20 June 2023

AWAVA condemns in the strongest possible terms the ongoing revictimisation of any person who has reported experiencing sexual violence. The media and politicians must stop.

In a rare example of useful and responsible reporting on this issue, Zoe Daniel in the New Daily focuses on three things that actually matter: media regulation, privacy legislation reform, and the credibility of the legal system.

The Canberra Rape Crisis Centre felt compelled to issue an open letter telling the Australian media they are “telling the wrong story”.

Around the Country

• A bill to alter the constitution and enable the Indigenous voice has passed the federal parliament ahead of Australia’s first referendum in 24 years to be held later in 2023.

• Senator David Van has been expelled from the federal Liberal party room after allegations of sexual assault were made against him by Senator Lidia Thorpe in the Senate on Wednesday evening.

• The ACT has become the first jurisdiction in Australia to pass legislation requiring the government to provide free menstrual products at designated and accessible places.

• In another Australian-first, laws banning unnecessary and irreversible medical procedures for intersex people have passed in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

• The Greens and Coalition have united to reject Labor's centrepiece housing policy, meaning that the government must wait three months before it can bring back the Housing Australia Future Fund bill, which seeks to establish a $10 billion fund to build social and affordable housing.

• An overhaul of Western Australia's abortion laws, that will streamline access to terminations, is set to be introduced to parliament following successful community consultation.

• Indigenous community leaders in Walgett in western NSW are supporting calls for an investigation into police enforcement of COVID-19 fines. The Local Government Area recorded the highest rate of COVID-19 fines for public health order breaches in NSW per capita, with 168 totalling $148,480.

• Listen: Queensland premier announces $320 million to build 500 social and affordable homes by mid-2025.

• The Queensland budget also provided for $58.3 million over four years and $20.7 million per annum to address demand for and gaps in domestic, family and sexual violence service provision.

• The Northern Territory Coroner has opened a monumental series of inquests examining the deaths of four Aboriginal women at the hands of their partners. The court will examine each death separately, before two weeks of expert and institutional evidence is called in October to detail systemic issues in the Northern Territory's response to domestic, family and sexual violence.

Around the World

• The European Council has settled on its position (general approach) on a proposed directive to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence. The new law would criminalise the following across the EU: female genital mutilation; cyber stalking; cyber harassment; non-consensual sharing of intimate images; cyber incitement to hatred or violence.

• North Macedonia now has expanded protection for various forms of violence against women with the adoption of new amendments of the Criminal Code which align the country’s laws with the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention. 

• More than a third of men in Germany find violence against women “acceptable”, according to survey results that campaigners described as “shocking”.

• Black Tunisian women say they are experiencing more instances of racism after the country's president criticised sub-Saharan migrants.

• The Taliban’s religious police have issued an order to wedding hall owners in Kabul to refrain from playing music or engaging in activities that contradict their interpretation of Islamic teachings.

• In the US, the Supreme Court has voted to reaffirm a decades old precedent prohibiting racial gerrymandering. The decision centred around Alabama’s legislative districts, where a Republican led redistricting plan would result in white voters becoming the majority in six out of seven districts, even though one in four voters in the state is black.

• Also in the US, the White House has launched a national plan to address gender-based violence on a federal level, introducing seven strategic action plans to help communities across the United States.

• A brutal domestic homicide of a woman and her unborn baby has spurred the Italian Cabinet passing a new legislative package which includes measures to speed up legal processes involving victims of gender-based violence and extend the protection of women who have suffered stalking.

Research and Reports

• The Australian Institute of Family Studies has released its Coercive Control Literature Review on coercive control in the context of domestic and family violence, with a particular focus on the understanding of, and responses to coercive control in the Australian context.

• The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has released Towards an Australian Housing and Homelessness Strategy: understanding national approaches in contemporary policy.

• The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) quantifies biases against women, capturing people’s attitudes on women’s roles along four key dimensions: political, educational, economic and physical integrity. The index, covering 85 percent of the global population, reveals that close to 9 out of 10 men and women hold fundamental biases against women.

• The UK’s Economic and Social Research Council has published After #MeToo: Institutional responses to reports of gender-based violence and harassment, reporting on a study that aimed to capture some of the changes that have been occurring in UK higher education institutional responses to gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) since 2016.

• The Violence Observatory System – established by Saferworld, Somalia Women Development Centre and Somali Women’s Study Centre – documents cases of violence against women in Somalia.

• International Development Law Organisation has published an analysis Enabling access to justice for survivors of gender-based violence against women in Somaliland.

• Baxter, Janeen, Campbell, Alice, and Lee, Rennie (2023). Gender Gaps in Unpaid Domestic and Care Work: Putting the Pandemic in (a Life Course) Perspective. LCC Working Paper Series. 2023-12. Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland Australia. https://doi.org/10.14264/f986e20

• Forsythe, L. Gender-based violence in food systems. Nat Food (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00777-y

• Maruyama, N., Horiuchi, S. & Kataoka, Y. Prevalence and associated factors of intimate partner violence against pregnant women in urban areas of Japan: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health 23, 1168 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16105-9

• Sandison, M., Cook, M., Brown, L., Mallett, V., & Coker, A. Lifetime interpersonal violence or abuse and diabetes rates by sex and race. American Journal of Preventative Medicine (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2023.06.007 

• Yount, K.M., Anderson, K.M., Trang, Q.T. et al. Preventing sexual violence in Vietnam: qualitative findings from high school, university, and civil society key informants across regions. BMC Public Health 23, 1114 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15973-5

Media

• Professor Megan Davis writes for the Guardian New Australia v old Australia: a yes vote on the voice is a vote for the future.
• The Australian Institute of International Affairs reports The Persistence of Sexual Violence in Conflict: Ending the Zero-Sum Approach.

• The New York Times asks Do People Subject to Domestic Abuse Orders Have the Right to Be Armed?

• A New York Times writes The Legacy of Colonialism Is Seen in Puerto Rico's Domestic Violence Problem.

• Listen to US-based public broadcaster KPFA’s program on the Criminalization of Gender Violence Survivors.

• The Global Press Journal reports As Her Daughter’s Femicide Case Stalls in Mexico, One Mother Seeks Justice Elsewhere.

• Ms Magazine writes The Taliban Maintains Its Grip on Afghanistan as Its Citizens Starve, UN Reports Show.

• Pass Blue writes Watch the Gaps: A Feminist Reaction to the UN’s Own Gender Equality Review.

• Last edition we mentioned a book by Deborah Thomson, also see a recent ABC article on Deborah and her new book ‘ Tasmanian Voices: The Family Violence Epidemic’.

• Health Policy Watch writes Gender-based Violence is Notoriously Hard to Address – But Accurate Data Helps.

• Broad Agenda and Claire Wright discuss The power to take up space: unveiling Zelda D’Aprano.

• CNN reports Why Japan is rethinking its rape laws and raising the age of consent from 13.

• Independent Australia reports Virginity and violence in Tajikistan.

• CBS News explains "Mass killers practice at home": How domestic violence and mass shootings are linked.

• SBS Dateline writes The single dad taking on toxic masculinity in Colombia one nappy at a time.

Surveys and Consultations

• CLOSING SOON: 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. Participant’s will be provided an honorarium donation to their organisation.  

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Our Watch and Women with Disability Victoria are currently seeking Expressions of Interest from primary prevention of violence practitioners for codesign participants in the Changing the Landscape project. Participants would be involved in developing workforce capacity building resources that increase engagement with the Changing the Landscape evidence base on preventing violence against women and girls with disability.

• 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.

• There has been a Call for Papers: Causes, Consequences, and Recovery for Children with Experiences of Domestic and Family Violence for a special issue of the Journal of Family Violence. Abstracts are due by 17 July 2023.
• The Yoorrook Justice Commission has extended an invitation to all Victorians to take part in the truth-telling process, by making a submission that provides information about past or ongoing injustice experienced by First Peoples.

Events

• The National Rural Women’s Coalition has started accepting applications for this year’s RRR Women’s Advocacy & Leadership program – MUSTER. There is no cost to the program which is a mixture of virtual learning and a four-day residential in Canberra. Places are limited to 10-12 women and acceptance is by a panel review of applications. 

• The Understanding ‘Coercive Control’ symposium is on 21 July 2023 at the ANU in Canberra, aimed at bringing together postgraduate students and early career researchers working on coercive control and associated concepts from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.

• 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 Family Studies has published a practice guide Reproductive coercion and abuse.
• Safe + Equal have produced a series of information sheets ‘What is Primary Prevention?’ which aim to promote understanding of work across the continuum from prevention to response, as well as provide practical suggestions to improve connection.
• Women’s Legal Service NSW has published Women and Sexual Violence Law has information for women and girls who have been sexually assaulted, and those supporting them, including getting medical help and counselling after a sexual assault; reporting to the police; and legal process and rights.

• Watch Randwick Council’s video on Affirmative Consent.

• Listen to SBS’s Settlement Guide podcast and the episode What happens when you report non-consensual sex or rape in Australia?

• 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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