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	Rallies against gender-based violence across Australia by Australian Femicide Watch, agencies   June 2025   One in three Australian men report using intimate partner violence, study reveals.   More than one in three Australian men reported using intimate partner violence, with social support and strong father-son relationships key to lowering risks, world-first research has revealed.   The longitudinal study from the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) has been tracking more than 16,000 boys and men since 2013, asking them about a range of critical issues including family violence.   When first surveyed, around one in four men aged 18 to 65 reported using intimate partner violence in their lifetime — including physical, emotional and sexual abuse. By 2022, this number had increased to more than one in three in the same cohort.   Emotional abuse was the most common form of violence reported, with 32 per cent of men in 2022 reporting they had made an intimate partner feel "frightened or anxious" in their lifetime.   Nine per cent reported "hitting, slapping, kicking or otherwise physically hurting" an intimate partner when they were angry on at least one occasion.   The research indicated an estimated 120,000 men nationally were starting to use violence for the first time each year.   The study provides the first national estimate of male intimate partner violence perpetration, and is the largest longitudinal study on male health in the world.   It revealed men with moderate or severe depressive symptoms were 62 per cent more likely to use intimate partner violence by 2022, compared to men without these symptoms.   However, the study also worked to identify "protective" factors. Men who reported high levels of social support "all of the time" were 26 per cent less likely to report using intimate partner violence.   Meanwhile those who reported close relationships with a father figure had their risk reduced by half. "They had enough care and concern and a father figure they could confide in who taught them things," program lead Sean Martin said.   An additional 10,000 men were added to the study cohort in 2024-25, with the latest wave of data collection expanding to include questions around economic coercion and pornography use.   Almost 40 per cent of Australians experience violence by a male perpetrator. On average, one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner.   http://aifs.gov.au/tentomen/insights-report/use-intimate-partner-violence-among-australian-men   Nov. 2024   The shocking rate of Aboriginal women being killed as a result of domestic violence in the Northern Territory (NT) has largely been met with silence. (Guardian Australia, agencies)   The Northern Territory government has been told it must overhaul its response to family violence to stop women and children being killed.   The NT coroner on Monday handed down inquest findings into the deaths of four Aboriginal women, making 35 recommendations.   Coroner Elisabeth Armitage made clear that the wide-ranging recommendations should be implemented in full to save lives.   The inquest was held into the deaths of Miss Yunupiŋu, Ngeygo Ragurrk, Kumarn Rubuntja and Kumanjayi Haywood.   All four women reported fears for their safety to authorities or loved ones in the weeks, months and even years before they were killed. Their killers had histories of family violence and were known to police.   The recommendations included that the NT government should fund a peak body to tackle family and sexual violence, increase investment in alcohol and drug rehabilitation and the Aboriginal Interpreter Service, expand a specialist family and sexual violence court, commit to developing alternatives to custody for perpetrators, and increase its core baseline funding for crisis services.   The NT police were also told it should commit to a “significantly expanded and appropriately resourced” domestic, family and sexual violence command in Alice Springs and Darwin, which would be headed by an assistant commissioner and include permanent positions and a training unit that would ensure the force was aware of best practice in response to the issue.   “I make the following recommendations in the sincere hope that they will be implemented fully and that meaningful, long-term change will result and lives will be saved,” Armitage said in her findings.   She said to the women’s families that “we have talked about tragic times and their tragic deaths”.. “But I know that you remember them smiling and laughing, sharing stories and spending time on country, and happy times with family. They lived and were loved. “In handing down these findings, I will remember them that way too.”   Armitage was scathing about the failures of the NT government to respond to the issue.   “These deaths were senseless and shocking. They were also preventable. “We must bear witness to the suffering of these women, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us.   “They must not be forgotten and their suffering must not be ignored. It must compel us to action. We must not take the radical action needed to stop more women from dying.”   Armitage found that rates of family violence in the NT were far higher than in other Australian jurisdictions. She found that in 2021 the rate was three times the national average, and five times that of most other jurisdictions where data is reported, and that the rate of related homicides was seven times the national average.   In Australia’s worst jurisdiction for family violence, Aboriginal women were significantly over-represented.   Armitage also found the problem was getting worse, with NT police figures showing they recorded a 117% increase in the number of family and sexual violence reports over the past decade, and predicted a further 73% jump during the next decade. The NT police spends almost half its entire policing budget on the issue.   But Armitage said that after the Domestic Family and Sexual Violence Interagency Coordination and Reform Office (DFSV-ICRO) was tasked with developing and reforming the NT government’s approach to the issue, it called for a $180m budget commitment. It was instead given $20m.   “This was woefully inadequate and a gut-wrenching discovery for the sector. “It was one important example, but not the only example I heard, of rejection or inaction on what I consider to be reasonable recommendations or proposals being made by experts about how to respond to this crisis.   “I adopt the observation of senior counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer that: ‘It is a terrible waste of money to repeat investigations that result in similar recommendations, and it is a tragic waste of lives for them to be ignored or not seriously actioned.’”   Armitage found the reasons for high rates of violence in the NT were a variety of socioeconomic, historical and cultural reasons.   These included the ongoing impacts of colonisation, including the impact of intergenerational trauma, systemic disadvantage and discrimination, cultural dislocation and removal of children, entrenched community attitudes towards violence, the expense of service delivery and challenges of recruiting and retaining skilled labour, geographical distance and remoteness of some areas, and a lack of basic infrastructure.   She said the gross overrepresentation of Aboriginal women in the territory’s domestic and family violence statistics must mean there were factors that contributed “to their unique vulnerability”.   This included trauma, loss and grief in families and communities, and chronic disadvantage in many forms including poverty, housing instability and mental illness.   Armitage also noted, however, the muted response to the deaths of Aboriginal women at the hands of violent men.   “The shocking rate of Aboriginal women being killed as a result of domestic violence in the NT has largely been met with silence from the broader territory and Australian communities, and a persistent inadequate allocation of resources to address this complex issue.   “I take judicial notice of the public outpourings of grief and outrage following the deaths of non-Aboriginal women, most often in other parts of Australia, and the political and legislative responses triggered by these deaths.   “That the deaths of Aboriginal women in the NT does not evoke the same reaction is indicative of systemic racism in the way their voices go unheard: the belief that these women are somehow less deserving of our grief, outrage and our collective response.”   http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/25/nt-family-violence-inquest-recommendations-coroner-ntwnfb http://theconversation.com/indigenous-women-are-dying-violent-preventable-deaths-endless-inquiries-wont-help-unless-we-act-244815 http://www.ourwatch.org.au/news/our-watch-welcomes-coroners-report-into-the-deaths-of-four-aboriginal-women-in-the-nt http://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-25/nt-domestic-violence-dv-inquest-coroner-findings-recommendations/104639154 http://tinyurl.com/2ske7uz3   Apr. 2024   Tens of thousands of Australians have taken to the nation’s streets demanding greater Government action to end to violence against women, which advocates warn has reached crisis levels.   Demonstrators gathered on Friday evening in the regional city of Ballarat where locals have been rocked by the deaths of three residents – Samantha Murphy, Rebecca Young and Hannah McGuire, allegedly at the hands of men.   Jade Young, 47, Ashlee Good, 38, Dawn Singleton, 25, Pikria Darchia, 55, and Yixuan Cheng, 27, were all killed at a Bondi shopping centre in Sydney when Queensland man Joel Cauchi went on a stabbing rampage.   Earlier this week Molly Ticehurst, 28, was found dead at her home in Forbes in NSW and Emma Bates, 49, was discovered dead at a property in Cobram in Victoria.   Melbourne rally organiser Martina Ferrara said seeing reports of a woman being killed every four days in 2024 is scary and impacts how they live their lives.   “It drives a fear on little girls, on young mothers and women as a whole – it is terrifying to think that you could simply go out on a run and get murdered or you could be doing anything and still not be safe,” she told AAP.   At least 15 rallies are being held across the nation over the weekend.   Chants of “when our right to safety is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back” erupted from the crowd in Sydney.   Sexual abuse survivor Harrison James told the crowd the end of violence against women begins when men are no longer silent and hold each other accountable.   “We have a total lack of introspection, which gives us men an excuse to turn away from discussions about violence, despite being central to the issue,” he said.   Katherine Berney from the National Women's Safety Alliance says urgent action is required to stop these deaths from happening. "Our frontline services who I represent are at max capacity. We are in a crisis, and we need solutions quickly, not in another six months."   Karen Webb, Police Commissioner from the state of New South Wales described the reality of the crisis: "60 per cent of police time is spent responding to domestic violence-related incidents".   Apr. 2024   Advocacy groups are demanding the Australian government declare violence against women a national emergency after three women were allegedly killed by men known to them this week.   On Friday, West Australian police said they believed a 30-year-old woman, whose body was found in the bedroom of home after a fire, may have been murdered. Earlier this week, two other women, 49-year-old Emma Bates in regional Victoria and 28-year-old Molly Ticehurst in regional New South Wales, were both allegedly killed by men police believe were known to them.   The ever increasing numbers of women who have died due to gender-based violence have fuelled anger across the nation. Rallies against gender-based violence took place in Hobart, Sydney and Adelaide, and on Sunday there will be rallies in Melbourne, Bendigo, Geelong, Coffs Harbour, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra and the Sunshine Coast.   Sarah Williams, from advocacy group What Were You Wearing Australia, is one of the organisers. She said more action was urgently needed.   "Australia is definitely in a time of a national emergency with men's violence," she said. "Simply not being enough done and it's really devastating that 3 years on from rallies by 100,00 people across Australia calling for action from Government we're probably in a worse situation than we were in 2021.   “I didn’t expect when I started organising the rallies that so many people from everywhere over Australia would be not only angry but wanting to stand together in solidarity to really see an end to this,” Williams told ABC News.   Sarah Williams said the group is calling for much greater funding for overwhelmed domestic, family and sexual violence support services over the next 5 years, as well as for the Australian Government to declare the violence a national emergency.   In Sydney, the issue of gender-based violence was close to home for some protesters.   "My younger sister was close friends with Lilie James, who was murdered last year, and a work colleague of hers was murdered at Bondi Junction recently," attendee Julia Robinson said. "That's two women personally that were in our lives and we've crossed paths with in our close circle.".. "It's heartbreaking, frustrating, and it's unacceptable."   In Hobart, Tasmania people gathered at Parliament to rally. Victim survivor, Luisa Mejia, addressed attendees, speaking about the importance of education.   "By education, I don't mean telling someone do not kill women, do not be violent," she said. "By education, I mean education itself about the power dynamics of abusive relationships, about the intersectionality of this issue, how someone's race, someone's religion, someone's background, socio-economic status, how that affects them and makes them vulnerable. All women should be free and safe."   In Adelaide, South Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, called for the federal Government to designate violence against women “a national emergency”.   “This is an epidemic and it’s time we started talking about it not in terms of just ‘violence against women’,” Hanson-Young told Guardian Australia. “This is the murder of women. This is the terrorising of women in their homes and on the street. Women don’t feel safe.”   Hanson-Young said that there should be an “all-shoulders-to-the-wheel” approach, starting with better funding of support services and a “root-and-branch review of the justice system”, including apprehended violence orders and how well they protect women.   "This is an epidemic that requires the full resources of government at all levels across all departments," Senator Hanson-Young said. "We need everything we can get to stop this epidemic."   Violence against women has long plagued Australia. There is no official counter for women’s deaths, but the number of women who die in gendered violence is collated by Counting Dead Women and Femicide Watch’s Red Heart Campaign. According to their figures, this year one woman is murdered every four days in Australia.   Ann O'Neil's two small children were killed by her estranged husband in 1994, she has dedicated her life to trauma counselling and advocacy ever since. She is calling for violence against women and children to become a standard agenda item at every National Cabinet meeting. She says the homicide figures are only the "very, very tip of the iceberg", because for every death of a woman in Australia, "at least 20 more are hospitalised and 200 are assaulted".   She underlines the need for police to be well-supported "by health and community services with responsive, boots-on-the-ground service provision around the clock", and "safe places and spaces" — for housing victims.   Leading violence against women expert, Prof Kate Fitz-Gibbon, said: “the justice system is failing victims of all forms of gender based violence”.   Prof Fitz-Gibbon said bail and intervention order shortfalls were part of the problem, but the entire system was failing to keep victims safe and hold perpetrators to account.”   “These deaths are preventable and we need to ensure we have the data-led insights at hand to prevent them,” the Monash University professor said.   “There is a need to ensure domestic and family violence risk assessment and safety planning processes for victim-survivors are as effective as possible, and that we have a robust suite of perpetrator interventions.”   Prof Fitz-Gibbon called for national leadership to boost co-ordination between states, including the sharing of vital family violence data, as well as greater investment in early intervention and prevention.   She said the federal government’s funding commitment to the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children “stretches far too thin”.   “All states and territory governments committed to the National Plan and it is essential that their commitment is evident in the state budgets,” she said.   One in four women has suffered intimate partner violence since the age of 15, while three in five Indigenous women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by a male intimate partner.   Experts say Governments are not doing nearly enough to deal with the scale of the crisis of domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia. Frontline service providers are overwhelmed by demand and lack sufficient resources to cope with the scale of the crisis.   Co-founder of advocacy group Fair Agenda, Renee Carr, says frontline services are "desperate" for more funding. "Too many services aren't able to assist the women already reaching out to them," Ms Carr says. "Domestic and family violence service specialists, sexual assault services, legal assistance services, they're all calling out for funding to meet demand, and the government's need to provide it."   Ms Carr says women's legal services have to turn away 52,000 women every year because they're not funded to meet demand. She adds that family violence legal services who do "really vital work" in First Nations communities have been calling for an urgent and immediate boost to their capacity to support families.   Independent MPs are pushing for funding to accelerate too. Independent MP for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, says the prime minister must declare violence against women a national emergency.   "We need to treat gendered violence with the same level of urgency we show to terrorism, because it is a form of terrorism, and certainly at a rate of a woman every four days, it's killing more Australians".   "We are desensitised to this. Whether we label it terrorism or not, the fact is that women and children are being terrorised across our nation. We cannot let this be yet another moment of hand-wringing that leads nowhere."   Wentworth MP Allegra Spender says there must be much greater action on violence against women.   "We know that violence against women happens in all communities and is linked to gender power imbalances. It starts with attitudes and social norms and thrives with a lack of consequences and a justice system that doesn't deliver justice or adequately protect women.   "Key areas for immediate investment should be education, housing and grassroots services for women experiencing violence, and justice reform," she says. "I have local services that are struggling for funding with the significant need. In my area up to 50 per cent of police time is spent on Domestic Violence."   And she says social media has a role in this too. "I believe the government should look at models where youth can opt out of the algorithm serving them content that they don't already follow or are searching for."   One of the toxic influences on some young men has been Andrew Tate, who has attracted millions of online followers drawn to his hyper-masculine and over-the-top lifestyle. For some young men and boys, Tate's view of the world is one to emulate.   A new study of women teachers has recently found Tate's ideology is spreading in Australian classrooms in the form of sexism and sexual harassment. The messages some boys are getting in our disrupted world are dangerous, and we still haven't worked out how to combat it.   Former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty has for years been a strong voice on family violence prevention, 10 years ago she argued the alleged perpetrators of these offences should be labelled "intimate partner terrorists".   "I think there is a minimisation of violence when we put domestic or family in front of it, and I think that … language matters," she says. "And I think it really is a very accurate description of the terror and the terrorisation that occurs in … this dynamic and it makes you … consider something more sharply when we hear the word terrorism." And terrorism, she adds, is "exactly what too many women and children are experiencing".   Batty says she meets women across Australia who have had to change their names and move interstate to be safe. They live "anonymously in fear and always looking over their shoulder because they know he will never rest until he tracks them down", she says. "And that is the brutal reality." Stalking, she adds, is an "extremely high-risk factor" that is still not well enough understood.   Angela Lynch, a sexual and family violence prevention advocate, says sexual violence and stalking, are "well-established" high-risk behaviours. "They really go to a person's level of control, possessiveness and entitlement over that victim, and really point to high levels of danger. So we need to ask: what evidence is going before the court? How are they making these assessments of dangerousness?"   It's not uncommon for the legal system to continually give the accused the "benefit of the doubt", Lynch says, and when that occurs, it "pushes issues of safety back on to the individual woman".   "We need Government to engage on an urgent basis with gender violence experts — to listen to what's happening … on the front line — and we need a new way of responding to extreme risk, and obviously, all the other levels as well," she says. "The women in Australia, the community more broadly, are calling for urgent action on this."   * Australian Institute for Health & Welfare: In 2022, there were 129,876 victims of police-reported family violence and 117,093 victims of intimate partner violence aged 12 years and older.   The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2021–22 Personal Safety Survey (PSS) reports that: 1 in 2 women who had experienced physical and/or sexual violence from a current partner did not seek advice or support about the violence. 2 in 5 women (574,000) who had experienced physical and/or sexual violence from a previous partner did not seek advice or support about the violence (ABS 2023a). Frontline service providers say only 1 in 5 women report intimate partner violence to police.   Australian Bureau of Statistics data on personal safety (2021-22) reported more than 1 million women said they did not use public transport alone after dark because they felt unsafe. Another 2.2 million women said they did not walk in their local area alone after dark because they felt unsafe doing so.   http://australianfemicidewatch.org/database http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/26/we-wont-stop-violence-against-women-with-conversations-about-respect-this-is-not-working-we-need-to-get-real-ntwnfb http://www.vwt.org.au/thetrap/ http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/27/as-regional-australia-reels-from-several-womens-deaths-advocates-seek-both-policing-and-prevention http://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/social-justice-uts/social-impact/case-studies/counting-dead-women-hard-truth-about-australias-domestic-violence-victims http://www.paulramsayfoundation.org.au/news-resources/10-shocking-facts-about-domestic-violence-in-australia-launch-of-the-choice-violence-or-poverty-report-by-anne-summers-ao http://fullstop.org.au/news/national-crisis-as-abs-crime-data-shows-a-13-increase-in-sexual-assaults Visit the related web page
	International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation by UN Women, UNFPA, Equality Now   Feb. 2023   There are few more extreme reflections of deeply entrenched discrimination against women and girls than female genital mutilation. It is deeply rooted in communities’ gender and social norms and cultural and religious traditions. There is no way to change such harmful practices without challenging these discriminatory norms head on.   The International day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is an opportunity to focus efforts and build upon successful interventions. These include investing in the education of girls and their mothers, health education and community dialogues with parents and traditional and religious leaders. Men and boys also have an important role in transforming social and gender norms to end female genital mutilation as key change agents in prevention initiatives.   2023 sees the hard-won rights and freedoms of women and girls around the world under threat. The impacts of health crises, climate change and ongoing conflict increase their vulnerability to harmful practices, while also undermining programmatic efforts that have been making important progress. This is not a time to step back from efforts to end FGM, but rather to redouble them.   Women and girls have a right to live free from all forms of violence, have decision-making power over what happens to their bodies and equal access to education, employment, and income-generating and leadership opportunities. These rights imply duties in everyone to respond and to do so with urgency.   This International Day is also an opportunity to recognize the role of women’s rights activists working on the front lines to protect and support many millions of women and girls. They are the ones making the difference. They deserve every support.   UN Women continues to work with women and girls to accelerate the abandonment of this harmful and often deadly practice.   We will continue to engage in concerted activities with men and boys and traditional and religious leaders to build political will and reverse discriminatory laws; enforce existing laws and policies; support women’s economic empowerment and scale up evidence-driven prevention programming to create new norms that are survivor-centered, trauma-informed and emphasize accountability for ending FGM once and for all.   * Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a harmful traditional practice involving the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It can cause immense physical and psychological damage and is internationally recognized as a grave violation of women’s and girls’ human rights. It is estimated that some 200 million girls and women globally have undergone some form of female genital mutilation. The practice continues in communities worldwide, with Unicef warning 4.3 million girls are at risk of female genital mutilation this year.   http://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/statement/2023/02/un-women-statement-international-day-of-zero-tolerance-for-female-genital-mutilation http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/world-will-miss-target-ending-fgm-2030-without-urgent-action-including-men-and-boys http://www.unfpa.org/female-genital-mutilation http://www.unfpa.org/stories/i-wanted-be-last-woman-earth-have-undergone-fgm http://reliefweb.int/report/world/governments-asia-must-take-action-female-genital-mutilation http://www.equalitynow.org/female-genital-mutilation/ Visit the related web page
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