TRANSCRIPT
Date: 24th September 2015
Time: 12:30pm
Interviewer: Will Gooding, Presenter, 5AA Radio Adelaide
Interviewee: Carolyn Frohmader, Executive Director, Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA)
Summary:
Following the announcement of the Australian Government’s $100 package of measures to provide a safety net for women and children at high risk of experiencing violence, WWDA Executive Director Carolyn Frohmader was interviewed by radio host Will Gooding on 5AA Radio Adelaide. In the interview Carolyn highlighted the need for a universal response to violence against women that is applicable to ALL women’s experiences, but which also incorporates direct and targeted measures that address the specific needs and experiences of diverse populations of women.
[Interview Begins]
Will Gooding:
We start the program this morning with what is the first major policy announcement of the newly constituted Federal Government. The Federal Government today announced a one-hundred million-dollar package to deal with domestic and family violence.
Now, there have been a number of horrific domestic violence cases over just even the past few weeks. The number overall this year of people that have died through causes that are attributed to domestic violence stands at a staggering sixty-three. I just had a look this morning on the South Australia Police website - that’s about the same as the road toll. It’s a staggeringly high number. Here is the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaking at that announcement earlier today.
[Audio recording]
We, as leaders, as a Government, must make it, and we will make it, a clear national objective of ours to ensure that Australia is more respecting of women. Women must be respected. Disrespecting women is unacceptable. It is unacceptable at every level. At home, the workplace, wherever.
WG:
So what do you get for one-hundred million dollars in combatting a problem that even most experts say needs to start at home? It needs to start by changing attitudes, it needs to be in schools, it needs to be generational, and it needs to be organic. So what does a hundred million dollars get you? Well,a couple of things. They will hand out now - that is, the Federal Government - mobile phones to women fleeing domestic violence to help them escape ongoing abuse. Part of the package, 36.5 million dollars, will be spent over three years to provide more training for police, social workers, and emergency service staff to better support women. There will also be training for hospital staff to recognise, or better recognise I would think, the signs of domestic violence and they will put on a duty lawyer at certain hospitals to help provide legal assistance. That’s some of the measures that are being talked about. I’m interested in getting the thoughts of a couple of experts over the course of the next 15-20 minutes or so, and also hearing your thoughts on this issue and the Government’s response to it. 8223 0000 is the number.
A little bit earlier I caught up with Carolyn Frohmader to talk precisely about this. Carolyn Frohmader is the Executive Director of Women with Disabilities Australia and was responsible for spearheading the organisation’s COAG domestic violence reform project called ‘Stop the Violence’, that was aimed at building evidence from improving service provision and future reforms. Carolyn Frohmader, welcome to the program.
Carolyn Frohmader:
Thank you very much.
WG:
First and foremost, congratulations on making the Australian Financial Review’s list of Australia’s one-hundred most influential women. That’s a terrific honour.
CF:
Yes, it certainly is, and it was a lovely surprise so thank you very much.
WG:
Let’s talk about the one-hundred-million-dollar package that the government unveiled today. How significant in your view are these measures?
CF:
I think anybody would agree they are enormously significant and clearly I would say the national consciousness has made it very clear that we need, as a country, to really step-up and do something around what is this national scourge. I think that any money is very welcomed. I would personally like congratulate and thank the Prime Minister,but also the Minister for Women,Senator MichaeliaCash,who I know has been very committed to this issue for a very long time.
WG:
If we were to take a step back, the word on the street - the broader context, the conversation that happens generally amongst people - is that we’re now confronted with all these statistics that are just absolutely mindboggling about domestic violence. They are truly confronting and it’s been a success I think in the last twelve months that at the very least now there is some acknowledgement that there is a problem. I think what is less clear to most of us - and I include myself in this - is what the solution is. We’ve got some money thrown at the problem today; we’ve got some measures that sound terrific. If we take a step back from that, where does the solution to this scourge as you put it, start? I mean what’s the number one thing that’s needed, putting aside what was announced today in your view?
CF:
Well I think that if we look at the research, it’s made it very clear that one of the key drivers around violence - any form of violence - perpetrated against women is actually around gender inequality. So it’s also about first and foremost, the way that women are viewed; the way that women are treated - that very basic issue of gender equality. You only have to look at the very highest levels of our leadership, the number of women in senior leadership positions - whether it’s in parliament, whether it’s in companies, whether it’s heading up organisations like the one I head up, right down to the behaviour of children in the playground in kindergarten. Stereotyping starts at a very young age, and I think one of the things that’s also become clear and certainly from my international experience, we actually need to be starting much earlier; in our schools, in our curriculum. Not waiting until high school or even senior or primary school to be educating and teaching our very young children about respectful relationships, around the right way for boys to treat girls, and young men to treat young women.
WG:
Will part of that happen organically as a result of generational change, different attitudes? I mean, as you say it comes back to attitudes towards women and the idea of equality. Is part of that change organic? In a way it makes it more difficult because it’s a very slow pace then.
CF:
It does make it more difficult. There’s no question about that. But cultural change doesn’t happen overnight and I think one of the things that society is to think that government can provide all the answers and all the responses. It’s naive. I think that everyone has a role to play. Parents, teachers, all through society it can’t just be seen as a government responsibility to do something around violence against women. I would also perhaps like to say very much from the position of my role as Executive Director of Women with Disabilities Australia, that we talk about the horrific statistics of violence perpetrated against women in this country and we’re all very aware of that now, but there is a lot of hidden violence against women that isn’t counted in that data and those statistics and women with disabilities are a very good example of that. So, as I said, we’re very conscious now around issues to do with domestic violence, but women with disabilities experience a wide range of violent acts perpetrated against them in lots of different settings.
WF:
How distinct is that problem? How does it require a different approach? Is it to some degree a unique situation?
CF:
No, what it requires is a universal approach that is actually applicable to every woman. What we do need within those measures and responses is to have targeted direct measures, targeted to women with disabilities, to Aboriginal women, to women from non-English speaking backgrounds. These are the cohorts and groups of women where violence is particularly epidemic but they are not well serviced by our service responses. An example of that would be domestic violence.
If we look at domestic violence, it is still understood fairly much in this country in a very traditional way of intimate partners, spousal violence, violence perpetrated against…by a male partner against his wife, girlfriend or whatever. But for women with disabilities, there are a large number of women with disabilities who live, for example in institutional settings, closed settings, group homes, respite care facilities, nursing homes, hospitals, prisons - those sorts of very closed environments, where that is their domestic setting. If a woman with disability lives in a group home, that is her home, that is her domestic setting.
Regrettably in Australia, our domestic violence legislation, to our all state and territory legislation, New South Wales would be one of the better ones, does not cover women with disabilities in institutional settings, because it’s not considered domestic violence. So this is where, in terms of the measures that have been announced today, was of course - one thing that we would be strongly advocating for is that there are very dedicated and target resources to those groups of women that I mentioned. Women with disabilities, aboriginal women, women from non-English speaking backgrounds. We definitely need to see dedicated recourses to those groups.
I think that while the measures that have been announced are great, we can’t just focus on training police, training service providers, training emergency workers, and training lawyers etcetera. That’s very important, don’t get me wrong, but we need to also see resources go towards teaching women themselves, and I’m talking here from the point of view of women with disabilities. If a woman with a disability doesn’t understand that what is happening to her is a crime, or constitutes violence, there’s no way that she’s going to be able to seek further support. Some of that money must also go to empowering and building the capacity of women with disabilities themselves. In the case of women with disabilities sometimes it can be the service provider or the carer, for example, who is the perpetrator of that violence.
WG:
That was really well said Carolyn. Thank you for that, I appreciate it. There are many layers to this discussion and I guess to some degree we should be thankful the fact that its now going on but you’re right, there’s a number of ways that perhaps haven’t been acknowledged to the degree they certainly deserve to be at this point in time so appreciate you talking about that with us. Thank you very much for your time.
CF:
Thanks very much.
[Interview Ended]