Sex Discrimination Commissioner urges for ambition in plan to reduce violence against women

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins says Australia’s next blueprint to reduce domestic violence must have a different focus.

Kate Jenkins is Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission. Picture: Aaron Francis

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins says Australia’s next blueprint to reduce domestic violence must be underpinned by an understanding of the diverse and intersecting needs of Indigenous and culturally diverse women.

The two-day National Summit on Women’s Safety 2021 on Monday and Tuesday will bring together domestic violence advocates, service providers and experts for a series of panels and roundtables that will help shape the next ­national plan to reduce ­violence against women and their children. Ahead of the event, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar warned governments that inequality experienced by First ­Nations women could no longer be an “afterthought” or “add on”.

The summit was announced weeks after former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went public with a rape allegation that triggered a national reckoning about harassment and violence experienced by women and the treatment of ­females in politics.

Ms Jenkins, who will be appearing at the virtual summit, told The Australian the new plan needed to tackle how overlapping inequalities affected women’s experiences of violence, noting the diverse needs of Indigenous women, those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, LGBTIQ communities and people with ­disabilities.

“The next plan creates the ­opportunity to commit to more ambitious goals towards eliminating gender-based violence in all its forms, by adopting a human rights-based approach,” she said.

For the first time, the national domestic violence plan will also have a stand-alone focus on sexual violence.

Ms Jenkins said “context has now changed” since the first ­national plan began in 2010 and needed to be broadened beyond domestic and family violence, noting technology was now a common enabler of abuse.

“It is important to recognise the broader systemic experiences of gender-based violence, including domestic and family violence, femicide and filicide, sexual harassment, online violence, sexual violence and violence in residential settings,” she said. “We know violence against women in all its forms is interconnected, and driven by gender inequality.”

Despite the 12-year national framework nearing its end, ­research from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that violence against women has remained relatively stable in this period. The institute’s 2019 report found one in six women had experienced sexual or physical violence by a partner since the age of 15. Indigenous women also have a heightened risk of facing family, domestic and sexual violence.

The institute’s 2018 report found they were 32 times more likely to be hospitalised from family violence compared with non-Indigenous women.

Ms Oscar said it was vital that governments worked with Indigenous Australians to implement the community-led solutions. “First Nations people have been calling for a specific, dedicated ­approach to the unique issues our women and girls face for a very long time,” she said.

“There has never been a nat­ional framework to respond to the inequality experienced by First Nations women and girls.”

“We need First Nations gender justice and equality to be considered and embedded in all government policy at all levels, to support and enable women to lead, participate and drive meaningful change.”

The federal government has faced calls by some senior Indigenous women for a separate national plan to deal with violence towards Aboriginal women and children, whom they argued had been “rendered invisible”. The federal government’s next national plan is expected to be finalised before the end of the year.