Voices against Violence

Assessing the Evidence on Violence against Women with Disabilities

Legal internship framework

The legal intern will examine legislative protections that are relevant to women with disabilities who have experienced violence. They will research relevant laws in Victoria, Australia, and internationally. As part of this review, they will consider how effectively these laws have been implemented. At the commencement of the internship, they will conduct a scoping exercise to determine which international jurisdictions offer examples of best practice in this area (the scoping exercise may take one to two days). Following this, the student and the supervisors will confirm the scope of the legal review and the structure of the final report. It is anticipated that the legal review will cover the following areas:

1.  Background information on the intersection of law, disability, gender and violence, and information about the hurdles that women with disabilities can face in having their experiences of violence addressed by legal systems.

2.  Victorian framework: legal definition of violence in Victoria, Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic), Personal Safety Intervention Orders Act 2010 (Vic), availability of victims’ crime compensation, Charter of Human Rights.

3.  Commonwealth framework: domestic violence and family law, Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), reference to the ALRC report on violence and Commonwealth laws.

4.  Best practice examples from other jurisdictions (United Kingdom, and possibly New Zealand and/or Canada).

5.  Relevant international human rights treaties: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women.

6.  Based on this review, the intern will develop recommendations for strengthening the legal protections against violence that are available to women with disabilities in Victoria.

Structure of the internship

The internship will be for 20 days.

Delanie Woodlock, Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria (DVRCV), will provide task-based supervision to the intern, including: developing a work plan with the intern to keep the internship on track, providing regular supervision sessions, keeping track of the progression of the intern’s work, reviewing the intern’s work, and dealing with any general queries or challenges that may arise.

Magdalena McGuire, Office of the Public Advocate (OPA), will provide content-based supervision to the intern, including: providing supervision sessions as needed, checking the content of the intern’s work, dealing with any legal queries raised by the intern, reviewing and providing feedback on the intern’s work, including their final report. Magdalena may be assisted with this task by OPA’s Legal Officer, Priya Carey.

Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria 292, Wellington St, Collingwood Vic 3066 Phone: (03) 9486 9866
Fax: (03) 9486 9744 www.dvrcv.org.au / Women with Disabilities Victoria
Level 8/255 Bourke St, Melbourne Vic 3000 GPO Box 1160, Melbourne Vic 3001Phone: (03) 9664 9340
Fax: (03) 9663 7955 www.wdv.org.au / Office of the Public Advocate
Level 1/204 Lygon St, Carlton Vic 3053 Phone: 1300 309 337 TTY:1300 305 612 Fax: 1300 787 510 www.publicadvocate.vic.gov.au