International Human Rights Day

A statement by the Loddon Consortium for Gender Equality and Violence Prevention to demand the protection of our human rights.

10 December 2024

76 years ago today, a landmark document – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. It enshrined the inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being - regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Importantly, it set out for the first time, that fundamental human rights must be universally protected.

76 years later, the rights of the billions of people – most predominantly women and children – around the world are under unprecedented threat.

This is why, this International Human Rights Day, the Loddon Consortium for Gender Equality & Violence Prevention has united to stand up and demand that protecting human rights is the only way forward.1 We must protect:

Our right to exist.

Our right to live in safety.

Our right to equality.

Every 10 minutes a woman is killed around the world as a result of intentional violence. In 2023 alone, over 51,000 women had their lives forcibly cut short by acts of violence, mostly by someone known to them.2

Devastatingly, the violence does not stop there.

Globally, 650 million (or 1 in 5) girls and women alive today have been subjected to sexual violence as children.3

State-sanctioned violence is also escalating in unprecedented magnitude.

Globally, tens of thousands of lives have been intentionally, and forcibly ended due to violence, with unprecedented violence escalating over the last 14 months. War and conflict, disproportionately impacts women, children and diverse communities. A 2023 UN Women report stated that in 2023:

[T]he proportion of women killed in armed conflicts doubled compared to 2022. Four out of every ten people who died as a result of conflict in 2023 were

women. UN-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence increased by 50 per cent.4

In Gaza alone, more than 43,000 people have been killed – 70 per cent of whom are women and children.5 We know that this figure is underreported, with conservative estimates as published by numerous agencies, including the United Nations, the Gaza Ministry of Health, and world-renowned medical journal, The Lancet recently estimating that the death toll will eventually fall within the hundreds of thousands.6

We are what we allow.

The hard truth is, that as a community, we allow human rights abuses.

In Australia, we are bearing witness to the intentional killings of women as a result of gender-based violence every three days. During the last week of November, at the height of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, 6 women in 7 days were killed.

This is not an anomaly. Every six minutes Victoria Police respond to a family violence incident. The Victorian Crime statistics to June 2024 paint a sobering picture: police recorded over 98,000 family violence incidents in the previous 12 months. This signalled a

6.1 percent increase from the previous year. Victim survivors of family violence continue to predominantly be women and children, while perpetrators continue to predominantly be men.7

Rates of sexual violence in Australia over the last 12 years, have also increased year on year. Samantha McNally, ABS head of crime and justice statistics, stated that 2023 “[…] is the highest rate of sexual assault victim-survivors recorded in our 31-year dataset.”8

Nationally9:

1 in 5 women experience sexual violence since the age of
1 in 16 men have experienced sexual violence since the age of
98% of reported sexual violence are perpetrated by

And as rates of violence increase, funding models continue to be unsustainable. Core services for sexual violence, family violence, housing, and allied health operate under conditions that are defined by short-term, underfunded budgets that were never going to be able to allow services to meet demand.

Unilateral budget cuts and funding provisions to services are increasingly decided without consultation, without impact assessments and importantly, without future planning in place to safeguard victim survivors from further harm.

Politically, we are witnessing a disturbing trend towards an extremist right that is actively seeking to dismantle the inroads that feminists and human rights activists have fought long and hard for. Marginalised communities who are already experiencing increased rates of harm, particularly those from First Nation, LGBTQIA+, CALD and people with disability are at profound risk of further harm where human rights are not universally protected.

Within a context where gender equality has always been far from reach, the reality is that what was built over decades, has in just a handful of years, been dismantled, and we are again fighting on the frontlines for the most basic of human rights.

The incredible advocacy work of the trailblazing feminists that came before us must serve as an important reminder of why, more than ever, we must not be complacent in our advocacy.

Now is the time for us to make a united stand, to mobilise and take action to create a free and just world for all. Because now – more than ever – those at greatest risk of harm are facing extraordinary threats to safety and wellbeing.

We cannot do this alone. We cannot do this in isolation.

The only way forward is together, connected, with feet on the ground demanding collective action from each other, our peers and allies:

In solidarity for the victim survivors. In solidarity for the peacemakers.

In solidarity for the humanitarian workers. In solidarity for the specialist services.

In solidarity for the advocates.

In solidarity for the women, children and those from diverse communities of whom each and every life matters.

It’s back to the grassroots.

Signed:

Julie Oberin, Annie North Women’s Refuge

Kate Wright, Centre Against Sexual Assault Central Victoria

Margaret Augerinos, Centre for Non-Violence

Jeremy Hearne, Sunbury and Cobaw Community Health

Kellie Dunn, Women’s Health Loddon Mallee

1 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. Available from: https://www.un.org/en/about- us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights [Accessed: 3 December 2024]

2 United Nations 2024. ‘One woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by their intimate partner or family member’, Press Release, 25 November. Available from: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news- stories/press-release/2024/11/one-woman-or-girl-is-killed-every-10-minutes-by-their-intimate- partner-or-family-member [Accessed: 3 December 2024]

³ United Nations Children’s Fund, 2023. International Classification of Violence against Children, New York, 2023.

4 UN Women 2023. ‘War on women – Proportion of women killed in armed conflicts doubles in 2023’, press release, 22 October 2024. Available from: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news- stories/press-release/2024/10/war-on-women-women-killed-in-armed-conflicts-double-in- 2023#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20the%20proportion%20of,increased%20by%2050%20per%20ce nt. [Accessed: 9 December 2024]

5 Khatib R, McKee M and Yusuf S 2024. ‘Counting the Dead in Gaza: difficult but essential’, Vol.404(10499), p. 237.

6 Ibid.

7 Victorian Crime Statistics 2024. ‘Family Incidents’. Available from: https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/latest-victorian-crime-data/family-incidents-2 [accessed: 28 November 2024]

8 Australian Bureau of Statistics 2024. ‘Recorded sexual assaults reach 31-year high”, media release, ABS, Canberra. Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/recorded- sexual-assaults-reach-31-year-high [Accessed 9 December 2024]

9 Australian Bureau of Statistics 2023. ‘Personal Safety Survey’, available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/personal-safety-australia/latest-release and Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021. ‘Sexual Violence – Victimisation’, 24 August. Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/sexual-violence-victimisation [Accessed: 9 December 2024]

Rates of Reported Family Violence Incidents on the Rise in Regional Victoria

Rural and Regional Victorian communities are experiencing increased rates of family violence incidents.

5 December 2024

The recent Victorian Crime Statistics for the year ending 2023-2024 paint a clear, yet sobering picture: our communities are in crisis.

Statewide, a significant increase in reported incidents has been recorded with a 6.1 per cent jump from the previous year.

Police have also reported significant increases in incidences of children experiencing family violence.

Locally, our communities are not immune from this crisis, with regional Victorian families are twice as likely to experience family violence than those living in metropolitan area.

Working with both victim survivors and adults using violence, CNV received over 2500 referrals for support in 2023-2024.

Of these referrals, 2029 victim survivors were provided with intensive case management, including 1005 children.

Our response and recovery teams are experiencing an upward trend in the need for specialised, complex case management for both victim survivors and adults using violence – this necessarily requires providers to offer longer and more intensive case management support than in previous years. We are not only witnessing a rise in the reported number of family violence incidences, but concerningly also a rise in the severity of violence.

Victim survivors are presenting to our service with an escalated risk of harm by the perpetrator. Anyone who presents with more than five lethality indicators is considered to be at imminent risk of lethality or serious harm.

Of the 3513 risk assessments conducted 27 per cent of victim survivors had 10 or more lethality indicators.

The top 5 presenting lethality indicators to CNV this last financial year included:

Coercive control
Stalking
Jealousy/obsession
Risk of Serious Harm
Drug and Alcohol misuse

Executive Manager of Programs and Services, Yvette Jaczina highlights:

“[o]ur staff are reporting to us that not only is the severity of the violence escalating, that the complexity of the support needs continues to grow.”

The ongoing housing and cost of living crisis severely impacts a victim survivors ability to seek safety.

“…[f]inding suitable housing is particularly challenging and can leave women and children in desperate circumstances” states Jaczina.

Over 40 per cent of the victim survivors that CNV supported over the last 12 months spoke to their concerns around housing instability. We know that a lack of safe, affordable housing is forcing victim survivors to make the decision to either risk homelessness or stay in the home with the perpetrator.

We also know that the ongoing cost of living crisis is a significant concern for victim survivors who are already often at financial disadvantage due to financial abuse. Financial abuse is a common control tactic used by perpetrators and can include preventing victim survivors from accessing money, incurring debts in someone’s name, making financial decisions without including someone, stealing money or forcing the household to live on inadequate resources. 65 per cent of victim survivors supported by CNV listed financial stress as a contributing factor to their decision-making when seeking a life free from family violence.

CNV provided over $1.5million in brokerage support for victim survivors across the 2023-2024 financial year. These support packages are a critical component of our case management support for victim survivors. Brokerage support includes providing short-term emergency accommodation, fuel and food vouchers as well as short term tenancy support.

Victim survivors in smaller regional towns experience particular and unique challenges: they often face isolation because of distance, lack of transport and lack of police response. Many smaller towns in regional Victoria do not offer around-the-clock police response and this further compounds the complexity of how we need to adapt approaches to ending family violence.

To help combat the social isolation experienced by many who have experienced family violence and support recovery, CNV recently began to offer victim survivors, the opportunity to come together and be part of the Strong Voices Choir – with no experience necessary and children welcome, it is an opportunity for people to gather and experience the joy of singing in a friendly, informal setting led by two experienced choir leaders and supported by staff from our Safe, Thriving and Connected therapeutics program.

Importantly, while family violence is predominantly perpetrated by men against women, the evidence is clear: family violence does not discriminate. It impacts all families, from all backgrounds. CNV supported families from a diverse range of backgrounds, including working with people LGBTQIA+ community, First Nation community and CALD community. We are seeing right across the board, increases in the escalation of family violence, and we know that for many in our community, seeking safety will require specialised, tailored responses that organisations like CNV can provide.

If you or someone you know is experiencing family violence, please reach out today, we’re here to help.

If you, or someone you know is concerned about their behaviour, please get in touch, we’re here to help.

Centre for Non-Violence (Monday- Friday, Business Hours): 1800 884 292

The Orange Door (Monday-Friday, Business Hours): 1800 512 359

Safe Steps (24/7 statewide crisis response service): 1800 015 188

Djirra (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Specialist FV Service): 1800 105 303

Rainbow Door (LGBTQIA+ Specialist FV Service, 10am-5pm/7 days a week): 1800 729 367