereotypes and inflict harm”, says the race discrimination commissioner, who has joined a wave of criticism prompted by the meeting.

• The Queensland government has signalled important LGBTQI law reforms, including strengthening hate crime legislation and banning religious organisations in the state from discriminating against gay, trans and unmarried staff.

• An ACT Board of Inquiry into the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann has heard the key relationship between police and prosecutors was "beset by tension" from the outset.

• In Victoria, demand for targeted mental health and family violence support is on the rise as the six-month anniversary of the flood in the town of Rochester approaches. 

• A group of 60 organisations in the Aboriginal, legal, health, faith, youth, and human rights sectors has urged Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to immediately raise the criminal age of responsibility to 14, with no exceptions.

• Actor Georgie Stone calls for better protection for transgender people amid uptick in hate speech.

• A Melbourne woman has been awarded $2.6 million in compensation for the abuse and neglect she suffered in Victoria's foster care system.

• The workforce participation rate for Australian women reached a record high of 62.5 per cent in March, showing an increase in women’s full-time employment by more than 80,000 over the past two months.

• People in NSW may soon be allowed to check if their partner has a history of violent assaults as part of The Right To Know scheme, but the move is more complicated than it seems.

• Western Australia’s Inspector of Custodial Services has released a major report on the state government’s response to recommendations arising from coronial inquiries into deaths in custody, finding that authorities "often" prematurely closed coronial recommendations.

Around the World

• A new Regional Framework Towards Peaceful and Inclusive Societies in Asia and the Pacific has been launched by UN Women aimed at advancing the agenda for women, peace and security (WPS) and inclusive governance in the region.

• In Uzbekistan, local civil society activists - with the support of the country’s mass media foundation - are trying to instil the message that violence against women is not innate to Uzbek culture.

• Parliament in Uzbekistan has adopted landmark legislation aimed at providing women and children with greater legal protections against gender-based violence.

• The Fijian Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation has said that violence against women should be declared a national crisis.

• Israel is poised to dramatically backslide on women’s rights if the government fails to pass several key pieces of legislation, rights groups have warned.

• The electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla has been ordered to pay $3.2m in a lawsuit that alleged the company allowed for racial harassment to go unchecked at its flagship assembly plant in the United States.

• In the US, clinics offering abortions face a rise in threats, violence and legal battles.

• The final report into Nova Scotia’s April 2020 mass shooting has said gender-based violence is an epidemic in Nova Scotia and across Canada, and it requires a society-wide response.

• Newly released data from the Pentagon show a significant increase in reports of sexual assault at America's military academies. 

• In the UK, the government has announced that victims of controlling or coercive behaviour from their current or ex-partners will receive better protection against threats and intimidation, even if they don't live together.

• As authorities turn a blind eye to the growing cases of violence and spousal murder in Burundi, women’s rights activists are increasingly vocal.

• More than 10,000 women escaping domestic abuse across England were refused safe housing last year, amid warnings that many could be left homeless or driven back to dangerous partners as a result of a “woeful” lack of safe accommodation.

• New guidance from the UK’s Conservative government may see teachers forced to ‘out’ trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming pupils to their parents, and ban trans children from using changing and shower facilities that align with gender identity.

• In Egypt, TikTok celebrity Salma Elshimy became the latest in a growing list of women to fall foul of the authorities over social media posts.

• Activists in Poland are worried about the future of their country after a string of arrests and the invention of ‘LGBTQ-Free zones'.

Research and Reports

• The UN Population Fund and the University of Melbourne have released Measuring technology-facilitated gender-based violence. A discussion paper.

• The Treasury has released a paper using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey to show the arrival of children has a large and persistent impact on the gender earnings gap, reducing female earnings by 55 per cent, on average, in the 5 years following parenthood.

• The Monash Gender and Family Violence Centre (MGFVC), in partnership with No to Violence, has released new research examining domestic and family violence perpetrator intervention responses to intimate partner sexual violence.

• MGFVC has also released 'Just opens up a whole new possibility of change': A review of the Men Exploring New Directions online program.

• And another MGFVC report Forced Marriage as a Form of Family Violence in Victoria has also been published.

• A research report The first national study of child maltreatment in Australia: Prevalence, health outcomes, and burden of disease, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, has been published.

• The AIHW report Youth justice in Australia 2021-22 looks at young people who were under youth justice supervision in Australia during 2021–22 because of their involvement or alleged involvement in crime.

• The report The benefits of providing access to justice estimates the economic benefit delivered by Legal Aid services that are funded by the Australian Government.

• The ACOSS report “It’s hell”: how inadequate income support is causing harm examines how the surging cost of living is having a devastating impact for people on income support.

• The Australia Institute has found that inequality has been on steroids in Australia over the last decade with the bottom 90% of Australians receiving just 7% of economic growth per person since 2009, while the top 10% of income earners reap 93% of the benefits. Australia is a now global outlier in the maldistribution of gains from economic growth, falling behind the EU, US, UK, China and Canada.

• A Rutgers study found that LGBTQ individuals who experienced intimate partner violence in their current relationship before the COVID-19 pandemic saw an increase in IPV frequency after the pandemic began.

• Research from the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention suggests that firearm restriction laws could save lives in domestic violence situations.

• Helsinki-based Suojellaan Lapsia (Protect Children) has launched the new project Primary Prevention to Protect Children: Offender-focused prevention of online sexual violence against children, aimed at preventing child sexual abuse through innovative research.

• A Canadian study has conducted cross-sectional analysis to determine the epidemiologic pattern of IPV–related ocular injuries in US adults, noting that 45% of IPV injuries involve the eyes.

• ACAPS has released Thematic report: Colombia - GBV cases and response gaps.

• Barlow, C & Walklate, S ‘Gender, risk assessment and coercive control: Contradictions in terms?’, The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 61, Issue 4, July 2021, Pages 887–904, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azaa104

• Hing, N, O’Mullan, C, Mainey, L et al. ‘Intimate partner violence linked to gambling: cohort and period effects on the past experiences of older women’, BMC Women's Health, 23, 165 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-023-02316-0

• Ison, J, & Matthewson, G (2023). ‘More than a dot point: Connecting primary prevention of violence against women and public transport’, Journal of Transport & Health, 30, 101591. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JTH.2023.101591

• Walklate, S, Fitz-Gibbon, K, Reeves, E, Meyer, S, & McGowan, J (2022). ‘In control, out of control or losing control? Making sense of men’s reported experiences of coercive control through the lens of hegemonic masculinity’, Journal of Criminology, 55(4), 451–467. https://doi.org/10.1177/26338076221127452

• Workie, K, Tinsae, T, Salelew, E et al. ‘Gender-based violence and its associated factors among internally displaced women in Northwest Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study’, BMC Women's Health, 23, 166 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-023-02306-2

Media

• The Guardian writes Peter Dutton’s bid to tank the Indigenous voice is breathtaking – and locks him in as Abbott 2.0.

• The Conversation asks What happened to the Senate inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women?

• ABC writes Donna Ward says there's a 'singlehood penalty' for women like her. Australia-first research backs her up.

• The Sydney Morning Herald reports Perth woman owed $200,000 in child support, with nothing anyone can do.

• Brookings University examines how ineffective policies for gender-based violence in sports result in a lack of accountability.

• Women’s Agenda explains medical abuse is another form of domestic and family violence we must talk about.

• Refinery 29 writes On Ramadan – Confessions Of A Casual Muslim.

• Forbes writes Gender Bias In The Courts: Women Are Not Believed.

• Holyrood magazine writes Girls and women should not be the collateral damage for someone else’s right to a second chance.

• The Pakistan Observer considers how climate change exacerbates existing gender inequalities and power imbalances, which in turn intensify GBV.

• Ms Magazine introduces Three Women Peace-Builders and Peacekeepers, as well as writing The Danger of Incels—and How We Shift the Thinking of Men Attracted to These Groups.

• The Guardian reports ‘I got a brain injury and a life sentence’: the hidden legacy of male violence against women.

• The Washington Report writes on Libya’s Missing and Murdered Women.

• The Kashmir Walla writes Misogyny, victim blaming: Behind rising violence against Kashmiri women.

• The Conversation observes The Whitlam government gave us no-fault divorce, women’s refuges and childcare. Australia needs another feminist revolution.

• El Pais writes A lexicon of cyberviolence: Nine types of online abuse against women that may go unnoticed.

• Feminism in India writes about Hypermasculinity And Gender-Based Violence In Sports.

• The Free Press writes Motherloading: Inside the Surrogacy Boom.

• NACLA reports How Mexican Feminists Became Enemies of the State.

Surveys and Consultations

• Curtin University are seeking practitioners who have worked with mothers of children with disability who have experiences of FDV to participate in an online and anonymous survey, to help improve understandings of disability and FDV to enhance services available to mothers and their children with disability.

• Researchers are currently seeking to interview individuals in Australia and New Zealand who have used a domestic violence disclosure scheme. All interview participants will receive a $100 voucher for their time.

• KPMG, on behalf of the Government, is surveying women with a disability who have experienced violence or abuse. The survey is to learn about experiences accessing support services and will ask participants if the services were helpful and what they could have done better. The survey does not ask about experiences of violence or abuse. 

• ACOSS has put together an open letter from the community sector and allies urging the government to raise the rate of income support to reduce poverty and inequality in Australia.

• Deakin University and WESNET are inviting domestic and family violence workers to participate in a survey that is exploring the impacts of using home CCTV with victim-survivors of domestic and family violence. Participants will not be remunerated for completing the survey but will be provided an honorarium donation to their organisation.

• Have you experienced tech-facilitated coercive control? Has a partner abused you using text messages or Facebook? Have they tracked you using GPS tracking apps? If you have experienced this type of abuse and sought safety and justice support, researchers from Monash, RMIT and WESNET would like to speak to you. Contact [email protected]

• The University of Melbourne’s KODY Project - focussing on an all-of-family program in family violence & substance misuse - is currently cataloguing initiatives that lie at the intersection of DFV and AOD. If you are aware of relevant responses, programs, policies or plans, please email [email protected].
  

Calls and Submissions.

• The Australian Government has developed a discussion paper to support discussion and reflection on gender equality in Australia and inform the National Strategy to Achieve Gender Equality. Public comments are invited until 19 April 2023.
• The Australian Bureau of Statistics is inviting submissions on new topics for inclusion in the 2026 Census. Six topics have already been listed for possible inclusion, but the ABS is still seeking submissions up until 28 April 2023 for other topics.

• The Australian Government has released a discussion paper with further detail about the Early Years Strategy which will guide early years policies and programs across the Commonwealth for the next decade to ensure children aged 5 and below have the best start in life. Submissions to the strategy close on 30 April 2023.

• The Australian Government is seeking input from victims and survivors of sexual violence to inform the development of three pilot specialised and trauma-informed legal services. Submissions close on 7 May 2023.

• A parliamentary joint standing committee is conducting a NDIS General Issues Inquiry to identify broad systemic issues relating to the implementation, performance, governance, administration and expenditure of the NDIS. Submissions are due by 30 June 2023.

• A parliamentary joint standing committee is conducting a NDIS General Issues Inquiry to identify broad systemic issues relating to the implementation, performance, governance, administration and expenditure of the NDIS. Submissions are due by 30 June 2023.

• The Australian Parliament has launched an Inquiry into Australia's Human Rights Framework with submissions due by 1 July 2023.

Events

• AIFS is hosting a webinar Online and digital approaches to support wellbeing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families on Wednesday, 26 April 2023, 1:00pm – 2:00pm (AEST).

• In Adelaide, join Embolden, Spirit of Women and the community for the 2023 Domestic and Family Violence Vigil, to be held in Bonython Park from 5pm on Wednesday 3rd May.

• The Inaugural Australian Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence (DFSV) Recovery and Healing Conference is being held in Wollongong NSW on 4-5 May 2023.

• The Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women's Voices) National Summit Summit will be held over three days from 9-11 May 2023, with an additional one-day Youth Forum on 8 May 2023. The Summit will bring together over 200 First Nations women delegates from across Australia, for decision-making, innovation and celebration.
• The No to Violence Conference 2023: Leading the change to break the cycle of violence will be held in Melbourne from 28 - 31 August 2023.

Resources and Guidelines

• WESNET has been working with Tinder Australia to create a Dating Safety Guide that will help survivors and the general population with learning about the safety features available in the Tinder Dating App.

• The Australian Institute of Criminology has published How to implement online warnings to prevent the use of child sexual abuse material.
• The UN Population Fund has issued Guidance on the Safe and Ethical Use of Technology to Address Gender-based Violence and Harmful Practices: Implementation Summary.
• Our Watch has developed guidance material Growing with change: Developing an expert workforce to prevent violence against women.
• The Fair Work Ombudsman has developed a number of resources aimed at helping workplaces access and support this leave including: comprehensive website information on the leave entitlements, including hypothetical examples to show the leave in practice; updated resources including the Employer Guide to family and domestic violence and a new Family and domestic violence leave fact sheet.

• Our Watch’s latest resource - the Prevention toolkit for local government - shows the key role that local government across Australia can play in preventing violence against women.  

• The Respect@Work Council has published new guidelines on the use of confidentiality clauses in settling workplace sexual harassment cases, and good practice indicators to assist organisations to address workplace sexual harassment. Both sets of guidelines have been published on the Respect@Work website.

• The Human Rights Commission, in collaboration with the Department of Treaties and Law (DTL) at the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has released an eLearning module about human rights in the context of emergencies which is available in both Lao and English.

Training and Education

• WESNET is offering technology safety training for SADFV professionals, for dates and training descriptions please visit https://techsafety.org.au/training.

• Applications are now open to study the Graduate Certificate in Domestic & Family Violence at RMIT University in 2023. Co-designed with a sector advisory committee, and a recognised qualification in the Victorian family violence sector - this Graduate Certificate is open to people who either have: 5-years relevant work experience, or an undergraduate degree.

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*Articles published do not necessarily reflect the views of AWAVA or WESNET and are included as items of interest only.

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