Report Launch –Young Women and
Non-Binary People’s Experiences of
Gender-Based Violence across Australia

Please join us on Thursday 17 February 2022 at 1pm (AEDT) for the much-awaited launch of the Report on Young Women and Non-Binary People’s Experiences of Gender-Based Violence across Australia. The 75 minute free virtual event will include presentations, a panel, and an interactive Q&A session.

Drawing on both the 2021 survey conducted by Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA) and translated into Easy English by Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA), as well as a subsequent community forum hosted by AWAVA and the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance (NATSIWA), this ground-breaking report explores a range of issues associated with gender-based violence and its impacts on young women and non-binary people.

The report introduces new ways to understand both interpersonal and structural experiences of diverse forms of violence, relying on first-hand accounts from young people living in a range of circumstances across Australia. Importantly, the report captures what justice means to young victim-survivors – a question that is rarely asked.

Around the Country

• Requests for assistance with family violence are continuing to spike in the west of Melbourne due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a GenWest (formerly Women’s Health West).

• The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released new data examining the characteristics of sexual assault offenders and their outcomes in the criminal justice system over the past decade, and finds that 97 per cent of sexual assault offenders are male.

• Veronica Gorrie, a Kurnai woman who lives in Gippsland, won the richest writing prize in the country, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, for Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience. The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards winners were also announced with Amani Haydar’s personal account of domestic violence in The Mother Wound receiving the non-fiction prize.

• The federal government announced that Telstra Health has been chosen for the new five-year government contract, valued at around $200 million, to run the 1800RESPECT family, domestic and sexual violence counselling hotline in collaboration with DV Connect and other specialist providers.

Around the World

• In Louisiana domestic violence reports have seen an upward trend since the start of the pandemic but now, it is reported, the cases are becoming more violent as domestic violence murders are seeing a scary uptick.

• In the US more broadly, a bipartisan group of senators are moving closer to a long-sought deal to renew and modernise the lapsed Violence Against Women Act. 

• The Delhi High Court challenge to the marital rape exemption in Indian law is sparking fierce debate.

• Monaco’s Women’s rights committee has released its ‘four fronts in the war on violence against women’.

• In Ireland, a survey has revealed that one fifth of young women feel they have no control over their money.

• The Ministry of Health in Iraq, together with the World Health Organization (WHO), has launched Iraq’s first gender-based violence strategic plan, 2022–2026.

• UN Women is working with the NGO, Communication for Development Foundation Uganda (CDFU), supported by the Spotlight Initiative, to drive out the practice of FGM in rural communities in Uganda.

• The South Africa parliament has signed three gender-based violence (GBV) bills into legislation, stepping up protections for women and children, and attempting to ensure survivors have a better chance of receiving justice.

• A treaty against gender-based violence is dividing the Czech governing coalition.

• In Bolivia, hundreds of women’s rights activists, along with relatives of the victims of gender-based violence and members of social organisations, held a march from the city of El Alto to the capital La Paz, demanding an end to violence and impunity for crimes against women due to judicial corruption.

Research and Publications

• ANROWS has released a research paper Economic insecurity and intimate partner violence in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• A new report Ending Homelessness in Australia: An Evidence and Policy Deep Dive, draws on surveys collected from 20,953 people who have come into contact with homelessness services across Australia over the past 10 years.

• A new report -"That never happens here": Sexual and gender-based violence against men, boys and/including LGBTIQ+ people in humanitarian settings- has been released by the Norwegian Red Cross and the ICRC.

• The Wilson Centre has released a new paper Navigating Uncharted Waters: Curbing the Global Threat of Cyberviolence, as part of its gender-based violence and and the rule of law series.

Media

• The Conversation has an article detailing how women make up half the disability population but just over a third of NDIS recipients.

• Nina Jeffs writes for the World Economic Forum why women’s leadership is key to climate action.

• The New York Times writes that the report on London Police highlights a culture of misogyny and racism.

• The International Policy Digest writes that Afghan Women See a Return of the 1990s.

Surveys

• Australia’s National Children’s Commissioner wants to hear from children and their families about how living through the past two years of COVID-19 has affected their mental health and wellbeing. She is surveying children and young people aged nine to seventeen, as well as parents, carers, and grandparents.

• Our Watch is currently looking for professionals working in primary and secondary school settings to undertake a ten minute survey about the Respectful Relationships Education (RRE) website. 

• The Make Renting Fair in Queensland campaign is seeking feedback through its rental reform survey. This survey will only take a few minutes to complete and will assist in focusing the advocacy of the campaign for all Queensland renters.

• The Women’s Electoral Lobby are asking women to complete a survey to have their say on the issues important to them in the lead up to next year’s federal election.

Calls for Submissions and EOIs

• The draft National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children has been released with comments due on 25 February 2022. We again strongly encourage you to read the draft and send in your feedback via the online questionnaire.

• The Tasmanian Government is seeking input on proposed Criminal Code amendments creating a new offence of choking, suffocation or strangulation and adding to the definition of consent regarding behaviour colloquially known as ‘stealthing’. Submissions must be received by 18 February 2022.

• The Productivity Commission is reviewing the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, examining how well governments have achieved its objectives, and looking at  the impact of social and economic factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, on housing and homelessness in Australia. An issues paper is available, with submissions closing on 21 February 2022.

• The Victorian government has released an interim report on its Social Housing Regulation Review, and is inviting comment until 28 February 2022.

• The Queensland Human Rights Commission is inviting submissions to a review of Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Act, with submissions closing on 1 March 2022.

• The South Australian Attorney-General's Department has released a discussion paper exploring the measures needed to support the implementation of a criminal offence of coercive control, should it be introduced in South Australia. Feedback is sought by 1 April 2022.

• The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is inviting manuscripts for a special issue ‘Engaging Men and Boys in the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls’. Deadline for submission is 31 July 2022.

Events

• SAVE THE DATE: At 1pm on 17 February 2022 WESNET and AWAVA, along with Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA) and the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance (NATSIWA), are launching their report Young Women and Non-Binary People’s Experiences of Gender-Based Violence across Australia. Register for free here.

• The ANROWS conference (22-25 February 2022) “On the Agenda” schedule and program are now available.

Training and Education

• WESNET is offering Technology Safety Online Training for SADFV professionals, for dates and training descriptions please visit https://techsafety.org.au/training
• The Council of Europe has launched a new, free online course on Violence Against Women for Law Enforcement Professionals.

• RMIT’s Graduate Certificate in Domestic and Family Violence provides an exciting opportunity for current and future family violence practitioners, with subjects in gendered violence, responding to family violence, primary prevention of violence against women and specialist case coordination and management. The program is offered online and part-time to support work/life/study balance. Applications can be made online here, or for more information, visit the Program Overview.

• Harmony Alliance has developed a free online course on 'Financial Literacy for Women' available in English, Arabic, Dari, Simplified Chinese, Vietnamese, Nepalese, Punjabi, Hazaragi, Thai, Karen, and Korean.

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*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.