On International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Greens Senate Leader and spokesperson on Women, Larissa Waters, has called for cultural change to stop gendered violence, more funding for frontline domestic violence services, and the criminalisation of coercive control.
\nSenator Waters, along with Dr Anne Aly MP (ALP member for Cowan) and Dr Fiona Martin MP (Liberal member for Reid), today launched the Parliamentarians for Action to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children to encourage a multi-partisan commitment to stopping violence against women.
\nSpeaking at the launch event, Senator Waters said family and domestic violence is a national emergency, and the new group offers an important forum to discuss ways to address it.
\n\u201cViolence against women is at epidemic levels. One woman has been violently murdered almost every week in 2020, and the sector predicts that elevated levels of violence will continue with the financial and social stress of Covid recovery.
\n\u201cI welcome the cross-party support for today\u2019s event.\u00a0 But we cannot keep turning up to events like this, reading news stories, hearing statistics, and say we are shocked.
\n\u201cThanks to the tireless efforts of safety advocates, we know what needs to be done.\u00a0 If we are serious about eliminating violence against women, we need immediate action on the key gaps.
\n\u201cFrontline emergency response services must be adequately funded so that no woman is turned away when she seeks help \u2013 the sector says this means $1 billion each year,\u201d said Senator Waters.
\n\u201cWe need a national approach to understanding and criminalising coercive control.\u00a0 The community needs to recognise the serious risks of conduct like Hannah Clarke and her children were subjected to before their murder, and police need to be able to act.
\n\u201cWe need all parliamentarians to contribute to the cultural change that will eliminate violence against women, stand up to violent behaviour, and act to address the gender inequality which drives gendered violence.”
\nToday\u2019s event was co-hosted by Our Watch and marked the start of their 16 Days, 16 Ways campaign to encourage bystanders to do something to show that violent behaviour is never OK.
\n\u201cThe primary prevention education and advocacy work done by Our Watch is crucial at driving behaviour change, as is respectful relationships education in schools.\u00a0 This work must continue to be funded,\u201d said Senator Waters
\n\u201cWords on the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women will not be enough \u2013 we need action and full funding from the federal government.\u00a0 I look forward to working with the Parliamentary group to keep these issues on the agenda throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Greens Senate Leader and spokesperson on Women, Larissa Waters, has called for cultural change to stop gendered violence, more funding for frontline domestic violence services, and the criminalisation of coercive control. Senator Waters, along with Dr Anne Aly MP (ALP member for Cowan) and Dr … Continue reading “New Parliamentary Group Formed to Combat Violence Against Women”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}