Blueprint for Reform

AWAVA is excited to be involved in the development and launch of the Blueprint for Reform: Removing Barriers to Safety for Victims/Survivors of Domestic and Family Violence Who Are on Temporary Visas. The Blueprint for Reform is the culmination of work by the National Advocacy Group on Women on Temporary Visas Experiencing Violence, aimed at ensuring safety and justice to victims/survivors of family violence, regardless of visa status and type.

We know that temporary visa holders experiencing family violence in Australia face multiple barriers to accessing safety, support, and justice. These barriers can cause women to remain in situations that are harmful and dangerous. As the Australian Government moves towards implementing the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032, it is imperative that all women and children are given access to safety and stability.

The Blueprint recognises and responds to a range of barriers for women on temporary visas. The services system is too complex and often inaccessible. When a temporary visa holder experiences family violence in Australia, her visa status determines whether she can access social security, working rights, childcare, free public health, and housing support. These barriers are used frequently by perpetrators of family violence to further coerce and control victims/survivors.

This Blueprint includes recommendations to ensure victims/survivors access the safety and support they need in four key steps:

1. Improve the migration system so that all women on temporary visas who experience domestic, family and sexual violence and their dependants can access protections, services and justice.
2. Expand eligibility and access to social security (including Medicare) for women on temporary visas who are experiencing domestic and family violence.
3. Expand eligibility and access to social and public housing for women on temporary visas who are experiencing domestic and family violence.
4. Ensure long-term and sustainable funding for specialist and legal services that support women on temporary visas who are experiencing or are at risk of domestic, family and sexual violence.

The National Advocacy Group are experts from across Australia who are calling on governments to adopt the recommendations. Adopting and implementing the recommendations in the Blueprint will help to ensure the safety of all victims/survivors of family violence.

Media and other queries should be directed to the Executive of the National Advocacy Group, [email protected]

Organisations and individuals are encouraged to refer to the Blueprint when making submissions to the Review of Australia’s Migration System. Submissions close on 15 December 2022.

The Blueprint may also be a useful point of reference for the parliamentary Inquiry into the rights of women and children, noting its particular focus on the adequacy of support services, including legal services, available to migrant and refugee women and children who have experienced abuse and human rights violations. Submissions are due by 16 December 2022.

Part of the feminist fabric

Are you curious to know how women’s specialist services evolved from the women’s movement and how these services remain central to women and children’s safety today?

Read a short (her)story account in WESNET’s latest blog from AWAVA’s own Julie Oberin AM.

Around the Country

• The Australian Parliament has passed new legislation to bring into place seven of the recommendations from the landmark [email protected] report into sexual harassment, including making employers take proactive steps to end harassment, violence and discrimination in the workplace.

• The Prime Minister has pledged to table the International Labour Organisation Convention No 190 in the Australian Parliament ─ the first step in ratifying this convention and affirming the right of Australians to a workplace and work culture based on human rights principles.

• This year’s Close the Gap Annual Report has been tabled, showing limited progress on key targets for improving life outcomes for First Nations Australians. The themes of this year’s report are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led transformation, gender justice: equality and equity, and allyship. 

• New research reveals more than half of women and children who died by suicide in Western Australia in 2017 suffered domestic violence.

• The ACT's Director of Public Prosecutions abruptly announced that the case against Bruce Lehrmann, the man who had been accused of raping Brittany Higgins, would be abandoned, citing an "unacceptable risk to the life of the complainant".

• Government payments, including Youth Allowance, Austudy and the Carer Allowance, will increase by 6.1 per cent in the new year when the payments rise with indexation.

• Aboriginal leaders say Victoria’s “culturally unsafe” child protection system is creating “a new stolen generation”, as the state’s truth-telling inquiry prepares to hold hearings on the subject.

• Commonwealth attorney-general Mark Dreyfus has spoken of how the most preventable form of death among women aged 18-55 is to stop intimate partner violence.

• The police officer in charge of the state's domestic violence investigations has vowed to win back the community's trust, saying the embattled Queensland Police Service (QPS) has entered a "new era".

• The Western Australian government announced almost $3 million made available under the Family and Domestic Violence Primary Prevention Grants Program will be allocated to 17 WA organisations.

Around the World

• In Mexico, Shanquella Robinson's death is being investigated as a femicide, a crime that only 16 countries recognize despite gender-based violence being a global issue.

• A trickle of high-profile sexual abuse lawsuits passing through New York’s civil courts is likely to become a flood in the coming months because of a new, one-year window for time-expired claims.

• The issue of intimate partner violence has exploded in India, with the country reeling in shock over the gruesome murder of 26-year old Shraddha Walkar in the national capital, New Delhi.

• The arrest of an alleged serial killer who targeted Indigenous women in central Canada has prompted fresh anger and despair that the country has once again failed in its promises to protect vulnerable women and girls.

• The Canadian Labour Congress is campaigning on It’s time to end gender-based violence at work.

• The Ontario legislature has unanimously passed a motion to support a federal bill passed in the house of commons known as “Keira’s Law”. The legislation is aimed to ensure judges, justices of the peace, Crown attorneys, court assessors, social workers, and anyone who is a decision-maker in the family court system gets the needed education on intimate partner violence and coercive control.

• Iranian shopkeepers and truck drivers staged a walkout in nearly 40 cities and towns after calls for a three-day nationwide general strike from protesters as the government declined to confirm a claim by a senior official that the morality police had been abolished.

• In the United States, a former long-term girlfriend of Herschel Walker has spoken of the violence and abuse she says he subjected her to, a potentially devastating television interview airing just before the Republican candidate’s Senate runoff in Georgia.

• Many are losing hope and angry that Honduras first female president is failing to fulfil women’s rights pledge.

• Indonesia's parliament is expected to pass a new criminal code that will penalise sex outside marriage with a punishment of up to one year in jail.

• A Tokyo court has upheld a ban on same-sex marriage but said a lack of legal protection for same-sex families violated their human rights.

• One of the most senior figures in policing in England and Wales is calling for a new gold standard for gender-based violence investigations, saying women have been “systematically failed” by the criminal justice system.

• Large publicly listed companies in the EU will need to increase the presence of women on their boards by July 2026, after the EU parliament passed legislation to introduce transparent recruitment procedures.

Research and Publications

• The Wiyi Yani U Thangani First Nations Women’s Safety Policy Forum Outcomes Report November 2022 is a contribution to setting out the pathway for transformational change, sitting alongside the long journey of advocacy of First Nations women, centuries past and present. The Report primarily deals with context setting and the steps required for how to move forward in designing effective plans and policies to end violence.

• Project Respect have released a State of Knowledge paper The extent, nature and impact of family, domestic, and sexual violence (FDSV) against women in the Australian sex industry,  an integrative literature review on the particular contexts and types of violence experienced by women in the sex industry; its impact on women with diverse experiences and identities; and the way in which it is treated (or not) by justice and support services.

• Family violence is the greatest factor prompting people to seek homelessness support services, as an alarming surge in demand is revealed in Launch Housing’s Australian Homelessness Monitor, authored by University of New South Wales (City Futures Research Centre) and University of Queensland.

• A study by Western Sydney University researchers and co-designed and supported by leading consumer organisations, has revealed more than one-in-ten Australian women feel they have experienced some form of obstetric violence.

• The Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation (MCHRI) has launched its National Women’s Health and Wellbeing Scorecard which has highlighted the declining reported health and wellbeing over the past decade for Australian women. 

• Gender Equity Victoria has released a report Gendered Online Harassment in Politics which examines the experiences and impact of intersectional gendered cyberhate on women and gender diverse people working in politics in Victoria.

• The World Bank has released sector briefs focusing on gender-based violence and harassment perpetrated against children and adults in the education sector as well as ones focusing on the manufacturing sector, the construction sector, and the private sector.

• Mission Australia’s 21st annual Youth Survey 2022 found that equity and discrimination were major areas of concern for young people, both at a national and personal level. More than one-third of young people said equity and discrimination (36%) was an important national issue, and just over one-quarter (27%) of those surveyed were unfairly treated in the past year, mostly due to their gender, race/cultural background or mental health.

• UN Women have released Gender-related killings of women and girls: Improving data to improve responses to femicide/feminicide.

• Colombian police used sexual harassment, torture and forced nudity to target women and LGBTIQ+ people as they cracked down on a nationwide wave of protests in 2021, a report by Amnesty International has found.

• Domestic abuse victims in England and Wales are reporting abuse to the police several times before appropriate action is taken, with those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds disproportionately dismissed and sidelined, according to new research.

• Keynejad R C, Paphitis S, Davidge S, Jacob S, Howard L M, Domestic abuse is important risk factor for suicide, BMJ 2022; 379 :o2890 doi:10.1136/bmj.o2890.

Resources and Guidelines

• The Settlement Services International 'In My Voice' campaign consists of six brief (4 minutes on average) film clips that illuminate different aspects of domestic and family violence, shared by women leaders from different migrant communities - Africa, South East Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and Regional Australia. This campaign hopes to spark conversations, encourage understanding and contribute to change.

• UN Women, together with Global Rights for Women, have developed Safe consultations with survivors of violence against women and girls, which is designed to provide practical steps, safety measures, and actions that government agencies, civil society and survivor organizations, and United Nations’ entities can take to incorporate survivors' voices into systemic reform efforts, through safe and meaningful consultations.

• The Australian Government’s Disability Gateway website has information and services to help people with disability, their family, friends and carers find up-to-date advice on vaccination and additional support to stay COVID safe. People can also call the Gateway on 1800 643 787.

• Racism. It Stops With Me is a national campaign run by the Human Rights Commission that provides tools and resources to help people and organisations learn about racism and take action to create change.

• Engender Equality have published Breaking the Trap, Working with Clients Experiencing Coercive Control, a downloadable workbook designed for workers who are supporting people who have been impacted by coercive control.

• The [email protected] Council and Australian Human Rights Commission have launched a new website that will help employers and workers address sexual harassment, and support them to create gender inclusive, safe, and respectful workplaces.

• Our Watch has developed new tools to support schools in promoting gender equality and creating an Australia free from violence.

• eSafety has just updated their Toolkit for Schools, a suite of resources to support schools in creating safer online environments. The updated Toolkit features new content, including advice and research, updates on reporting processes.

• The international Sexual Violence Research Initiative has published Shared Global Research Priorities for the Intersections between Violence against Children and Violence against Women to help to advance the field in a more structured way and to monitor progress against initial evidence gaps.

• Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion has a new specialist program providing legal help to Queenslanders with disability in natural disasters.

• Women's Legal Service WA recently co-designed and produced community education posters aimed at debunking myths commonly used by perpetrators to prevent women leaving an abusive relationship. The posters also feature a QR code linking to the Centre for Women's Safety and Wellbeing's Support and Services Directory.

• Say It Out Loud has published the LGBTQ+ Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Toolkit, written specifically by and for people from sexuality and gender diverse communities (LGBTQ+ people)

• Our Watch’s Men in focus practice guide offers practical strategies on engaging with men and boys on masculinities, such focusing on building empathy and motivation and fostering self-awareness.

• The Handbook on Gender, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Disasters provides practical guidance to policymakers, response staff of the Disaster Management Centre and community groups to plan, coordinate, implement, monitor, and evaluate essential actions for a gender equitable disaster response. The handbook was created by the Disaster Management Centre, Sri Lanka with the financial support of the Australian Government.

• Harmony Alliance has developed a 2016 Census and Settlement Database brief to provide an understanding on migrant and refugee women's diversity in Australia and identify some of the challenges they face with a focus on the impact of English proficiency.

• Safe and Equal and the Expert Advisory Panel have developed a series of resources and templates to support other services and organisations in their engagement with survivor advocates. Safe and Equal has also released an issues paper, seeking to define and explore different sources of lived experience which inform the work of the family violence sector.

• As part of the Women with Disabilities Australia (WWDA) LEAD project, WWDA has developed a fact sheet to support women, girls, feminine identifying, and non-binary people with disability in understanding, applying for and navigating the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

• The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has uploaded a website article Family, domestic and sexual violence containing facts and data, drawing from a range of statistics and research.

• Harmony Alliance has developed a grant writing guide which includes the steps to prepare grant proposals, what a proposal should consist of, and a practical example. 

• The Victorian Women’s Trust has launched Rural Women Online for women living and working in rural and remote Victoria. The program is designed to provide online help with computers, phones, and the internet, and is also a place to learn new digital skills, find a nearby workshop, access technical support, and sign up to be mentored.

• Our Watch and Senior Rights Victoria have produced a new resource for practitioners seeking to build their knowledge and practice on preventing violence against older women.

Media

• The Guardian discusses ‘Right to be scared’: Brittany Higgins and the harsh realities about justice and power.

• Rappler writes about how Care improves the power of gender-based violence survivors.

• SBS’s NITV writes An Indigenous Voice will mean politicians can't pick and choose the ones they want to hear.

• Architecture and Design writes Australia’s housing crisis lost in a translation.

• ABC News asks Thousands of Australian single mothers shoulder cost of living pressures while facing poverty. So what help is out there?

• Women’s Agenda asks Has Iran’s morality police really been abolished?

• The UK’s Byline Times writes ‘Worse to Accuse than Abuse’? The Parental Alienation Crisis in the Family Courts.

• The Nigerian Premium Times writes about Online Gender-Based Violence: Promoting Digital Rights For Women in Nigeria.

• The Havana Times writes about Prohibition-Inspired Violence Against Women.

• PassBlue asks How Might Iran React to Being Ousted From the UN Commission on the Status of Women?

• Worldcrunch writes Absolute Free Speech Is A Recipe For Violence: Notes From Paris For Monsieur Musk.

Surveys, submissions and grants

• 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]
  
• Have you listened to a true crime podcast? A QUT study is looking for participants for a research project focused on women’s experiences listening to true crime podcasts. If you are an adult (18+) woman who has listened to a true crime podcast, a QUT researcher would like to speak to you about participating in a diary study. For more information click here.
• The National Council of Single Mothers and Their Children are conducting a Separated Women's Financial Safety Survey, which looks at single mothers’ post-separation finances, including how money might be used by their ex-partner to control or abuse.
• The ANROWS-funded #[email protected] online national survey is open and is investigating the sexual harassment of LGBTQ young people (aged 14 to 30) in the workplace and in workplace training sites.

• Harmony Alliance, Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA) and National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA) are conducting a survey on the experiences of women, girls, women identifying, and non-binary people with disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. The survey asks questions about your experiences with health care and disability support services in Australia and is available in Arabic, English, Mandarin, Nepali, Spanish, Swahili.

• The Equality Rights Alliance and Gender Equity Victoria are running a survey ahead of the next Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting in New York in 2023 to build understanding of technology, gender, and change.

• A consultation paper for the independent review into the Australian Research Council Act 2001 (ARC Review) has been released, with submissions accepted up until 14 December 2022.

• Now is the time to share your experience of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation with the Disability Royal Commission. Submissions close on 31 December 2022. Find more information on the DRC website.

• The National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse is inviting written feedback on the Draft Five Year Strategy (2023-2027) by 13 January 2023.

• The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme is accepting submissions from members of the public. Submissions can be made via phone, email, or with a paper form, and will be accepted up until 3 February 2023.

• The Department of Social Services is inviting comments from people with disability, their family, carers, advocates, service providers, peak bodies and organisations on a new Disability Services Act by 12 February 2023.

Events

• An ANROWS webinar No more circles: Learning from survivors, perpetrators and practitioners on how to respond better to intimate partner and sexual violence is on Thursday, 8 December 2022, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (AEDT).

• The Human Rights Commission’s annual Human Rights Awards are being held on Friday, 9 December at the UTS Great Hall in Ultimo. Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt AO will deliver the Human Rights Day Oration.

• On 10 December 2022 the Women’s Electoral Lobby is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Sydney with a social event and keynote speaker, the Honourable Linda Burney, Minister for Indigenous Australians, who will outline the compelling reasons why feminists must actively support the campaign for the Voice to Parliament.

• The Queer Displacements is the first and only conference (22-23 February 2023) in the Asia Pacific designed to comprehensibly foreground protection and settlement challenges of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) forcibly displaced people. Registrations are now open, click here for link to conference website and more information.

• The National Aboriginal Child Safety and Domestic Violence Summit 2023: Strong Families, Safer Children is being held on 29-31 March 2023 in Adelaide and will bring together guest speakers to stimulate new and innovative pathways to address the national issue of child safety, domestic and Aboriginal family violence across Australia.

Training and Further Education

• WESNET is offering Technology Safety Online 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.

• A free online course - Connectivity’s Concussion Short Course - has been designed in conjunction with the University of Tasmania to help further understanding of concussion including recognising the signs and symptoms, how to manage concussion, appreciate the pathways to recovery and how concussions can impact your everyday life.

• Harmony Alliance is collaborating with La Trobe University to support migrant and refugee women to start and further develop their careers through the Future Proof Career Development program. This free program will include educational, mentorship and networking resources.

• ACON has recently launched three online training modules: The Trans Vitality: Trans Affirming Practice eLearning; Trans and Gender Diverse Sexual Health ELearning, in collaboration with ASHM; and Recognise and Respond, in collaboration with the Black Dog Institute.

• The RACGP Family Violence GP Education Program assists GPs in developing skills and knowledge to respond to domestic and family violence. The program is open to all Victorian GPs and practice staff and offers two training pathway options – beginner and intermediate/advanced.

• 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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