4 July 2023

NAIDOC WEEK (2 July to 9 July)

Celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year (Sunday to Sunday), to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth.  Find out more about NAIDOC week on its official website. (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this website may contain images and voices of deceased people.)

Around the Country

• Financial assistance available to temporary visa holders experiencing family and domestic violence will be boosted from the current $3000 to $5000.
• Thousands rallied in Australia on Sunday to back a campaign to recognise the country's Indigenous people in the constitution ahead of a referendum later this year.
• NT coronial inquest hears domestic violence victims can be left waiting for hours for police response.
• A damning report has found Victoria Police officers disproportionately targeted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as well as people of non-Anglo backgrounds, during the pandemic.
• The daughter of a domestic violence murder victim, who a coroner found was failed by Queensland police, has backed efforts to ensure that the force can no longer investigate themselves in complaint cases.
• The principal of Scots College in Bellevue Hill has been forced to apologise for homophobic comments made by Presbyterian Reverend David Maher.
• The federal Government announced the execution of new grant funding agreements with Our Watch, intended to give effect to the funding commitment of $100.4 million over five years to continue to support Our Watch’s work addressing the drivers of violence against women and their children.
• A year after dozens of women launched a complaint about their treatment while giving birth at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, more mothers are coming forward to share their "traumatic" experiences.
• Two major banks have updated their terms and conditions in a bid to combat customers who might be committing financial abuse.
• In Queensland, an additional $1.04 million will be provided over five years to the Pets in Crisis program, which is a partnership between the RSPCA and DVConnect.
• The South Australian State Government has outlined its key initiatives to improve gender equality with the publication of the Women’s Equality Blueprint 2023-2026.

Around the World

• A United Nations (UN) rights expert has sought immediate reforms for family court systems to save women, children from abuse and violence in custody battles.
• The European Parliament has approved changes to a proposed directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence, focusing on a uniform, consent-based definition of rape in the EU, tougher rules on cyber violence, and improved support for victims.
• In Fiji, violence against women and girls has cost the economy approximately 300 million Fijian dollars (around 134 million U.S. dollars) annually, which is equivalent to 7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the island nation.
• The International Labour Rights Forum cites major improvements in combating workplace gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) just a year after India’s Dindigul Agreement was launched.
• Since Roe’s reversal, more US women than ever are travelling out of state for abortion access, according to the National Abortion Federation (NAF). 
• The US Supreme Court has said it will hear a case next term on whether or not people with domestic abuse restraining orders against them can own guns, in what will surely be a closely watched case examining the Second Amendment.
• The Combating Violence Against Women Unit (CVAW) of Sudan has reported an alarming increase in the number of sexual violence cases by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with the tally reaching 88 since the outbreak of the country’s ongoing war.
• A relative of the French teenager shot by police has told the BBC the family did not want his death to spark riots, but insisted the law around lethal force at traffic stops must change.
• A new report from the office of the New Zealand Auditor-General found there's an urgent need for the 10 major Government agencies - including Police, ACC and Oranga Tamariki - to work together to better address sexual and family violence.

Research and Reports

• The Centre for Equitable Housing has released Glass Ceilings: Gendered Inequality in the Housing System – The Australian Housing Monitor, Report 2.
• The Australian Institute of Criminology has published Improving police risk assessment of domestic violence: A follow-up validation study.
• A recent study by the University of South Australia shows survivors of modern slavery experience multiple barriers to accessing both temporary accommodation and long-term housing.
• Child protection Australia 2021–22, released by AIHW, provides an overview of children in the child protection system, including children subject to notifications, investigations, and substantiations of maltreatment, and the ways children were supported.
• The Wilson Centre has released a policy brief Beyond Collateral Damage: Femicides, Disappearances, and New Trends in Gender-Based Violence in Mexico.
• The UK House of Commons Library has published a research brief Ethnic minority and migrant victims of violence against women and girls and the criminal justice system.
• A study published in JAMA Psychiatry found a 1C increase in average annual temperature was connected to a rise of more than 6.3% in incidents of physical and sexual domestic violence across three south Asian countries.
• A large US survey finds that many LGBTQ+ women face discrimination and violence, but find support in friendships.
• A report to the UN Human Rights Council highlights the deeply entrenched gender bias that permeates family court systems worldwide, resulting in immense suffering and violence for women and children.

Media

• Lawyer Josh Bornstein writes for The Age If we vote Yes, are we helping reconciliation? That’s affirmative.
• The Tribe asks How long does violence prevention take to be effective?
• The Law Society Journal writes Safety at risk as tracking devices make it easy to locate victims.
• The Boston Globe writes Reckoning with carceral feminism in the fight to end mass incarceration.
• The Conversation writes The Voice alone won’t solve the issues facing Indigenous people. Everyone has to do that work.
• The New Humanitarian talks to The civil servant documenting sexual violence in Sudan’s conflict.
• PBS News writes Why post-Roe abortion restrictions worry domestic violence experts.
• The United States Institute of Peace considers How to Meaningfully Address Men in the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.
• Ms Magazine writes The Dark Money Fight Against Abortion Access: A Year in Review.
• Crikey writes Media don’t help. They enable violence against women and fuel the backlash.
• The Shot writes The toilet police are here and they want you to know they are very serious.
• The New York Times considers One Black Family, One Affirmative Action Ruling, and Lots of Thoughts.
• The Guardian writes ‘Domestic abuse isn’t your business? Yes it is’: the push for employers to do more to protect their staff.

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. EOIs close on 7 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 No to Violence Conference 2023: Leading the change to break the cycle of violence will be held in Melbourne from 28 - 31 August 2023.

  Recordings

• Join Minister for Indigenous Australians the Hon. Linda Burney MP, ANU Vice President (First Nations) Professor Peter Yu AM, local Ngunnawal man Mr Noah Allan and Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Violet Sheridan, and ACT parliamentarians in the ACT Voice to Parliament Forum.

• Watch the launch of the Blueprint for Reform: Removing Barriers to Safety for Victims/Survivors of Domestic and Family Violence Who Are on Temporary Visas with speakers including Professor Marie Segrave and Professor Manjula Datta O’Connor.

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 Peninsula Community Legal Centre (PCLC) has developed a comprehensive series of freely accessible educational video courses and online resource hub to explain the multiple complicated legal systems and issues when there is a family violence context - in a frank and conversational way. The material is hosted online through an e-Learning platform integrated into the PCLC website and made up of a range of material including an award-winning short film about the impacts of separation from a child’s perspective.
• Our Watch has developed a collection of resources for the vocational education and training (VET) sector.
• 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.

Share the latest round-up with a colleague
and encourage them to sign up here.

Don't forget that all previous editions of Round Up are available at the AWAVA website.

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

If you would like to submit a particularly topical piece of news, research, report, etc. please e-mail to [email protected]. We cannot guarantee this will be included.

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.