Nearly one-quarter of young people surveyed said women exaggerated claims of sexual assault. This is only one reason why education on underlying values that lead to violence against women matters.
The offence of controlling or coercive behaviour is distinctive because it protects victims from psychological abuse.
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Police sometimes misidentify victims as perpetrators – because the real perpetrator has misled them, or because the victim is not displaying “typical” behaviour.
Victoria’s Sentencing Advisory Council has recommended increasing the judicial monitoring of family violence offenders.
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Research is revealing that both families who have experienced adolescent family violence and those working with them feel the criminal justice system is not an appropriate way to respond to it.
A reliance on security infrastructure to resolve embedded social problems may be misguided.
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Family violence will not always be ‘obvious’ to CCTV. Therefore measures must be put in place to ensure that footage cannot be used against victims should circumstances of violence be challenged.
The royal commission made 227 recommendations to transform Victoria’s family violence system.
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Othello is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies. But in the light of 21st-century understandings of abuse, the play is recast as a textbook case of domestic terrorism.
Women typically use joint bank accounts to help pay for their children’s expenses, but they can also be used to control.
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The Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence put the pressure on banks to respond to economic abuse. Now the banks are taking the first steps.
Victoria needs an improved web of accountability to link various sectors together to ensure family violence perpetrators are made visible and accountable.
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Victoria’s family violence system unintentionally protects male perpetrators by making them invisible and providing opportunities for them to avoid responsibility.
Aboriginal Victorians are nearly eight times more likely to be involved in a family violence incident than non-Indigenous Victorians.
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Mainstream family violence services must also become culturally sensitive and responsive so they too can provide services to Indigenous community members.
If we are to prevent family violence, we must change the attitudes and social conditions that give rise to it.
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Children may endure family violence directly, or witness violence perpetrated on others. Both scenarios result in severe adverse effects for children in the short and long term.
The royal commission’s report should be viewed as only the start of the necessary transformation of Victoria’s family violence system.
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The royal commission’s recommendations seek a complete transformation of Victorian family violence services, and the state’s prevention of and response to family violence.
Some who survived abuse as children have waited a lifetime to be heard, and the royal commission has given people like John Ellis that opportunity.
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The silencing of children has as long a history as child abuse itself. It is why we need royal commissions, books, and now a play: to allow children to tell us the truth of what was done to them.
It’s estimated general practitioners see up to five abused women every week.
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Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence will today hear how the health system can better respond to partner abuse, with the help of trained professionals and broader, government support.
For awareness campaigns to succeed, people need to relate to the message.
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Many public awareness campaigns fail to change attitudes and behaviours because they start from the flawed premise that just telling someone something is bad will make them stop doing it.
There has been a dramatic decline in understanding that it is mainly men who perpetrate domestic violence.
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The royal commission presents a timely opportunity to greatly improve responses to family violence in Victoria. But as the volume of submissions reveal, this is a task not easily achieved.