Listening Tour Diary
Show your support for the UN Say No to Violence Against Women campaign - 27 February 2008
Opening the 52nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon launched a seven year campaign to end violence against women.
As the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner I give my support to this campaign and I urge all Australians to sign the Say No to Violence petition at http://www.saynotoviolence.org/. The United Nations Foundation has committed to donate US $1 for each of the first 100,000 signatures to the campaign.
Violence against women is a serious and pervasive human rights violation in Australia. Violence has a tremendous personal cost for affected women, as well as social and economic costs for our community as a whole.
- As many as 1 in 3 Australian women are affected by domestic and family violence[1]
- Domestic violence is the leading contributor to preventable death, disability and illness in Victorian women aged 15 to 44[2]
- The estimated total annual cost of domestic violence in 2002-03 is $8.1 billion[3]
- Nearly 1 in 5 Australian women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15[4]
- 80% of women who have experienced sexual assault know the perpetrator[5]
In his address Secretary-General stated, ‘Violence against women is an issue that cannot wait. A brief look at the statistics makes it clear. At least one out of every three women is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. No country, no culture, no woman young or old is immune to this scourge. Far too often, the crimes go unpunished, the perpetrators walk free.’
There are no excuses for violence against women. Everyone has a role to play in challenging this violence: individuals, communities, governments and business. I look forward to working with the new federal government to ensure that women in Australia can exercise their right to live a life free from violence.
Elizabeth Broderick
[1] Mouzos, J. and Makkai, T. (2004) Women’s Experiences of Male Violence: Findings from the AustralianComponent of the International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) Research and Public Policy SeriesNo. 56, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra.[2] VicHealth (2004) The Health Costs of Violence: Measuring the burden of disease caused b intimate partner violence, Vichealth, Melbourne.
[3] Access Economics (2004) The cost of domestic violence to the Australian economy, Australian Government, Canberra.
[4] Australian Bureau of Statistics (2005) Personal Safety Survey, (Cat. No. 4906.0).
[5] Australian Bureau of Statistics (2005) Personal Safety Survey, (Cat. No. 4906.0).
Anonymous Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 11:23 pm
I am disappointed that the Commissioner has taken such an apparently sexist stance on the important issue of violence. All the statistics show that in every country on the planet violence against men is more prevalent and has worse impacts in terms of death, disability and illness than does violence against women.
Violence against men, like violence against women, is a serious and pervasive human rights violation in Australia. Violence has a tremendous personal cost for affected men, as well as social and economic costs for our community as a whole. At least one out of every two Australian men is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in his lifetime.
Of course we should all support initiatives to end violence against women, but let’s not ignore violence against men. I thought Ms Broderick was passionate about gender equality, not a battle of the sexes. Was I wrong? Let’s not go down the old tired road of divisive gender politics any longer. Let’s finally say NO to ALL violence. Please!
I want my three-year old niece to live a long life free from violence. Doesn’t my five-year old nephew deserve the same?
Fubeca Said,
February 28, 2008 @ 5:48 am
This is such an important topic! I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one raising awareness about this issue.
Luke Said,
February 28, 2008 @ 11:28 am
I think it is commendable that the mission to end violence against women is continuing in this country. However, I think it is discriminatory and deplorable that we continue to ignore violence against men in this country. Still we have no state or federal programs or campaigns to support almost two thirds of the victims of violence in Australia (ABS Personal Safety Survey). Even when trying to understand the levels of violence in this country we appear gender biased; the Australian Government funded the women’s component of the PSS to twice the dollar amount of the men’s component - making the sample size of men surveyed too small for generalisability.
Commonly the response to violence is prefaced with the adage; “Ah but you see most of the violence women experience is at the hands of men in the home, whereas men experience most of the violence at the hands of other men”. Does this mean we should continue to ignore violence against men because ‘it’s only other men perpetrating the violence’? Does it mean we should ignore any contexts that don’t adhere to male-perpetrator; female-victim dynamics? This is exactly what we do when we gloss over (of women that have been physically assaulted) 33% of women that have been physically assaulted by a female stranger (vs 18% by a male stranger).
It seems that facts are still being ignored in place of ideology; we know from numerous Australian and international studies that the majority of domestic violence is reciprocal yet hear nothing of the effects of such violence on men (too little do we highlight the silent recurring victims of such circumstances - children). According to the PSS men and women experienced physical violence from perpetrators who were known to them at exactly the same rate.
Thankfully violence against women has been identified as a fundamentally important public health issue; so it should be. My concern is that governments seem unconcerned by violence agaainst men. Do I have the human right to live a life free from violence?