Gender inequality drives violence against women. Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence – the first of its kind in Australia – found that gender inequality must be addressed to reduce family violence and all forms of violence against women.
Key statistics 1
- On average, one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner. [1]
- Violence in intimate relationships adds more to the disease burden for women aged 18 to 44 years than any other risk factor. Even more than smoking and alcohol use. [2]
- More than 60% of Victorian women have experienced some type of gendered violence and have felt at risk at work. [3]
Women and gender diverse people are less safe than men in shared and public spaces. Street-based harassment and assault is largely experienced by women and gender diverse people. Many women and gender diverse people worry about harassment and assault during transport journeys, especially at night.
Women and gender diverse people are much more likely to have experienced sexual harassment at work. Yet, it is underreported and perpetrators are rarely identified.
Some groups of women are disproportionately targets of gendered violence. This includes women with a disability, from multicultural and multifaith communities, and Aboriginal women.
Gendered violence can have long-term and serious negative impacts on victim survivors. These include:
- worse physical and mental health
- loss of or limited employment
- loss of housing
- less financial security
- isolation
- less social support
- loss of life.
This strategy challenges the attitudes, behaviours, cultures and systems that drive gendered violence. We will work to improve the safety of public transport and public spaces, and design them with the needs of women and gender diverse people in mind.
We will continue to work to prevent and better respond to sexual harassment at work. We will do this by working to restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) for workplace sexual harassment cases in Victoria. The Gender Equality Act 2020 and recommendations of the Ministerial Taskforce on Sexual Harassment will inform this work.
We will ensure workplaces treat sexual harassment as an occupational health and safety (OHS) issue. We will also increase WorkSafe’s capacity to take a lead role in preventing, and responding to, workplace sexual harassment (including through its existing OHS enforcement functions). This strategy will deliver the WorkWell Respect Fund and the WorkWell Respect Network. They will support employers to prevent work-related gendered violence, including sexual harassment in Victorian workplaces. We will also continue to enact Respect and Equality in TAFE to strengthen the TAFE network’s approach to gender equality and preventing gender-based violence.
This strategy challenges the attitudes, behaviours, cultures and systems that drive gendered violence. We will continue to deliver Free from violence: Victoria’s strategy to prevent family violence and all forms of violence against women. We will also continue to show leadership and advocate for collective action at a national level through the Australian Government’s National plan to end violence against women and children.
Key statistics 2
- Aboriginal women reported experiencing gendered violence at twice the rate of non-Aboriginal women. [4]
- Aboriginal women are 32 times more likely to be hospitalised due to family violence. Aboriginal women are also 11 times more likely to die from assault, compared to non-Aboriginal women. [5]
- Women are often the primary targets for online and public racist attacks. [6] Women experienced 82% of the Islamophobic attacks reported to the Islamophobia Register Australia in a 2019 study. [7] Women also experienced 60.1% of the 541 reports of racism made to the Asian-Australian Alliance between April 2020 and June 2021. [8]
- Women with disability are twice as likely to experience sexual violence over one year compared to women without disability. [9]
- People with an intersex variation were also more likely than those without such a variation to have been sexually harassed in their workplace in the last 5 years (77% compared to 32%). [10]
Case study: Respect Starts With A Conversation
Gender inequality enables the underlying conditions for violence against women and family violence to occur. Public campaigns can help encourage cultural change by raising awareness about the effects of gender inequality and challenging harmful attitudes and behaviours. Behaviour change campaigns are also a key action of Free from violence.
We supported Respect Victoria to create Respect Starts With A Conversation. It is a suite of videos that encourage people to reflect on what respect means to them, and to take action to promote respectful behaviours in their own lives and communities.
The videos feature everyday Victorians and aim to help Victorians understand how rigid gender stereotypes and dominant types of masculinity exist across homes, communities and workplaces.
Kobe and Mufaro’s video encourages viewers to reflect on their personal attitudes towards gender and relationships, and to promote respectful behaviour in their own lives. They speak about what it means to be a man, the role that respect plays in relationships and how breaking down unhelpful stereotypes about gender benefits both men and women.
‘The power of speaking up has way more impact than not saying anything.’
— Kobe
‘And so, as we are redefining what it is to be masculine and having vulnerability as an option, the way that it's impacted relationships with others is they've felt so much closer with the people around them.’
— Mufaro
The campaign has also appeared in cinemas, online and on billboards and radio across Victoria. Choosing to lead with respect in our relationships, workplaces, schools, universities and homes can ultimately prevent family violence and violence against women. Calling out discriminatory or disrespectful behaviour starts with every one of us.
References
[1] Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, Violence against women: accurate use of key statistics, ANROWS, 2018, accessed 12 April 2023. https://www.anrows.org.au/resources/fact-sheet-violence-against-women-accurate-use-of-key-statistics/
[2] K Webster, A preventable burden: measuring and addressing the prevalence and health impacts of intimate partner violence in Australian women. Key findings and future directions, ANROWS, 2016, accessed 06 February 2023. https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/a-preventable-burden-measuring-and-addressing-the-prevalence-and-health-impacts-of-intimate-partner-violence-in-australian-women-key-findings-and-future-directions
[3] Victoria Trades Hall Council, Stop gendered violence at work: women’s rights at work report, VTHC, accessed 06 February 2023. https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/victorianunions/pages/2370/attachments/original/1479964725/Stop_GV_At_Work_Report.pdf?1479964725
[4] Our Watch, Change the story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women in Australia.
[5] Australian Human Rights Commission, Wiyi Yani U Thangani: Securing our rights, securing our future report, AHRC, 2020, accessed 12 April 2023. https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-social-justice/publications/wiyi-yani-u-thangani
[6] M Peucker et al., ‘All in this together: a community-led response to racism for the City of Wyndham’, in D Iner (ed), Islamophobia in Australia Report III (2018–2019), Charles Sturt University, Sydney, 2022. https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/
[7] D Iner (ed), Islamophobia in Australia Report III (2018–2019).
[8] A Kamp et al., Asian Australians’ experiences of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies, Deakin University, 2021.
[9] Royal Commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability 2021, Alarming rates of family, domestic and sexual violence of women and girls with disability to be examined in hearing, Royal Commission website, 2021, accessed 06 February 2023. https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/news-and-media/media-releases/alarming-rates-family-domestic-and-sexual-violence-women-and-girls-disability-be-examined-hearing
[10] Respect@Work, LGBTIQ+ people, accessed 30 April 2023. https://www.respectatwork.gov.au/organisation/prevention/organisational-culture/diversity-and-inclusion/lgbtiq-people
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