Violence against women

Violence against women is a fundamental violation of human rights. It is not OK. And it is against the law.

Violence against women is a serious and widespread problem. Many women and girls experience violence during their lives including domestic violence (also known as intimate partner violence) and family violence, as well as sexual harassment and sexual assault.

INFORMATION DEVELOPED FOR ACT WOMEN
Women’s Health Matters has developed the following information resources for ACT women.
What to say
Assistance Beyond Crisis
What can you do? About domestic, family and sexual violence in the ACT
Financial Resource for women leaving domestic violence

Violence against women is a fundamental violation of human rights. It is not OK. And it is against the law.

Women have a very unique experience of violence, compared to men. Physical assualt is more likely to occur to women in their homes or other private places whereas men are most likely to be assualted in public places, by other men. Women (and children) are also statistically more likely to be victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault and perpetrators are usually men.

Domestic and family violence is when someone intentionally uses violence, threats, force or intimidation to control or manipulate a family member, partner or former partner. Domestic and family violence occurs across all cultures, races, ages, genders, religions and socio-economic groups, but the majority of those who experience domestic and family violence are women.

The violence takes many forms, including physical, financial, emotional, psychological and sexual violence.

Violence impacts a women’s health negatively, it has significant impacts on mental health and promotes stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as negative coping strategies like alcohol and drug use, and more severly, suicide. Pregnancy and birth can be impacted, and direct physical assault can cause injuries and homicide. Women who have experienced violence have increased risk of health issues such as pain syndromes, phobias, and other physical conditions.

The Canberra context

Data from two ABS reports, the Personal Safety Survey report and the Recorded Crime– victims report, showed that in the ACT:

around 7,000 ACT women had experienced some form of violence
5,800 had experienced physical violence
1,900 had experienced sexual violence
28,800 had experienced sexual harassment
73% of sexual assault victims in the ACT knew the offender.

In 2017, ABS data showed that in the ACT there were more than seven times as many women who were victims of sexual assault than men, and nearly a third of women were aged between 15 and 19 years. The majority of sexual assaults (56%) occurred at a residential location and 33% of victims of family and domestic violence-related assault in the ACT were aged between 25 and 34 years.

While there is no single cause of violence against women, evidence shows that key beliefs and behaviours relating to gender drive violence against women:

condoning of violence against women
men’s control of decision-making and limits to women’s independence
stereotyped constructions of masculinity and femininity
disrespect towards women
male peer relations that emphasise aggression.

And while there has been progress, according to the most recent National Community Attitudes Survey:

There is a continuous decline in the number of Australians who understand that men are more likely than women to perpetrate domestic violence (down from 86% in 1995 to 64% in 2017).
One in five Australians believe domestic violence is a normal reaction to stress, and that sometimes a woman can make a man so angry he hits her without meaning to.
Two in five Australians believe that women make up false reports of sexual assault in order to punish men.

What we are doing about it

We’ve designed and run a number of campaigns including our Anti Sexual Violence campaign – What to Say! which provides young Canberrans with the information they need to identify sexual violence and empowers them to call it out, and our Same Love. Same Rules! Campaign to raise awareness in the LGBTIQ community about domestic and family violence and where to go for help.

We partnered with the Domestic Violence Crisis Service on a project with ACT businesses to identify opportunities and solutions to reduce barriers for women leaving domestic violence situations so they can successfully resettle. A major initiative to come out of this work was the ground breaking Assistance Beyond Crisis, a micro-finance facility which offers one-off, no interest loans to local people who have escaped from domestic violence situations.

Because media plays a major role in shaping public perceptions in the ACT, and influences community awareness and understanding of local issues, in 2014 we developed a Guide to Reporting on Domestic and Sexual Violence Against Women and Children. The information from this guide was then adapted and published by the national body Our Watch and is still in use today.

We have sat on the ACT Domestic Violence Prevention Council (DVPC), the ACT Ministerial advisory body responsible for providing the ACT Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence with advice on preventing domestic and family violence in the ACT. Through this forum and our broader network we will continue to leverage the voices of ACT women to advocate for positive change.