Grace Tame calls on police to better understand trauma
Police must better understand trauma and the impacts of sinister grooming strategies used by paedophiles, abuse survivor and Australian of the Year Grace Tame has said.
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Police must better understand trauma and the impacts of sinister grooming strategies used by paedophiles, abuse survivor and Australian of the Year Grace Tame says.
In an unflinching account of her own horrific experience as a child, Ms Tame said greater availability of information about trauma would also have helped her avoid “falling into the pattern of further abusive relationships”.
“Reporting to police, one of the things I found very unhelpful was the apparent lack of understanding from the officers … about the effects of grooming, and how I was more likely … to defend the perpetrator ironically in my statement,” she said.
Speaking on the final day of the Women’s Safety Summit, Ms Tame said she had “no frame of reference” for a healthy relationship after being molested at the age of six and later repeatedly raped by a paedophile teacher at her high school.
“I entered into violent relationship after violent relationship, not intentionally, but because … (I was) conditions, I was not taught what was a normal trauma response,” she said.
Ms Tame met with fellow advocate and former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins on Monday night, sharing a picture on social media declaring the pair were having their own safety summit.
Even though she believed police could have been more understanding of her case, Ms Tame described her case as an “anomaly” because her teacher was jailed, while nationally only two per cent of perpetrators are found guilty in court.
“To have the platform that I do, that is very rare,” she said.
“Most survivors don’t have this experience, and I’m acutely aware of that.”
Women’s Legal Services chief executive Angela Lynch told the summit Australia would never be able to prevent violence against women and children if there was no “accountability” in the justice system.
“You can have the best prevention media campaign in the nation … but if you have a legal and court system that is letting perpetrators of, which is what the situation is at the moment, you won’t get too far,” she said.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw also spoke at the event, arguing the behaviour of older generations of men was no longer acceptable.
“Men need to change,” he said.
“I do have faith in our younger men coming through.
“I think there’s a difference there with the older men at the moment.”
Mr Kershaw also called for greater information between departments and agencies to ensure victims could flee abusive homes safely.
“Information kept in silos does not help women, children and others who need our protection,” he said.
We need to consider privacy, but being truly connected will help law enforcement agencies share critical information to help protect the vulnerable.”
PM SAYS WOMEN SUFFERED ‘SERIOUS FAILINGS’ INSIDE PARLIAMENT
Too often Australian women are not safe in their homes, public spaces in broad daylight and workplaces, including Parliament House, and “sorry doesn’t cut it” says Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
In an speech opening the virtual Women’s Safety Summit, which will be used to inform the next five-year plan to prevent domestic and sexual violence, Mr Morrison offered a frank assessment of the status of women in Australia, including the “serious failings” inside Parliament House.
“Our country must become a place where every woman feels safe and can live free of fear,” he said.
“That is every woman’s right. But it is far from every woman’s reality as we know.”
Mr Morrison said even in parliament, women are “not always safe”.
“What started as a conversation about longstanding and serious failings in this very workplace, in this Parliament House, turned into a conversation, necessarily, about women‘s experience is everywhere,” he said.
“It is not a new problem and it is not a simple problem.
“But Australia does have a problem. While much has changed over the years, too much has stayed the same.”
Mr Morrison revealed he has been inundated with letters from Australian women sharing the “most anguished and personal experiences of their lives”.
“I’ve received hundreds of letters and emails from women sharing with me their stories about the violence, including sexual assault that they have personally suffered,” he said.
“Sometimes sharing things they have scarcely shared with anyone ever before. I want to thank them all for sharing their stories bravely with me.”
Mr Morrison said one letter was from a 74-year-old Queensland woman who told him she had been raped at 14 and was still suffering.
“60 years and not enough has changed,” he lamented.
Another woman from NSW wrote she had been assaulted by a work colleague in 1989, but at the time did not report to the police, others spoke of their fear of standing near their attacked in the witness box in a court trial.
“Through all the letters and emails, I felt that rage, the dread and the frustration that our culture is not changing,” Mr Morrison said.
“And there was something more. It was quieter. There was fatigue.
“One letter explained, ‘I’m exhausted just thinking about these things, I’m exhausted making what is now automatic adjustments to my behaviour. I’m so sick and tired of being scared’, she said.”
Mr Morrison said this fatigue was something he had been “pondering even more” after reading the letters.
“Australian women still do not feel safe, and indeed they are not safe,” he said.
“Every day they are forced to change their own behaviours because men won’t, holding their keys like a weapon, going for their run before it gets dark, having to say to their friends, ‘message me when you get home’.
“The foundation of respect for women in Australian society is not what it should be.”
The prime minister said one of the “critical issues” he identified in the letters from women was their “intolerable interactions” with the justice system.
“That is why in this years women’s budget statement we very deliberately set aside funding to strengthen criminal justice responses to sexual assault, sexual harassment and coercive control,” he said.
Mr Morrison said there was still an attitude and culture in Australia that “excuses and justifies, ignore or condones” gender inequality, which ultimately drives violence against women.
“That is on all of us,” he said.
Every nine days in Australia a woman is murdered by her current or former partner.
One in four women experience physical or sexual violence by a current or former intimate partner.
Mr Morrison said this was a “national shame”.
He said it was a “big goal” to end violence against women and children, that no single person or government “has all of the answers” for.
“But together, well that is a different story,” Mr Morrison said.
“Together, we can listen, we can learn, and we can make change.
“We can identify barriers and behaviours, practices and gaps so that Australia is a safer place for every Australian woman and girl.”
Australian of the Year and survivor advocate Grace Tame has criticised Mr Morrison for retelling women's’ assault stories in a speech about their safety.
Immediately afterwards Ms Tame, who is attending the virtual summit, criticised Mr Morrison for detailing the accounts.
“Scott has just finished his opening keynote address at the Women’s Safety Summit in which he appropriated private disclosures from survivors to leverage his own image,” she said.
“Gee, I bet it felt good to get that out.”
Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, who sparked a massive review into parliament’s culture after she went public with allegations she was raped in 2019, also responded to Mr Morrison’s speech on Twitter.
“While I respect the Prime Minister’s … ‘ambitious spirit’ for the National Women’s Security Summit 2021 – I just can’t match this Government’s actions with the platitudes and warm sentiments they are all extending today,” she said.
Ms Higgins also thanked the ACT government and the Victims of Crime Commission who “kindly stepped in at the last minute” to invite her to the summit as a delegate.
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