Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1694501014676.pdf (Australia)
OUR WATCH SUBMISSION TO THE INQUIRY INTO FAMILY, DOMESTIC AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE July 2020 Contact GPO Box 24229 Melbourne VIC 300 ourwatch.org.au 1 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Contents Executive summary ............................................................................................................... 3 Summary of recommendations ............................................................................................ 7 About Our Watch ................................................................................................................ 14 About this submission and our evidence base ................................................................... 15 The international human rights context ............................................................................. 16 The importance of terminology in highlighting the spectrum of different forms of violence against women .................................................................................................................... 18 Gendered drivers of violence against women .................................................................... 19 A primary prevention approach to address the gendered drivers of violence ................... 21 Prevention of violence against women: strengths of Australia’s approach to date ........... 26 Current gaps and opportunities to improve Australia’s prevention approach ................... 36 The qualitative and quantitative evidence base around prevalence, and how to overcome limitations in the collection of nationally consistent and timely qualitative and quantitative data ..................................................................................................................................... 45 Impacts of COVID-19 ........................................................................................................... 50 A Second National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children ............... 54 2 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Executive summary This submission responds to multiple items in the Terms of Reference for this Inquiry.
As Our Watch is an organisation focused on primary prevention, our submission focuses in particular on the prevention aspects of this issue.

Primary prevention aims to stop violence against women from occurring in the first place.

It works to change the deep-seated gendered drivers of this violence, and the underlying social condition of gender inequality in which it arises.
While response and early intervention approaches work with individuals who are already experiencing or perpetrating violence (or at risk of doing so), primary prevention is a whole-of-population approach that aims to deliver a future where all women and their children live free from violence.
International human rights frameworks and instruments provide critical context for this issue, particularly the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) which names violence against women as a violation of women’s rights and a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women.

This framing provides overarching guidance for Our Watch, and for the National Framework to prevent violence against women, Change the Story, within.
In relation to this Inquiry it is important to explain Our Watch’s position on the issues at hand, our conceptual approach and our use of terminology.
Our Watch adopts the definition of violence against women used in Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and later adopted by COAG in the National Plan, namely: any act of gender-based violence that causes or could cause physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of harm or coercion, in public or in private life.
As Change the story explains: This definition encompasses all forms of violence that women experience, including physical, sexual, emotional, cultural/spiritual violence and financial abuse, that are gender based.

Gender based violence is violence specifically ‘directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately’1.
It can occur in homes, in social and recreational contexts, on the street, in workplaces, schools or online, and at the hands of perpetrators either known or unknown to the victim.

While the scope of the Inquiry is framed as ‘family domestic and sexual violence’, Our Watch views these forms of violence on the broader spectrum of gender-based violence described above, and therefore uses the scope and language of ‘violence against women’.
We suggest this terminology is more appropriate as it: 1 United Nations (1992) Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against women, General Recommendation 19.
3 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • • • • is better able to communicate the gendered nature of the issue; incorporates an understanding of how family domestic and sexual violence are not separate but often overlapping or co-occurring captures forms of partner violence that are not ‘domestic’ in nature; is broad enough to include other forms of gendered violence, such as workplace sexual harassment, abuse of older women not perpetrated by family members, misogynistic and violent online abuse, reproductive coercion, and trafficking of women, among others; • helps surface the common gendered drivers of all forms of violence against women; • • aligns with the current National Plan aligns with use in international human rights frameworks and the international literature; and • helps promote a focus on less well-recognised forms of violence against women, such as non-physical forms of violence, and violence that occurs outside the family or domestic context, This submission draws primarily on Change the story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women, as well as on the additions to the evidence base on prevention that have subsequently been produced by Our Watch, and on our practice experience working with a range of practitioners and other stakeholders, and in diverse settings to develop approaches, models, tools and resources to support prevention in practice.
Change the story outlines how gender inequality sets the necessary social context in which violence against women occurs and the series of specific gendered drivers, that this violence has.

Drawing on a range of international evidence it demonstrates that these gendered drivers arise from unequal and discriminatory institutional, social and economic structures, social and cultural norms, and organisational, community, family and relationship practices.
Together, these structures, norms and practices create environments in which women and men are not considered equal, and violence against women is both more likely to happen, and more likely to be tolerated and even condoned.

As the Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan states, ‘prevention is the most effective way to eliminate violence against women’.
The submission provides an explanation of a primary prevention approach – one that directly addresses these underlying gendered drivers, through the following essential actions: • Challenging the condoning of violence against women • Promoting women’s independence and decision-making in public life and relationships Fostering positive personal identities and challenging gender stereotypes and roles • Strengthening positive, equal and respectful relations between and among women and • men, girls and boys • Promoting and normalising gender equality in public and private life As noted, prevention work is separate to and different from efforts to respond to and intervene in existing violence, but all three strategies are critical, and interdependent, and must be undertaken simultaneously, to form a comprehensive and holistic national approach to violence against women.
An effective national prevention approach has the following components: 4 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • Working across all levels of society, with multi-faceted and sustained initiatives, using multiple techniques in different settings (such as workplaces, schools, and sporting clubs) and working across the life course.
• Comprising both specific prevention programs and interventions, and complementary political and institutional strategies, including public policy, legislation and regulation in order to make sustained changes to the social structures, systemic practices and social norms that enable, drive or effectively condone this violence.
The international and national evidence reveals that primary prevention activities which focus only on changing attitudes will be ineffective at making the societal shifts needed to prevent violence against women in the long-term.
Involving multiple stakeholders – with, all levels of government playing particularly important roles in coordination, leadership, funding, communication, planning, identifying opportunities across all policy portfolios, and developing appropriate approaches for the national, state and local level.

• • A commitment to comprehensive, secure and ongoing funding to enable a long-term approach to primary prevention; funding which complements (rather than deducts from) response service funding.
Within an across all these components, an intersectional approach is important in order to prevent violence against all women.

This requires acknowledgement of the various other forms of systemic social, political and economic inequality, discrimination and disadvantage that influence and intersect with gender inequality.
By addressing the social systems and structures, norms and practices that contribute to discrimination and privilege, and influence perpetration and experiences of violence, an intersectional approach can strengthen and improve the effectiveness of overall primary prevention efforts.
Our Watch’s assessment of the strengths of Australia’s national approach to prevention to date finds that these include: • COAG leadership to establish a national approach, and the implementation of Australia’s first National Plan to Reduce Violence against women and their children • Embedding primary prevention in the National Plan and subsequent Action Plans, as a dedicated and significant component alongside response efforts • Establishment of Our Watch as the national prevention organisation, to provide expertise, leadership, guidance and support across the country • Development and publication of Change the story – the world’s first national prevention framework • Drawing on lessons from international approaches and evidence • Development of best practice approaches to prevention in different settings, particularly education, workplaces and local governments • Development of a range of innovative, world-leading social marketing campaigns There are also a number of current gaps and opportunities for improvement.
Specific recommendations to strengthen and enhance Australia’s national approach to the prevention of violence against women include: 5 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • Enhancing funding for prevention • • • A need to embed a ‘whole of setting’ approach when prevention work is undertaken in any Improving coordination mechanisms Improving government policy commitments (across all jurisdictions) given context • A critical need to develop and support the prevention practitioner workforce • Ongoing development of the evidence base, particularly by improving monitoring and evaluation, and embedding lessons learned into future approaches • A stronger focus on broad gender equality policies and reforms, as integral to an overall prevention approach • A need to increase the focus on challenging harmful forms of masculinity, and engaging men in prevention efforts • Addressing limitations in the collection of nationally consistent and timely qualitative and quantitative data.
As requested by the Inquiry, this submission gives specific attention to the question of a what is needed for an effective Second National Plan.

Our Watch calls for a shared approach to developing the plan, through a cross-jurisdictional and bipartisan ‘co-design’ process, with strong buy-in from commonwealth, state and territory governments, and meaningful engagement of civil society organisations, particularly those with existing expertise on this issue.
In line with international frameworks, the conceptual framing and scope of the plan should be ‘violence against women’ rather than other terms.

Our Watch supports the need for a Second National Plan that spans prevention, early intervention and response and that presents the three approaches as not only equally important but interlinked and complementary.

As part of this holistic approach, a separate, dedicated focus on primary prevention is critical.
The findings from Tracking progress in prevention suggest that as a nation, Australia is headed in the right direction with our emerging approach to primary prevention and should stay the course.
While early progress on building the foundations for this approach is promising, we need a sustained, long term commitment to significantly reducing and ultimately eliminating violence against women, and a coordinated, national approach – a new National Plan provides the opportunity to embed critical elements of this approach for the long-term.
The prevention element of the Plan should be developed in collaboration with Our Watch, grounded in the evidence base of Change the story, and specifying strategies and actions that all governments will undertake to address the gendered drivers of violence.
Our Watch recommends that the development, scope and prevention components of the plan include: • a long-term commitment • a broad approach to achieving cultural change • a national, coordinated approach • a stronger focus on structural change • a stronger focus on challenging harmful forms of masculinity and engaging men in prevention 6 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • adequate and sustainable funding for prevention, including ongoing and additional funding for Our Watch • meaningful civil society engagement throughout the life of the plan • robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks.
Further detail on Our Watch’s recommendations for the Second National Plan is provided in the summary of recommendations below.

There is a need for specific attention to the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

Our Watch’s Changing the picture points to the intersecting drivers of this violence and the actions governments can take to address these drivers.
Our Watch supports calls for the establishment of a National Plan on Violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women, as recommended in various recent international human rights processes.

Changing the picture provides one valuable source of evidence that can be drawn on in the development of a National Plan on Violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women – particularly the prevention components of such a plan.
Finally, as requested by the Inquiry, this submission considers the impacts of COVID-19.

Like many other crises, COVID-19 is having specific and disproportionate health, social and economic impacts on women.

These impacts are being felt severely in the short term and will continue to have medium- and long-term consequences for women.

The pandemic has shone a light on and amplified existing inequalities which drive gender-based violence, further reinforcing the need for continued commitment to this goal.
Actions and reform aimed at preventing violence against women will be crucial to the crisis recovery period in Australia, to ensure that we both sustain the gains made in the past decade and continue to make progress towards the aims of ending violence against women and their children.

Primary prevention can help build long term community resilience and cohesion, through the promotion of gender equality and by addressing other intersecting forms of discrimination and disadvantage.
Beyond addressing the immediate impacts of the crisis on women, governments across Australia have an opportunity to address the drivers of violence against women and support primary prevention by promoting gender equality in crisis response and recovery planning and actions.

Embedding actions from Change the story in crisis recovery planning can contribute to the prevention of violence at this critical time and promote gender equality and women’s safety in the long-term.
Linking this crisis recovery planning process to the development of the Second National Plan, will ensure a consistent approach to preventing violence against women in both the immediate context and over the longer term.

There are specific ways in which the prevention actions specified in Change the story can be implemented in COVID-19 crisis and recovery planning and decision- making, including by incorporating a gender analysis in these policy processes.
Summary of recommendations Change the story makes clear that many stakeholders must play a role in a shared national approach to prevention, but that governments have primary responsibility for ensuring the health, safety and 7 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 equality of women as part of their international human rights obligations.
Australia has already developed the foundations for a bipartisan, cross-jurisdictional approach, with the National Plan bringing together Commonwealth, state and territory governments.

This collaborative approach will need to continue, with ongoing political leadership across the federal system necessary in order to consolidate and build on achievements to date.
In the next period, this cross-jurisdictional effort by Australian governments will also need to be improved and strengthened, to address a number of gaps and opportunities for improvement in the national approach.

While acknowledging the role that many other stakeholders will need to play in strengthening the national approach, this submission focuses on recommendations for all Australian governments.
These are summarised below, and contextualised and explained in more detail throughout the body of the submission.
To enhance funding for primary prevention, Our Watch recommends: • Moving towards longer-term and ongoing funding for primary prevention programs and activities, so that funding terms reflect the time periods of the frameworks and plans under which they are funded (such as the 12-year period covered by the current National Plan), in order to support the sustained long-term work that these plans recognise to be necessary to prevent violence against women.
• A greater focus on actions to drive institutional, systemic and structural change, including strengthening the gender policy machinery of government.
To improve coordination mechanisms, Our Watch recommends: • Establishing and strengthening policy, governance and coordination mechanisms across • • • portfolios, within jurisdictions, and between levels of government, to support coordinated, holistic and more effective efforts across the country, increased formal, funded and transparent opportunities for effective civil society engagement in policy; including, at the national level, mechanisms for civil society engagement in the development and implementation of the Second National Plan increased actions to support systemic reform which addresses intersecting forms of discrimination and inequality - such as racism or ableism – that play a role in driving violence against women, and in, transforming systemic and structural increased attention forms of inequality and discrimination that intersect with sexism and gender inequality, to ensure prevention works for all women.
investment to, and To support the development of the prevention workforce, Our Watch recommends: • the implementation of a national workforce development strategy, including processes for coordination and mechanisms to bring together key stakeholders to inform and contribute to the development of the primary prevention workforce.
To improve monitoring and evaluation of prevention, Our Watch recommends: • increased investment in, and focus on, evaluation frameworks and strategies to evaluate collective and coordinated primary prevention impact across Australia.
This should include development of a deeper and broader understanding of what constitutes research and 8 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 evidence in primary prevention, and how different types of evidence will be collected and reported on by various stakeholders.
To support gender equality policy and reform, Our Watch recommends: • The introduction and adequate resourcing of gender equality strategies in all jurisdictions, which aim to address gender inequalities across Australian society, and change the broad and underlying conditions that produce and support violence against women.
• At the national level, the development and implementation of a national gender equality strategy should be a priority – to create a framework for a holistic approach, provide guidance for policy actions and help identify gaps that require further research and policy attention.
Comprehensive gender equality strategies include: • Gender responsive policy-making and budgeting • Data collection strategies to monitor progress on gender equality and inform policy-making • Targets for women’s leadership and representation • Mechanisms for consultation and expert advice To more effectively address the gendered drivers of violence against women, Our Watch recommends that the next phase of Australia’s national approach to prevention involve a stronger focus on masculinities, and aim to strengthen the engagement of men and boys in the prevention of violence.
This work needs to: • Be implemented across all societal levels in order to address individual men’s attitudes and behaviours, but also the broader social norms, structures and practices.
• Be undertaken using intersectional approach • Continue to build the evidence base on masculinities and engaging men • Support and build partnerships and collaborations to do this specific work To overcome limitations in the collection of nationally consistent and timely qualitative and quantitative data, Our Watch recommends that all Australian Governments consider: • Developing a collaborative, cross-jurisdictional approach to addressing data inconsistencies.
• Training and capacity development for departmental staff on the importance of good data recording.

• Opportunities to improve consistency of data on the prevalence of sexual harassment in particular (in line with the AHRC Respect@Work report) • Establishing data partnerships to enable the pooling of resources.

• The development of a national, population level survey on the perpetration of violence.
• Establishing a coordinating body or mechanism to measure national progress on primary • prevention an ongoing basis.

Investment in and development of specific strategies to build evidence at the sub- population level that can better inform primary prevention practice.
9 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 To address the impacts of COVID-19, Our Watch recommends the following strategies (for all Australian Governments): • Promote and normalise gender equality in public and private life – by embedding gender responsive policy-making and budgeting processes to COVID-19 crisis planning and in all COVID-19 response decision-making, ensuring women’s equal representation planning and decision making, and increasing the involvement of women’s and specialist violence against women organisations in decision-making • Challenge condoning of violence against women – by continuing to use strong messaging that violence against women is always unacceptable; ensuring that measures to address violence against women are informed by an evidence-based understanding of the dynamics of violence and continue to have a focus on the gendered nature of violence and its impacts; and addressing expected increases in violence against women during the pandemic • Promote women’s independence and decision-making in public life and relationships – by ensuring a gender analysis stimulus measures; identifying opportunities to embed gender equality measures in government procurement and grant and funding agreements; and applying a gender lens to social security and other areas of policy to ensure that new measures introduced in response to the crisis are effective in helping to reduce the numbers of women living in poverty and supporting financial security and independence for women throughout their life course is undertaken on proposed economic • Foster positive personal identifies and challenge gender stereotypes and roles – by promoting and supportive gender-equitable domestic and parenting practices • Promote broader social equality and address structural discrimination and disadvantage – by challenging racism and all discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and women of colour; challenging ableism and exclusion of women with disability, including by increasing access to supports and services; and addressing systemic barriers to equal access to services and supports including for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women on temporary visas and women with disability.
Our Watch recommendations for the Second National Plan are that: • The Women’s Safety Ministers establish a national co-design group to lead the development of the Second National Plan, and that this group: is co-chaired by government and civil society include representation from all jurisdictions o o o establish mechanisms to ensure that the plan is developed with the meaningful involvement of women’s and specialist violence against women organisations, including organisations working with women affected by multiple kinds of discrimination and disadvantage • As the national organisation established under the first National Plan to lead the primary prevention of violence against women, Our Watch has a key role to play in identifying what is required to progress primary prevention work under a Second National Plan, and should be directly involved in its development – both as a member of the co-design group and as a source of specific expertise on the prevention elements of the plan.
10 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 § The Second National Plan be framed as a plan to address and prevent ‘violence against women’, rather than ‘family, domestic and sexual violence’ (although these forms of violence can be defined within the plan and where they are perpetrated against women, can be included in the scope); and that o The scope of the Second National Plan be described as including all forms of violence against women o The definition of ‘violence against women’ used in the Second National Plan remain consistent with that used in the first plan, as derived from the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, namely: “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” o The Second National Plan pay specific attention to the inclusion of forms of violence against women that have to date received less attention; including non-physical forms of violence, violence perpetrated in a range of settings, and new and emerging forms of violence.
• Like the first plan, the Second National Plan include a specific, dedicated and continued emphasis on primary prevention.

We recommend that this aspect of the Plan: o Be developed in collaboration with Our Watch, as the national prevention organisation o Reflect and be grounded in the evidence base provided by Change the story as the national shared framework for primary prevention, developed under the first National Plan.
In line with this framework, the Second National Plan should identify the need to change norms, structures and practices at all levels to address the gendered drivers of violence against women.
o Specify strategies and actions that all governments will undertake to address these drivers of violence o Set out how Australia will continue to build the necessary primary prevention infrastructure, including mechanisms for coordination and quality assurance; and for building and supporting an expert prevention workforce Include a national research agenda for prevention, developed in collaboration with Our Watch and ANROWS, and supported with dedicated prevention research funding o • The prevention section of the new plan include the following components: 1.
A long-term commitment and approach 2.

A broad approach, using strategies to achieve cultural change via multiple levers 3.

A national, coordinated approach 4.

A stronger focus on achieving structural changes 5.

A stronger focus on engaging men and boys in prevention, and challenging dominant forms of masculinity 6.

Adequate and sustainable funding for prevention 7.

Meaningful civil society engagement 8.


Robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks • Specific prevention funding commitments under the Second National Plan could include: 11 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 o Funding to establish primary prevention work in settings where little work has been undertaken to date o Funding for women’s organisations to enhance their approaches in ways that are appropriate to their local context.
For some, this may mean taking a holistic approach and working across the whole spectrum of prevention, early intervention and response in order to address sexual violence and violence against women in ways that meet the needs of their local communities.
Recommendations for ongoing and additional funding for Our Watch: To enable the ongoing work of Our Watch and to enhance the organisation’s ability to provide national leadership on prevention, and contribute to the implementation of the prevention components of the Second National Plan, Our Watch recommends that the Plan include: • Secure and sustained long-term funding for Our Watch for the life of the next National Plan (as opposed to three-year funding cycles) • An increase in Our Watch base funding, through agreement by all member governments to jointly increase member contributions • Contributions by each state and territory to enable dedicated Our Watch staff located in each jurisdiction, focused on supporting and increasing prevention activity in that jurisdiction (similar to our current partnership with the Tasmanian Government) • New funding to develop practice guidance in settings where little work has been undertaken to date (such as faith-based contexts, the arts, popular culture, advertising and entertainment, public spaces, transport and facilities, legal, justice and corrections contexts).
Funding of approximately $1 million over three years (per setting) would enable development of a comprehensive approach for a given setting, with project phases including research, stakeholder consultation, development of models/tools/resources for testing and evaluation with stakeholders in the setting, production and publication of ‘whole of setting’ resources and development of a dedicated website, or other online capabilities • Continued funding for Our Watch to lead the National Primary Prevention Hub, to support coordination, information sharing, learning and connection on primary prevention nationally • • Additional funding to support continuous quality improvement of Our Watch’s existing work, including Respectful Relationships Education, Workplace Equality and Respect, Equality and Respect in Sport, prevention in Local Government, and Media Making Change.
Funding to extend existing and established campaigns to continue effectiveness of impact.

And funding to support behaviour change campaigns connected to the drivers of violence against women when a communications focused solution is appropriate.

Funding to enable the continuation of the national monitoring work begun under Tracking progress in prevention.
• To prevent violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women, Our Watch recommends: 12 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • • the establishment of a National Plan on Violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women complementary actions to support the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, in line with human rights frameworks: o The establishment of a National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People2 o Commitment to and implementation of self-determination principles including sustained funding for Aboriginal-controlled organisations (as recommended by the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women in 2018).
In particular this should include funding for the National Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Forum implementing key recommendations made by Aboriginal- controlled organisations including from the Family Matters Roadmap and Change the Record Blueprint for Change, and other recommendations such as from relevant Royal Commissions and UN bodies.
o Commitment to In addition to our detailed recommendations focused on the prevention of violence against women, Our Watch endorses a number of key response-related reforms already on the public record that are focused more on responding to violence (or on a combination of response and prevention reforms).
In particular, Our Watch recommends the implementation of: • Women’s Legal Services Australia Safety First in Family Law plan3 • Blueprint for Reform: Removing barriers to safety for victims/survivors of domestic and family violence who are on temporary visas4 • The recommendations set out in the position paper on The Status of Women and Girls with Disability in Australia, to address violence against women and girls with disability5 • All recommendations from the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect @ Work report (which include recommendations for both violence prevention and response)6 Our Watch also recommends that the Second National Plan include a comprehensive strategy for sustained funding to specialist organisations that are responding to and intervening in violence against women.
2 SNAICC and Family Matters, Position Paper: Establishment of a national commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people (2019), accessed - https://www.snaicc.org.au/wp- content/uploads/2019/10/SNAICC_Family-Matters_Position-Paper_national-commissioner_FINAL.pdf 3 See further: http://www.wlsa.org.au/uploads/campaign-resources/Safety_First_in_Family_Law_Plan.pdf 4 See further: https://awava.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Blueprint-for-Reform_web_version.pdf 5 See further: http://wwda.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/The-Status-of-Women-and-Girls-with- Disability-Asutralia.pdf 6 See further: https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/sex-discrimination/publications/respectwork-sexual- harassment-national-inquiry-report-2020 13 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 About Our Watch Our Watch is an independent, not for profit organisation established by the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments in 2013.
Since establishment all State and Territory governments have become members of Our Watch.

Our vision is shared with the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010–2022 (the National Plan), namely an Australia where women and their children live free from all forms of violence.

The specific mandate of Our Watch is to focus on the primary prevention of violence against women and their children; to stop it before it starts.
We aim to provide national leadership to drive change in the social norms, structures, attitudes, practices and power imbalances that underpin, drive and support violence against women and their children.

Our Watch has four strategic goals: 1.

Evidence: Australians understand the drivers of violence against women and their children and their role in creating change.

2.

Action: Australians act to end violence against women and their children.

3.
3.

Leadership: We lead a national conversation about ending violence against women and their children.

4.

Sustainability: We are a sustainable and well-run organisation.
Our Watch draws directly on international human rights frameworks to provide the rationale for our work, based on an understanding of violence against women as a serious and preventable human rights abuse.7 Change the story: A shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women adopts the United Nations’ Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) definition of violence against women, 8 describes violence against women as a fundamental violation of human rights, and points to Australia’s obligation under international law to prevent this violence.9 The human rights-based imperative to end violence, and the human rights principles of collaboration, participation and ensuring equality of outcomes for all, inform every aspect of the framework.10 7 Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety and VicHealth (2015), Change the story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women in Australia, Our Watch, Melbourne Australia, 7.
8 Ibid., 19.

9 Ibid., 12.

10 Ibid., 13.

14 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 About this submission and our evidence base As an organisation focused on primary prevention, this submission focuses in particular on the drivers of violence against women, and on how to prevent this violence by addressing these underlying drivers.
It provides an assessment of existing prevention measures and makes specific recommendations to strengthen and enhance Australia’s national approach to the prevention of violence against women.
The submission draws primarily on Change the story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women, developed by Our Watch in partnership with Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and VicHealth, and launched in November 2015 (hereafter referred to as Change the story).

Change the story was endorsed and adopted by all Australian governments as the shared national framework for prevention in the Third Action Plan of the National Plan.
Change the story was developed following a significant review of the international evidence on what drives and contributes to the prevalence of violence against women.

It was also informed by an extensive national consultation process, involving over 400 diverse stakeholders from across civil society and all levels of government.

This enabled the Change the story framework to draw on existing practice-based knowledge and expertise as well as available research.
Based on this evidence, the framework presents an explanatory model of violence against women, and a coherent conceptual approach to its prevention – one that prescribes actions that are explicitly aligned with and designed to address the underlying drivers of this violence.

This submission also draws on various additions to the evidence base on prevention that have subsequently been produced by Our Watch.
These publications, which align with but also expand and deepen the evidence base and framework provided by Change the story, include: § Changing the picture: A national resource to support the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their children;11 § Men in focus: unpacking masculinities and engaging men in the prevention of violence against women;12 and § An analysis of existing research: Primary prevention of family violence against people from LGBTI communities.13 Finally, this submission also draws on Our Watch’s practice experience working with a range of practitioners and other stakeholders, and in diverse settings to develop approaches, models, tools and resources to support prevention in practice.
This includes our work: 11 Our Watch.

(2018).

Changing the picture: A national resource to support the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

12 Our Watch.

(2019).

Men in focus: unpacking masculinities and engaging men in the prevention of violence against women.
13 Our Watch (2017) Primary prevention of family violence against people from LGBTI communities: An analysis of existing research 15 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 § in schools and with Departments of Education to develop, pilot and support implementation of best practice approaches to respectful relationships education § with workplaces to develop, pilot and support implementation of the Workplace Equality and Respect Standards § with local governments to produce a Prevention toolkit for local government § with national sporting organisations to embed gender equality and respectful relationships into their networks and communities, and build cultures that help prevent violence against women, based on our resource How sport can help change the story.
§ with the media industry to improve the reporting of violence against women and help address the condoning of this violence, and to address gender inequality, gender stereotypes and in media workplaces.

Resources are available on the Media Making Change website.
women through media content disrespect towards and The international human rights context The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) sets out that violence against women constitutes a violation of the rights and fundamental freedoms of women and is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women.

Importantly, the Declaration makes clear that violence against women takes many forms, including physical, sexual and psychological violence.
This points to the importance of bringing attention to all forms of violence against women and ensuring that prevention efforts are underpinned by an understanding that the many forms of gender-based violence are interrelated, exist on a continuum and share many of the same drivers.

The Declaration provides an important foundation for Australia’s approach to preventing violence against women.
States who signed on to the Declaration, including Australia, have an obligation to “pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating violence against women”.
This includes: • Consider the possibility of developing national plans of action to promote the protection of women against any form of violence or to include provisions for that purpose in plans already existing, taking into account, as appropriate, such cooperation as can be provided by non-governmental organisations, particularly those concerned with the issue of violence against women;14 • Develop, in a comprehensive way, preventive approaches and all measures of a legal, political, administrative and cultural nature that promote the protection of women against any form of violence, and ensure that the re-victimisation of women does not occur because of insensitive to gender considerations, enforcement practices or other interventions;15 laws 14 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993), article 4 (e).
15 Ibid, article 4 (f).
16 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • Include in government budgets adequate resources for their activities related to the elimination of violence against women;16 • Adopt all appropriate measures, especially in the field of education, to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women and to eliminate prejudices, customary practices and all other practices based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes and on stereotypes roles for men and women;17 • Promote research, collect data and compile statistics, especially concerning domestic violence, relating to the prevalence of different forms of violence against women and encourage research on the causes, nature, seriousness and consequences of violence against women and on the effectiveness of measures implemented to prevent and redress violence against women; those statistics and findings of the research will be made public;18 • Adopt measures directed towards the elimination of violence against women who are especially vulnerable to violence;19 • Recognise the important role of the women’s movement and non-governmental organisations worldwide in raising awareness and alleviating the problem of violence against women;20 • Facilitate and enhance the work of the women’s movement and non-governmental organisations and cooperate with them at local, national and regional levels.21 Many of these elements have been built into the first National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (2010-2022), however ongoing attention to these international obligations is critical to ensure that they are reflected in the Second National Plan.
In particular as we look towards the development of a Second National Plan, it is important to continue to align our national approach with these international frameworks, and wherever possible to adopt the same consistency in definitions, language and scope.

This is discussed further in the section below that concerns the Second National Plan.
There are also other international instruments and reports that should guide and frame Australia’s approach to the prevention of violence against particular groups of women.
These include for example, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD); and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; the implications of which for the prevention of violence Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in Australia are discussed in detail in Changing the picture.22 16 Ibid, article 4 (h).

17 Ibid, article 4(j).

18 Ibid, article 4 (k).

19 Ibid, article 4 (l).

20 Ibid, article 4 (o).

21 Ibid, article 4 (p).

22 Our Watch.

(2018).


Changing the picture: A national resource to support the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

17 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 The importance of terminology in highlighting the spectrum of different forms of violence against women Our Watch, and Change the story deliberately adopt the language, definition and scope of ‘violence against women’ or ‘gendered violence’.
Our Watch strongly suggests terminology is more appropriate for a national plan than the term ‘domestic, family and sexual violence’, for the following reasons: § Domestic violence, family violence and sexual violence are overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women, making the term ‘violence against women’ more appropriate and accurate, and more effective in communicating an accurate picture of this violence; § The term ‘domestic, family and sexual violence’ suggests three separate or different forms of violence.
Yet the reality is that domestic and family violence often include acts of sexual violence; § The term ‘domestic violence’ is in itself too narrow to capture the whole range of partner violence – much of which is perpetrated by men who are not in a ‘domestic’ relationship with their victim (as in the case of ‘dating violence’ – among young people or adults – or violence perpetrated by an ex-partner).

International literature tends to use the term ‘intimate partner violence’ rather than ‘domestic violence’.
Using the term ‘violence against women’ provides a scope that better encompasses all these forms of partner/ex-partner violence, (as well as other forms of violence against women) § While domestic, family and sexual violence are the most common forms of violence against women, there are also other forms of gendered violence that are not captured by this phrase.
These include for example, workplace sexual harassment, abuse of older women not perpetrated by family members, misogynistic and violent online abuse, reproductive coercion, and trafficking of women, among others.

The broader term ‘violence against women’ is better able to encompass the whole range or spectrum of different forms of gendered violence.

§ § These types of violence have common gendered drivers, so are best understood as forms of violence against women.
Assuming a scope that encompasses ‘all forms of violence against women’ also enables a clearer understanding of the common factors, or gendered drivers, that underpin the many different forms that this violence takes, across diverse contexts and settings.
‘Violence against women’ (or sometimes, gendered violence’) is the term used in the international human rights context, derived from the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and reflected in other relevant United Nations guidance, and in usage in the international research, evidence and practice context.

It is important that Australia’s approach is carefully aligned with these international frameworks and with international usage.
§ To date, some forms of violence have received more public and policy attention than others.

There tends to be a focus on physical violence, and on violence perpetrated by a partner or ex-partner.

Given the prevalence of these forms of violence this is appropriate.
At the same time, however, there is also a need to increase attention paid to: o non-physical forms of violence (such as psychological or financial abuse and coercive control, stalking and online violence) 18 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 o violence that occurs in non- ‘family or domestic’ contexts, perpetrated by someone other than an intimate partner (this includes for example, non-partner sexual assault, street harassment, workplace sexual harassment, gendered online abuse).
The use of the broader term ‘violence against women’ provides a way of encompassing all these forms of violence, building public understanding of the connections between different forms of violence against women, and demonstrating the value of a prevention approach that addresses the gendered drivers that all these forms of violence have in common.
(Recommendation 1) Our Watch recommends that: a) the Second National Plan be framed as a plan to address and prevent ‘violence against women’, rather than ‘family, domestic and sexual violence’ (although these forms of violence can be defined within the plan and where they are perpetrated against women, can be included in the scope) b) the scope of the Second National Plan be described as including all forms of violence against women c) the definition of ‘violence against women’ used in the Second National Plan remain consistent with that used in the first plan, as derived from the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, namely: “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” d) the Second National Plan pay specific attention to the inclusion of forms of violence against women that have to date received less attention; including non-physical forms of violence, violence perpetrated in a range of settings, and new and emerging forms of violence.
Gendered drivers of violence against women There is a broad spectrum of different forms of violence against women, which includes but is not limited to family, domestic and sexual violence.

The many forms of gender-based violence that exist on this spectrum are related, in that they have shared underlying drivers.
As the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) sets out, they are rooted in, and are a contemporary manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women.

In line with this analysis, Australia’s shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children, Change the story, identifies gender inequality as setting the necessary social context in which violence against women occurs.
The framework demonstrates that there are particular expressions or manifestations of gender inequality that are most consistently associated with higher levels of violence against women.

These are referred to in Change the story as the ‘gendered drivers’ of violence against women.
A range of international evidence finds that these gendered drivers arise from unequal and discriminatory institutional, social and economic structures, social and cultural norms, and organisational, community, family and relationship practices.
Together, these structures, norms and practices create environments in 19 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 which women and men are not considered equal, and violence against women is both more likely to happen, and more likely to be tolerated and even condoned.
The gendered drivers of violence against women outlined in the framework are as follows: • Condoning of violence against women • Men’s control of decision-making and limits to women’s independence in public life and relationships • Rigid gender roles and stereotyped constructions of masculinity and femininity • Male peer relations that emphasise aggression and disrespect towards women Change the story uses a socio-ecological model to explain individual behaviour in a social context and illustrate the dynamic interrelations between relevant factors located at the individual, organisational, community, systemic and social levels.
This conceptual model is illustrated below.

This model, and the analysis presented in Change the story can help explain the prevalence and gendered patterns of family, domestic and sexual violence – and of other forms of violence against women.
Placed in a social context, these forms of violence can be understood not simply as individual behaviour, but as a social problem – part of a broader pattern of gendered violence that 20 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 has complex drivers located at multiple levels.

This understanding is key to developing an effective approach to prevention.

A primary prevention approach to address the gendered drivers of violence Violence against women is prevalent but not inevitable.
Our Watch is founded on the understanding that this violence is preventable.

While intervening in and responding to existing violence is essential, a primary prevention approach is necessary to stop violence against women from occurring in the first place and reduce the prevalence of violence in the long-term.

As the diagram below shows, primary prevention is a distinct approach with a distinct goal.
Prevention is different from, but complementary to early intervention and response work, and all three approaches are necessary to form a comprehensive and holistic national approach to violence against women.

This point is discussed further in the section below on the links between primary prevention and work to intervene in and respond to violence against women, which includes relevant recommendations.
As the Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan states, ‘prevention is the most effective way to eliminate violence against women’, and, ‘responsibility for the prevention of violence against women must move from being the focus of a small but dedicated specialist sector, to become a core priority for all industries and areas of government.
As noted in the previous section, the gendered drivers of violence against women are deeply entrenched across society, but evidence tells us they can be shifted – through specific prevention actions, together with sustained efforts to progress gender equality more broadly.

21 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Addressing these underlying drivers of violence against women is the hallmark of a primary prevention approach.
Change the story sets out five essential actions that comprise such an approach.

These are: 1.

Challenge condoning of violence against women 2.

Promote women’s independence and decision-making in public life and relationships 3.

Foster positive personal identities and challenge gender stereotypes and roles 4.

Strengthen positive, equal and respectful relations between and among women and men, girls and boys 5.
Promote and normalise gender equality in public and private life Change the story also demonstrates that is crucial for a national approach to prevention to be multi- faceted and sustained, involving multiple techniques in different settings (such as workplaces, schools, and sporting clubs) and working across the life course.
Single primary prevention programs and techniques (for example, direct participation programs, organisational development, and communications and social marketing) may have a positive impact but this is primarily limited to participants, and is likely to lessen over time if the message is not reinforced in other areas of those participants’ lives, and by other interventions and actions at other levels of society.
In particular, the implementation of primary prevention programs and techniques needs to be supported by complementary political and institutional strategies, including public policy, legislation and regulation in order to make sustained changes to the social structures, systemic practices and social norms that enable, drive or effectively condone this violence.
In outlining a shared national approach to prevention, Change the story identifies roles for many different stakeholders, but points to the particular roles and responsibilities of governments.

The Commonwealth government has a key role to play in coordinating and maintaining cross- jurisdictional leadership and in establishing a communication mechanism to drive and support a shared approach from the national to the local level.
State and territory governments have a role to develop their own plans, reflecting this shared national direction, but tailored and responsive to specific jurisdictional contexts and needs.

State and territory governments can play a lead role in crucial prevention settings that fall within their remit, such as education and health.

Local governments are well placed to respond to local concerns and to lead primary prevention activities through existing mechanisms and via a range of partnerships.
As highlighted in Our Watch’s Counting on change: A guide to prevention monitoring23, commitment to comprehensive, secure and ongoing funding for primary prevention across Australia is needed to achieve change on this issue.

This investment must complement (rather than deduct from) response service funding (which itself needs to be increased).
Primary prevention requires a long-term approach supported by sustained funding; it is this approach that has been critical to the success of efforts to address other public health issues.

23 Our Watch.

(2017).

Counting on change: A guide to prevention monitoring.

Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.


22 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 The importance of an intersectional approach to prevention Intersectionality refers to the interconnections between systems and structures of inequality, such as gender inequality, class inequality and racial inequality.
Change the story shows that, while gender inequality is always influential as a driver of violence against women, it cannot be considered in isolation, nor is it experienced in the same way by every woman.

Other forms of systemic social, political and economic inequality, discrimination and disadvantage influence and intersect with gender inequality in complex ways, and at all levels of the social ecology and must also be considered and addressed in order to prevent violence against women.
In some cases, they can increase the frequency, severity and prevalence of violence against women.

This means that while gender inequality is a significant factor, it needs to be considered and addressed alongside and together with a range of other factors that may be significant in some cases, such as racism, homophobia, the impacts of colonisation and ableism.
The Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and Their Children also points to the importance of taking an intersectional approach to the prevention of violence against women.

It emphasises the need to consider gender inequality together with other forms of social ageism, dispossession, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.
It points to the need to respect, listen and respond to women’s diverse lived experiences; and to understand and address the way in which multiple forms of discrimination or inequality intersect to create disproportionate impacts across society.24 discrimination disadvantage, classism, racism, such and as Because an intersectional approach focuses on the social systems and structures, norms and practices that contribute to discrimination and privilege, and influence perpetration and experiences of violence, it is an approach that can strengthen and improve the effectiveness of our overall primary prevention efforts.
Our Watch has recently undertaken work to explore the intersections between the gendered drivers of violence and other forms of oppression and discrimination in two examples: violence against LGBTI people,25 and violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.26 This work shows that for different groups of women, the gendered drivers identified in Change the story intersect with other factors to influence the prevalence and dynamics of violence.
Our 2019 submission to the National Inquiry into sexual harassment in Australian workplaces27 cites data that reveals that women who live at the intersection of gender inequality and other forms of 24 Council of Australian Governments, Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022, 26.

25 Our Watch.

(2017).

An analysis of existing research: Primary prevention of family violence against people from LGBTI communities.

26 Our Watch.

(2018).


Changing the picture: A national resource to support the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

27 Our Watch submission to the National Inquiry into sexual harassment in Australian workplaces (February 2019) 23 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 discrimination and marginalisation are more likely to experience sexual harassment.
This specific data pointing to higher rates of sexual harassment experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women living with disability, young women, women occupying the bottom two quintiles of socio-economic disadvantage, and people of diverse sexual orientations.

Too often, violence against different groups is considered separately, as different phenomena, but our work shows that this violence is overlapping and related and shares at least some similar drivers.
While responding to the needs of those who have experienced violence often does entail different and tailored approaches for different population groups, the implication for prevention is different.

Preventing different but related forms of violence implies the need for holistic strategies rather than separate approaches.
Rather than a ‘population group’ approach based on the different groups of people experiencing violence, an intersectional approach to prevention needs to focus more on those who are perpetrating this violence (or those who are more likely to), and on the factors that are driving the perpetration of violence against particular groups of people.
To ensure that strategies to prevent violence against women are intersectional – that is, that they work to prevent violence against all women – such strategies need to address the gendered drivers of violence together with other drivers (such as homophobia, transphobia, and the impacts of colonisation) that are present across society.
Links between primary prevention and work to intervene in and respond to violence against women A holistic approach to violence against women in Australia needs effort and actions right across the spectrum, from prevention, to early intervention and response.

Improving responses to violence is crucial, to ensure that women are both adequately supported, and have access to redress when they experience violence, as well as to ensure that perpetrators of violence are held accountable.
However, in order to stop this violence from happening before it starts, we need a dedicated and sustained primary prevention approach.

The importance of prevention is the focus of this submission, and of Our Watch’s work, however it is critical that this is seen as just one part of the necessary approach.

Primary prevention, early intervention and response are inextricably linked – and mutually reinforcing.
For example, improving system responses to violence against women can play a role in reducing the condoning of this violence, which is in itself a key prevention action.

For primary prevention to be effective, we need a well-resourced and well-functioning response and early intervention sector, and conversely, to decrease demand on response services in the long-term, we must resource the kind of primary prevention strategies that will reduce the prevalence of violence.
There are important roles for federal, state and territory governments to play in both prevention and response, and it is critical that the approach to both aspects of violence against women is shared and coordinated – across the country, and between different levels of government.

Our Watch maintains valued relationships with stakeholders working on response and early intervention strategies, providing critical services and supports, and developing proposals for policy and legal reform.
We support ongoing attention to any opportunities to improve resourcing for and support available to these sectors.

This includes using all available legal and policy levers to improve 24 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Australia’s responses to violence and increase support for and ensure the safety of women already experiencing violence.
On this basis, in addition to our detailed recommendations focused on the prevention of violence against women, Our Watch endorses a number of key response-related reforms already on the public record that are focused more on responding to violence (or on a combination of response and prevention reforms).
(Recommendation 2) In particular, Our Watch recommends the implementation of: • Women’s Legal Services Australia Safety First in Family Law plan28 • Blueprint for Reform: Removing barriers to safety for victims/survivors of domestic and family violence who are on temporary visas29 • The recommendations set out in the position paper on The Status of Women and Girls with Disability in Australia, to address violence against women and girls with disability30 • All recommendations from the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect @ Work report (which include recommendations for both violence prevention and response)31 (Recommendation 3) Our Watch also recommends that the Second National Plan include a comprehensive strategy for sustained funding to specialist organisations that are responding to and intervening in violence against women.
28 See further: http://www.wlsa.org.au/uploads/campaign-resources/Safety_First_in_Family_Law_Plan.pdf 29 See further: https://awava.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Blueprint-for-Reform_web_version.pdf 30 See further: http://wwda.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/The-Status-of-Women-and-Girls-with- Disability-Asutralia.pdf 31 See further: https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/sex-discrimination/publications/respectwork-sexual- harassment-national-inquiry-report-2020 25 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Prevention of violence against women: strengths of Australia’s approach to date COAG leadership to establish a national approach to violence against women In the past decade, Australia has made promising progress in establishing a world-leading approach to the primary prevention of violence against women.
The National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, established to support the development of a national plan, identified the usefulness of the socio-ecological model, proposed by the World Health Organisation, in understanding the issue of violence against women.
Importantly, the Council recognised that “unless society addresses the issue on all these levels (individual, relationship, community and societal), it will make little difference to the number of women whose lives are affected by men’s violence”.
32 The work of the National Council led, in 2010, to the establishment by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) of Australia’s first National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women (the National Plan) in 2010 to bring together the efforts of government across the nation to make a real and sustained reduction in the levels of violence against women.
Ten years on, there are very promising signs of political engagement and policy progress on this issue, with most State and Territory government policies on violence against women, domestic and family violence, and sexual violence identifying primary prevention as a priority.

This is a strong recognition of the need to undertake work to address the underlying drivers of violence against women and promote gender equality in order to create sustained, population-level change to prevalence rates.
Embedding primary prevention in the National Plan subsequent Action Plans While the National Plan covers the full spectrum of responses to violence against women, primary prevention is a key focus of the Plan, and has featured prominently in its four subsequent action plans, as a discrete area of work.
This reflects a recognition of the need not only to respond to the immediate crisis of violence, but to look to the longer term, to address the underlying drivers of violence, and work to increase gender equality more broadly in order to prevent violence from occurring in the first place.

This focus has been crucial to driving national commitment and action on primary prevention.
The National Plan’s commitment to primary prevention has been sustained, and arguably strengthened, in the fourth and final Action Plan, where prevention is named as national priority one, with the statement: ‘prevention is the most effective way to eliminate violence against women and their children, and that is why it is at the core of the Fourth Action Plan’.

The Plan makes clear 32 National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children.

(March 2009).
(March 2009).

Background paper to Time for Action: The National Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2009-2021, page 49.

26 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 that ‘gender equality is the key to ending violence against women and their children’, and that ‘women will never be safe if they are not equal’.
Establishment of Our Watch Our Watch was established by the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments in 2013 to drive nation-wide change in the norms, structures, attitudes, behaviours and practices that underpin, drive and support violence against women and their children.

Since establishment, all Australian governments have joined Our Watch as members.

The creation of Our Watch was in recognition of the need for a national body focused on primary prevention of violence against women.
The establishment of Our Watch as the national primary prevention organisation has proven instrumental in advancing national prevention efforts and supporting the work of the National Plan.
Publication and uptake of Change the story Of central importance in progressing the national approach to prevention has been the development and publication by Our Watch, ANROWS and VicHealth of Change the story: A shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia, which was subsequently endorsed by all governments under the Third and Fourth Action Plans of the National Plan.
As Our Watch’s recent three-year reflection on the uptake and impact of this framework states: Since its publication, Change the story: A shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia has been widely shared and endorsed, and used in many different ways by diverse audiences, from practitioners to policymakers, across a range of settings, and among both small community groups and large organisations.
In this time, Our Watch has also used Change the story as the evidence base that informs our own ongoing work – in policy development and advice to governments, in supporting established and emerging prevention practitioners and developing prevention models for different settings, and in the development of media content and social marketing campaigns to change social norms, attitudes and behaviours.33 The development, publication and promotion of Change the story has played a central and vital role in helping Our Watch drive a change in the public conversation about violence against women, contributing to the building of a shared vision for primary prevention in Australia for the first time.
33 Our Watch (2019) Change the story three years on: Reflections on uptake and impact, lessons learned and Our Watch’s ongoing work to embed and expand the evidence on prevention.

27 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 An independent evaluation of Our Watch’s work to date34 noted the ‘significant contribution’ the organisation has made to ‘unifying the conversation’ by providing ‘an authoritative voice’ on prevention.
It found ‘an overwhelming consensus that one of the key primary contributions of Our Watch to changing attitudes, behaviours and norms is the development of an Australian evidence base [through Change the story]’, with stakeholders reporting that this has ‘made an enormous impact’.

Drawing on lessons from international approaches As discussed earlier, Australia’s approach has from the beginning drawn strongly on international human rights frameworks and United Nations guidance.
Importantly, as it has developed, Australia’s approach to primary prevention also continues to draw on research, evidence and approaches from the international context.

For example, in 2019, the World Health Organisation published RESPECT Women: Preventing violence against women.10 This framework, largely aimed at policy-makers, identifies action- oriented strategies to prevent violence against women.
The framework reflects many of the issues and strategies detailed in Change the story and provides further information about prevention strategies that can be applied.
The RESPECT Women framework highlights the importance of reducing risk factors across the socio- ecological model (including discriminatory laws and low levels of women’s employment and education at the societal level, harmful gender norms at the community level, high levels of inequality in relationships at the interpersonal level, and attitudes condoning or justifying violence as normal or acceptable at the individual level).
It also focuses on amplifying protective factors (including laws the promote gender equality at the societal level, norms that support non-violence and gender equitable relationships at the community level, intimate relationships characterised by gender equality at the interpersonal level, and gender equitable attitudes at the individual level).
Other key programs and organisations internationally that can inform Australian prevention efforts include: • What Works to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls35 – A program funded by the UK Department of International Development working in 13 countries across the world building the evidence base on What Works to prevent violence in low-middle income settings • Sexual Violence Research Initiative36 – The world’s largest network on research on violence against women and violence against children.
Hosts the biennial SVRI Forum – the world’s key research conference on violence against women and other forms of violence driven by gender inequality in low and middle-income countries 34 PricewaterhouseCoopers.

(2018).

Our Watch, Our Journey (independent evaluation report).
Available at: https://d2bb010tdzqaq7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/11/05233002/Our-Watch-Our- Journey-Independent-summative-evaluation-of-Our-Watch_1.pdf 35 For further information: https://www.whatworks.co.za/ 36 For further information: https://www.svri.org/ 28 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • A framework to underpin action to prevent violence against women 37 UN Women Asia Pacific • Promundo38 – A global leader in advancing gender equality and preventing violence by engaging men and boys in partnership with women, girls, and individuals of all gender identities • Raising Voices 39 – A non-profit organisation based in Uganda working toward the prevention of violence against women and children.
SASA!

Is a ground-breaking community mobilisation approach developed by Raising Voices • Partners for Prevention: Working with Boys and Men to Prevent Gender-based violence40 – A regional joint programme of UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV for Asia and the Pacific.

The programme facilitates cross border exchange and learning across the region, and prioritises change at the institutional and policy levels.
37 UN Women (2015) A framework to underpin action to prevent violence against women Retrieved from: https://www.unwomen.org/- /media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2015/prevention_framework_unwomen_ nov2015.pdf?la=en&vs=5223 38 For further information: https://promundoglobal.org/ 39 For further information: www.raisingvoices.org/ 40 For further information: https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/focus-areas/end-violence-against- women/partners-for-prevention 29 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Development of best practice approaches to prevention in different settings One of the specific strengths of Australia’s approach to date has been the development of best practice approaches in particular settings, recognising the need to engage people across the many different environments where they live, work, learn, socialise and play.
As the national prevention framework, Change the story provides overall guidance for this settings- based work.

It sets out the importance of taking a ‘whole-of-setting’ approach that includes work across the socio-ecological model – including a range of techniques, from direct participation, to organisational change and development, and structural and policy change.
Since the release of Change the story, Our Watch has been implementing its proposed approach to prevention in four specific settings (sports, workplaces, media and education), and working with others to understand and develop best practice approaches.

In each case, our experience has reinforced the importance of taking a whole-of-setting approach and provided valuable lessons about what this requires in practice.
This approach recognises that within a single setting there are many different stakeholders and influencers, and therefore a need to identify actions that address the gendered drivers of violence across the whole setting.

For example, in the sports setting, this includes actions that involve players, coaches, high- performance staff, administrative staff, board members, governance personnel and fans.
In the education context, it means recognising that a school is not just a place of education, it is also a workplace and a community hub, and that prevention strategies need to engage people at all of these levels.

This whole-of-setting approach is also a response to the need outlined in Change the story for prevention efforts to work in holistic, complementary ways at many levels, addressing norms, structures and practices at the individual, community, organisational, institutional and societal levels.
The following section below outlines some of the lessons learned from Our Watch interventions in three key settings: • Respectful relationships education • Workplaces and employment • Local government Information is available on our website and in our publications about our work in other settings, including: • Engagement with the media industry, including the inaugural Our Watch fellowship program, survivor media advocate training, the Our Watch awards, and a national 30 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 curriculum for journalism students41 • Helping sporting organisations embed gender equality and respectful relationships into their organisations, networks and communities42 • The Prevention Handbook offers practical tools for the prevention of violence against women that are easy to find and use.
The Prevention Handbook is an ongoing project.

It will undergo content updates into the future with the aim to provide the best evidence-based tools for prevention of violence against women.43 Respectful relationships education and violence prevention schools Respectful relationships education is the holistic approach to school-based, primary prevention of gender-based violence.
It uses the education system as a catalyst for generational and cultural change by engaging schools, as education institutions, workplaces and community hubs, to comprehensively address the drivers of gender-based violence and create a future free from such violence.

The delivery of best practice, well-resourced respectful relationships education was one of the earliest areas that provided a robust evidence base for the efficacy of initiatives aimed at reducing gender-based violence.
44 In 2015, Our Watch published an evidence paper on respectful relationships education.

The evidence paper distilled existing international and national evidence into seven core elements for good practice respectful relationships education: 1.

Address the drivers of gender-based violence 2.

Have a long term vision, approach and funding 3.

Take a whole school approach 4.

Establish mechanisms for collaboration and coordinated effort 5.

Ensure integrated evaluation and continual improvement 6.
Provide resources and support for teachers 7.

Use age-appropriate, interactive and participatory curriculum.

Since the publication of this evidence paper, Our Watch has continued to scan new evidence in this area and the importance of these core elements have been confirmed.
41 For further information on media representations of violence against women and their children: https://www.ourwatch.org.au/getmedia/339a9055-16fb-4d57-8cb3-3d2a2f9c5fa1/Media-representations- of-violence-against-women-state-knowledge-paper.pdf.aspx Media Making Change website: https://media.ourwatch.org.au/ 42 For further information on preventing violence against women through sport: https://www.ourwatch.org.au/getmedia/01967038-a7f9-4267-ba3e-912c0fa0398e/A-team-effort-evidence- guide-AA.pdf.aspx 43 See further: https://handbook.ourwatch.org.au/ 44 Cahill, H., Dadvand, B., Walter-Cruickshank, E., & Shlezinger, K. (2019) An Integrated Approach to Educating for Social and Emotional Learning, Gender Education and Comprehensive Sexuality Education, Youth Research Centre, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
31 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Best practice respectful relationships education integrated effectively into the education system can have many benefits.

It can contribute to shifting the gendered drivers of violence against women at individual, school, system, policy, and broader societal levels.

In the short-term, respectful relationships education can challenge violence-supportive attitudes that some staff and students may hold.
It can support more respectful behaviour, counter gender stereotyping among students, and strengthen schools’ commitment to gender equality at the institutional level.

In the longer term, respectful relationships education has the potential to contribute to reducing rates of gender-based bullying and harassment, shifting school cultures towards being more gender equitable, and challenging violence-supportive norms.
There is a significant amount of evidence about the effectiveness of taking a whole-of-school approach to preventing gender-based violence in school settings.45 A whole-of-school approach means providing students with multiple exposures to key messages across the curriculum and in different areas of the school and community and is more likely to result in sustained changes at the individual level.
It involves engaging not just students, but school staff and the wider school community in the process of cultural change.
A whole-of-school approach to respectful relationships education aims to bring about systemic, sustainable change, such that changes in student and staff attitudes and behaviour are reinforced by supportive response mechanisms, policy frameworks, and the schools’ formal and informal culture.46 In this way it reflects a public health approach to violence prevention where effective violence prevention efforts are those that are intended to generate change at multiple levels – individual, relationship, institutional, and societal – and which use multiple strategies to do so.
Evidence tells us that short term, one-off interventions are not as effective as longer interventions that are embedded in a larger prevention strategy47 and a whole of school approach is a critical element of a holistic and systemic approach to prevention gender-based violence through respectful relationships education.

45 See for example: Bowring, A., et.

al.


(2018) Features of successful sexual health promotion programs for young people: Findings from a review of systematic reviews, Health Promotion Journal of Australia, Vol.
29, 46-57; UNESCO (2016), Global guidance on addressing school-related gender based violence, UNESCO, Paris, France; Crooks, C., Jaffe, P., Dunlop, C., Kerry, A., and Exner-Cortens, D., (2019), Preventing gender-based violence among adolescents and young people: Lessons from 25 years of program development and evaluation, Violence Against Women, Vol.

25(1) 29–55; Lester, S., Lawrence, C., & Ward, C., (2017) What do we know about preventing school violence?
A review of systematic reviews, Psychology Health & Medicine, Vol.

22, 187-223; Niolon, P., et.

al, (2019) An RCT of Dating Matters: Effects on teen dating violence and relationship behaviours, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol 57 (1), 13-23.

46 Fulu, E., A. Kerr-Wilson, and J. Lang, (2014) What works to prevent violence against women and girls.

Evidence Review of interventions to prevent violence against women and girls Pretoria: Medical Research Council.

47 Bowring, A., et.

al.


(2018) Features of successful sexual health promotion programs for young people: Findings from a review of systematic reviews, Health Promotion Journal of Australia, Vol.

29, 46-57.
29, 46-57.

32 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Primary prevention approaches in workplaces and employment Change the story identifies workplaces as a key setting for the primary prevention of violence against women, as they provide a significant opportunity to reach large populations including men.

Activities that influence aspects of organisational culture, work environment and practices, have strong potential to shape social norms and relationships.
This means employers have a key role to play.

Best practice approaches to primary prevention in workplaces adopt whole-of-organisation approaches to address the underlying drivers of violence against women.

This best practice approach requires organisations to identify and implement broad strategies to address the structural issues that are barriers to gender equity for their staff.
For example: conducting a gender pay gap analysis across the organisation and considering how inequities can be addressed; reviewing working conditions, including security of work and access to leave entitlements for employees; ensuring equal opportunities for career progression for men and women; implementing flexible working policies; and providing paid parental leave.
It also requires organisations to review and change workplace culture, including avoiding stereotyping language and images, seeking staff feedback on their experiences and perspectives on the way that gender influences and shapes staff experiences in the workplace, and communicating with all staff about what constitutes unacceptable language.48 Workplaces are varied, and thus approaches need to be carefully tailored to each particular context and circumstance.
Depending on the size of an organisation, there will be varied capacity to implement comprehensive strategies.

However, all organisations can undertake some level of activity to improve gender equality and address the four drivers of violence against women in their workplace.
Our Watch has developed a set of Workplace Equality and Respect Standards to guide workplaces to promote and embed gender equality and respect in the workplace through a comprehensive organisational change process.49 Recognising that no two workplaces are the same, the Standards do not provide a prescriptive program for workplaces, but rather offer comprehensive, flexible and adaptable guidance on best-practice actions workplaces can take to prevent violence against women.
The flexibility within the Standards also acknowledges that many workplaces are already taking action to promote gender equality, prevent violence against women and/or support employees who experience violence, and the Standards support such workplaces to strengthen their current activities.

To implement the Workplace Equality and Respect Standards, organisations are advised to undergo a process that they tailor to suit their workplace to create organisational and cultural change.
This takes time and sustained commitment.

Following this, it is crucial that organisations prioritise and 48 Our Watch.

(2017).

Workplace Equality and Respect: Implementation Guide.
Retrieved from: https://workplace.ourwatch.org.au/resource/workplace-equality-and-respect-implementation-guide 49 For further information: https://workplace.ourwatch.org.au/ To read the Workplace Equality and Respect Standards: https://workplace.ourwatch.org.au/what-is- workplace-equality-respect/ 33 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 plan their activity including by consulting with staff, collecting data, assessing the workplace against the Standards to determine priorities, and developing both a long-term strategy and immediate action plan.
In addition to individual workplaces taking action to prevent violence against women, Australia’s national approach must include policy and legislation reforms to address the significant systemic and structural issues in relation to gender inequality across the Australian workforce.
Strategies are needed at all levels to address these issues – for example, through policies to address gender segregation in the workforce, the gender pay gap, the disproportionate unpaid care work that women continue to undertake, access to affordable childcare, and insecure work such as underemployment and casual employment.
Strategies should also be adopted to address other trends in the workforce that create unequal power dynamics which also impact on women’s experience of and access to work, for example labour exploitation of people on temporary work visas and precarious working conditions for casual workers and people working in the ‘gig economy’.

Approaches are also required to address social and cultural norms that support other forms of discrimination in workplaces and employment, for example homophobia and racism.
Making steps towards a more gender equitable society, particularly in the domain of workplaces and the workforce, contributes to the essential actions that are needed to address all forms of violence against women.

Local governments As Change the story highlights, local governments are well placed to prevent violence against women and their children through their existing roles and services, as well as through partnerships with other organisations in the community.
Our Watch’s Prevention toolkit for local government includes practical, evidence-based resources, tools and templates to help local governments plan, implement and evaluate initiatives and strategies to prevent violence against women and their children.50 The toolkit can be used by all local governments across Australia, including those that already have strategies to reduce violence against women, and those that are just beginning to work in this area.
Respect and Equality in sporting settings There is a significant body of research examining the explicit links between sport and dominant norms of masculinity and highlighting the specific links between sport and violence against women.

Sport remains a key site for maintaining divisions between men and women, and for proving and validating the dominant ideals of masculinity.
Sport settings are popular social institutions, and as with other social institutions people learn and reproduce particular attitudes, behaviours and social norms in these settings.
Sport settings 50 See further: https://handbook.ourwatch.org.au/localgovtoolkit/ 34 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 therefore present an important opportunity to reach large groups and communities, and to help to reduce inequalities in our society.51 Our Watch’s evidence paper A team effort: Preventing violence against women through sport collates the evidence in this area and sets out ten key elements of promising practice.52 Development of innovative, world leading social marketing campaigns National communications and social marketing strategies are an important strategy to address and prevent violence against women when combined with other techniques in a multi-faceted approach.
Raising awareness is important, however it is crucial that awareness is translated into knowledge and skills for taking action to address the issue including promoting gender equality.

Social marketing campaigns can focus on social change strategies that move beyond awareness and towards changes to knowledge, attitudes and behaviours relating to the drivers of this violence.
There are many campaigns in Australia that work across the spectrum of violence against women (primary prevention, early intervention and response).

These include campaigns that seek to raise awareness about violence against women, support help-seeking for women experiencing violence or men perpetrating violence, and promote bystander actions, challenge gender stereotypes, support women’s rights and promote gender equality.
Examples of campaigns developed by Our Watch under the National Plan include The Line campaign on sex, dating and relationships for young people aged 12-20;53 No Excuse for Abuse campaign aimed at raising awareness of non-physical abuse;54 and Doing Nothing Does Harm campaign aimed at motivating people to do something when they see or hear disrespect toward women.55 51 R Liston, S Mortimer, G Hamilton and R Cameron (2017) A team effort: preventing violence against women through sport.
Evidence Guide prepared for Our Watch.

Melbourne: RMIT University.

Accessed: https://d2bb010tdzqaq7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/11/07030344/A-team-effort- Preventing-violence-against-women-through-sport-evidence-guide.pdf 52 Ibid.
53 See further: https://www.theline.org.au/ 54 See further: https://www.ourwatch.org.au/no-excuse/home 55 See further: https://www.ourwatch.org.au/doingnothingdoesharm/home 35 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Current gaps and opportunities to improve Australia’s prevention approach While Australia has made promising progress in establishing a national approach to prevention in the past decade, there are also a number of gaps and opportunities to improve the approach.
Key examples of these are described below.

Enhancing funding for prevention Primary prevention programming requires a supportive context, including policy levers to drive structural change, and sources of funding that support longer-term, interrelated prevention activity.

Policies, strategies and action plans that prioritise or include the primary prevention of violence against women have been developed by state, territory and federal governments.
However, short- term funding cycles, coupled with competition for funding, are cited by many working in this sector as constraints that hinder quality programming56.

Currently, overarching government policy documents provide the opportunity for ongoing investment and effort in primary prevention over time, however in many cases the actions and strategies they contain are funded only for short periods, which limits the potential for sustained improvement.
Ensuring actions and strategies are funded for the duration of the overarching policy framework or plan and strengthening the gender machinery of government will increase impact and ensure interventions contribute to broad and lasting changes across society, enabling increased focus on actions that move beyond individual change to drive institutional, systemic and structural change to reduce violence against women.
(Recommendation 4) Our Watch recommends: a) Moving towards longer-term and ongoing funding for primary prevention programs and activities, so that funding terms reflect the time periods of the frameworks and plans under which they are funded (such as the 12-year period covered by the current National Plan), in order to support the sustained long-term work that these plans recognise to be necessary to prevent violence against women.
b) A greater focus on actions to drive institutional, systemic and structural change, including strengthening the gender policy machinery of government.

Improving coordination mechanisms Preventing violence against women requires coordinated actions and approaches across all prevention activity to support both efficacy and reach, ensuring activity in one area reinforces and is reinforced by activity in other areas.
A mutually reinforcing and coordinated approach requires deliberate and explicit development of, and investment in quality standards, governance mechanisms support coordination, advisory bodies and communication activities.
The development of these mechanisms requires consideration of how they operate and who they to 56 Our Watch (2020) Unpublished Progress in Prevention Research Survey 36 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 engage, including their ability to centre the voices of those most affected by gender inequality and other intersecting forms of discrimination and oppression.
Our Watch’s forthcoming Tracking progress in prevention report finds that the last ten years has seen the establishment of some mechanisms to support coordination across different levels of government, designed to ensure consistency between legislative and policy reforms, programs, communications, campaigns and other prevention efforts.

These are encouraging signs of steps towards building this element of prevention infrastructure.
However, there is more work required to ensure that these mechanisms are able to coordinate and manage the complex work of undertaking the multi-level staged systems reforms required for the sustained, long-term prevention of violence against women.
While policy documents across jurisdictions often use shared language to refer to primary prevention and draw on (at least some aspects of) Change the story as the evidence-based national framework, current policy and legislative reforms are less consistent in ensuring policy development and governance arrangements embed funded and formal processes to ensure civil society participation.
Currently, of those governance and coordination mechanisms that are publicised, strategies are frequently led by particular agencies (for example, communities, women, health) and supported by interdepartmental mechanisms such as committees (with relevant departments).

Few strategies articulate any centralised interdepartmental mechanisms to lead primary prevention activity.
As such, effort could be enhanced through coordinating across diverse portfolios such as health, education, justice, housing, regional development, occupational health and safety and transport to ensure critical contributions to primary prevention occur across these and many other areas.
A more consistent application of a gender lens to policy development and legislative and budgetary decisions, together with careful attention to the intersections between gender inequality and other forms of discrimination, can help identify cross-government levers that can be used to address the multiple drivers of violence against women in many areas of policy and legislative reform.
These findings reinforce the need for improved coordination mechanisms to oversee a systematic, staged delivery of primary prevention activities that is conscious of the necessary dependencies and nuances required to achieve meaningful transformation for all women, across all jurisdictions and within all settings.
(Recommendation 5) Our Watch recommends the following strategies to achieve this: a) establishing and strengthening policy, governance and coordination mechanisms across support jurisdictions, and between levels of government, portfolios, within coordinated, holistic and more effective efforts across the country, to b) increased formal, funded and transparent opportunities for effective civil society engagement in policy; including, at the national level, mechanisms for civil society engagement in the development and implementation of the Second National Plan increased actions to support systemic reform which addresses intersecting forms of discrimination and inequality - such as racism or ableism – that play a role in driving violence against women, and c) 37 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 d) increased attention to, and in, transforming systemic and structural forms of inequality and discrimination that intersect with sexism and gender inequality, to ensure prevention works for all women.
investment It is critical to also note that a strong response system is a vital foundation for effective prevention.

Strong links between prevention activities and the response system are required to ensure that activities and communications in both areas are mutually reinforcing.

Advancing government policy commitments across jurisdictions Change the story is intended as a blueprint and shared framework for the prevention of violence against women for all Australian governments.
At this level, its aims were realised, with the inclusion in 2016 of a key action in the Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) Third Action Plan (2016- 2019) of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022.

This saw all jurisdictions explicitly endorse and commit to implementing Change the story as the shared national framework for prevention.
However, as Change the story three years on finds: While Change the story has been adopted in principle by all governments, the extent to which it has then been translated or embedded into government policies in each jurisdiction has varied57.
While the reasons for this include varying levels of infrastructure, funding and political support for primary prevention across the different jurisdictions, it also notes that: While the Third Action Plan endorsed Change the story and committed jurisdictions to implementing it, no funding was allocated to support implementation, and there has been no mechanism established to drive, coordinate or monitor its effective incorporation into policy across the country.
The forthcoming Fourth Action Plan provides a positive ongoing opportunity for refinement of these aspects of the developing national approach58.

An assessment in Change the story three years on of how successful Change the story has been in driving policy impact across the country is mixed.

Some policy documents do reflect Change the story at this level, and this is a positive first step.
However, much more work is needed to ensure that this basic conceptual endorsement of the framework is, over time, translated into concrete prevention actions, programs and funding commitments of the kind and scale that Change the story calls for.
A need to embed ‘whole-of-setting’ approaches across different contexts As set out in this submission, the socio-ecological model highlights the importance of taking a ‘whole-of-setting’ approach to work in different areas including education, workplaces, sports, 57 Our Watch (2019) Change the story three years on: Reflections on uptake and impact, lessons learned and Our Watch’s ongoing work to embed and expand the evidence on prevention, 11.

58 Ibid.
58 Ibid.

38 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 media, and local government.

This approach includes work across the socio-ecological model – including a range of techniques, from direct participation, to organisational change and development, and structural and policy change.
This approach recognises that within a single setting there are many different stakeholders and influencers, and therefore a need to identify actions that address the gendered drivers of violence across the whole setting.

Governments can play an important role in leading legislative and policy reform to support structural change in different settings, and also in supporting work at other levels of the socio- ecological model for example through funding.
Other stakeholders and influencers will play a role and can take action at different levels of the model.

A critical need for prevention practitioner workforce development Change the story makes clear that workforce development to support the planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of primary prevention and gender equality initiatives is a critical foundation for primary prevention work.
However while there is some good prevention practice being undertaken at the local level in some areas or in particular settings, for the most part, Australia has yet to develop the workforce it needs to implement primary prevention activities ‘on the ground’ at the scale that is required for this work to be effective at the population level.

Since the release of Change the story, the acute workforce shortage has become more obvious.
Growing public interest in the issue of violence against women, followed by an emerging interest in increasing specific prevention efforts, has underlined the critical need to address these workforce development issues.

Substantial work is required to significantly expand, develop and build the capacity of the prevention workforce across the country.
The emerging prevention workforce contributes to primary prevention of violence against women in a wide range of ways, including: • building capacity of other practitioners and organisations • advocating gendered approaches to work • delivering respectful relationships programs • engaging in workforce development for organisations and workplaces • raising awareness of violence against women, the drivers of violence against women and other linked concepts • promoting empowerment, gender equality and respect.
It achieves this through: involved in building the knowledge of others in relation to what primary prevention is • working in partnership with other organisations • • undertaking gender analysis/applying a gender lens to their work • developing and delivering informal training or professional development • building organisational capacity to embed primary prevention into everyday practice.
39 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Despite the essential role of the prevention workforce in building Australia’s long-term capacity to prevent violence against women, there is currently no national mechanism to provide the coordination, collaboration and quality assurance necessary to support this emerging prevention workforce.
A greater focus on actions that help to lay the foundations for sector development will enable investments at the setting or programmatic level to be effective.

This requires work to significantly expand, develop and build the capacity of the prevention workforce across the country, and to provide the coordination and quality assurance mechanisms that are part of the necessary ‘infrastructure’ for this workforce.
There is a clear need for an approach that supports workforce and sector development, across all foundational domains and at multiple levels – supporting transformation in institutions, within communities and workplaces, and for individuals.
At the same time, the scaling and ‘mainstreaming’ of prevention across diverse settings requires professionals working across a variety of disciplines to play a critical role by embedding prevention and gender equality efforts into their existing work and the core business of their organisations.
This mainstreaming also requires leadership teams in these settings to understand prevention and commit the resources and support required for professional development, and to drive and secure whole-of-organisation support for this work.
(Recommendation 6) To support this critical work, Our Watch recommends the implementation of a national workforce development strategy, including processes for coordination and mechanisms to bring together key stakeholders to inform and contribute to the development of the primary prevention workforce.
Developing the evidence base: improving monitoring and evaluation Building, consolidating and further developing the primary prevention evidence base has been recognised as critical to the effective prevention of violence against women in Australia.
As stated in Change the story: ‘A national approach to prevention requires a comprehensive, coordinated system for monitoring, accountability, reporting and evaluation.’59 As set out in Counting on change60, principles to guide the development of effective prevention infrastructure include: • Comprehensive and coordinated systems exist for data collection and analysis, monitoring, accountability, reporting and evaluation at all levels.
• All partners implementing prevention activity (governments, civil society, public and private sector institutions and organisations) report on progress, and evaluate their efforts against shared short-, mid- and long-term objectives.

59 Our Watch, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and VicHealth (2015) Change the story: A shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia.

Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch p. 49.


60 Our Watch.

(2017).

Counting on change: A guide to prevention monitoring.

Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.

40 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • Measures and targets are developed using an intersectional approach and reflect those outlined in Counting on change where appropriate.

Additional measures and targets reflect the specific context and objectives of the activity/policy in question.
An emerging gap in the infrastructure is the relatively limited investment in evaluation frameworks and strategies to evaluate collective and coordinated primary prevention impact more broadly.

Primary prevention activities are typically designed and funded in a way that only enables process evaluation, or evaluation of short-term impact of individual activities or interventions.
This means that the majority of evaluation work being done and published is not suitable or sufficient to inform strong coordinated and reinforcing activity design and strategic investment.

(Recommendation 7) Our Watch recommends increased investment in, and focus on, evaluation frameworks and strategies to evaluate collective and coordinated primary prevention impact across Australia.
This should include development of a deeper and broader understanding of what constitutes research and evidence in primary prevention, and how different types of evidence will be collected and reported on by various stakeholders.
Gender equality policy and reform as primary prevention The international and national evidence reveals that primary prevention activities which focus only on changing attitudes will be ineffective at making the societal shifts needed to prevent violence against women in the long-term.

Change the story identifies the need to change structures, practices and norms in addition to attitudes and behaviours.
Making steps towards a more gender equitable society contributes to the essential actions that are needed to address all forms of violence against women.

Broader gender equality strategies are therefore an integral part of an overall approach to prevention.

Without ongoing government commitments to address existing and emerging gender inequalities across society, and to advance gender equality, we will not succeed in eliminating violence against women.
As Change the story shows, gender inequality provides the necessary underlying conditions for this violence to occur.

Governments have access to many policy levers to promote gender equality and shift social norms to violence against women, gender roles and stereotypes.

There are opportunities to have a greater focus on actions to drive institutional, systemic and structural change, including strengthening the gender policy machinery of government.
This would also include increased actions to support systemic reform which addresses intersecting forms of discrimination and inequality – such as racism or ableism – that play a role in driving violence against women.

Further policy and legislative reform could use government levers to address the underlying drivers of violence against women (for example, by promoting equal parenting practices and supporting women’s economic independence).
41 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 (Recommendation 8) Our Watch recommends that: a) Australian governments introduce and adequately resource gender equality strategies which address gender inequalities across Australian society, in order to change the broad and underlying conditions that produce and support violence against women.
b) At the national level, the development and implementation of a national gender equality strategy should be a priority – to create a framework for a holistic approach, provide guidance for Commonwealth Government policy actions and help identify gaps that require further research and policy attention.
Gender equality strategies should include: • Gender responsive policy-making and budgeting • Data collection strategies to monitor progress on gender equality and inform policy- making • Targets for women’s leadership and representation • Mechanisms for consultation and expert advice A need to increase the focus on challenging harmful forms of masculinity and engaging men in prevention The increased public and policy focus on violence against women has significantly increased understanding of the ways in which women are disproportionately impacted by violence.
At the same time, there is increasing recognition that, this framing sometimes inadvertently makes the men who are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of this violence invisible.

This is a particularly pertinent observation for a prevention approach, because unlike responses to violence, which rightly focus on victimisation and the needs of women who are experiencing violence, prevention must focus on perpetration, on what drives some men to use violence, and how to change this.
As Australia’s approach to the prevention of violence against women develops, there is a need for an increased focus on this question, and specifically for a stronger focus on masculinities and engaging men.

As Our Watch’s recent publication Men in focus61 makes clear, this means including both: • a specific conceptual focus on masculinities and how dominant forms of masculinity are linked to the drivers of violence against women; and • a practical focus on engaging men and boys in prevention efforts.
The evidence states that 95% of people – women or men – who experience violence report a male perpetrator.

It is clear that men are a significant part of the problem of violence against women but importantly, they can be a part of the solution.

Masculinities and violence against women: the evidence base 61 Our Watch (2019) Men in focus: unpacking masculinities and engaging men in the prevention of violence against women.
42 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 There is an emerging evidence base that builds a deeper understanding of the links between masculinities and violence against women and what is needed to engage men and boys in prevention efforts.

Australian and international research shows that dominant forms and patterns of masculinity can create and give legitimacy to an overall system of gender inequality and, at their most harmful, they help drive violence against women.
These dominant forms of masculinity include the particular social norms, attitudes and practices that men feel pressure to conform to and support, such as expectations to be dominant and in control, to be autonomous and stoic, to act tough, engage in risk-taking behaviours, to be hypersexual, and to reject homosexuality and femininity.
Research shows that men who form rigid attachments to these dominant forms of masculinity, that is, those who adhere and conform to these norms and ideas, are more likely to display attitudes and behaviours that are gender inequitable and violence-supportive, all of which can lead to violence against women.
Men’s strong attachment to these norms also results in lower bystander intervention or a reluctance to intervene when other men are displaying sexist or violent behaviours towards women, and a higher likelihood of excusing or justifying violence against women.
Importantly, research shows that these norms, attitudes and practices of masculinity are also promoted and supported in our structures and institutions – where such institutions and structural processes can often reinforce, support or excuse attitudes and patterns of behaviours that are sexist and/or supportive of violence against women.
Our Watch’s extensive evidence review Men in focus synthesises this research and outlines a number of key principles and elements of promising practice for prevention work addressing masculinities and engaging men.

There is a need to continue building this evidence base and developing policies, programs and initiatives that apply the key lessons and principles from Men in focus and other evidence-based work.
Challenging harmful masculinities and engaging men: what is needed going forward (Recommendation 9) To effectively apply the lessons learned from the evidence base outlined in Men in focus, Our Watch recommends that the next phase of Australia’s national approach to prevention needs to involve a stronger focus on engaging men and boys in prevention, and challenging dominant forms of masculinity.
Prevention work that focuses on masculinities is important for building a deeper understanding of the gendered drivers of violence against women, that is, the ways in which dominant forms of masculinity underpin men’s control of decision-making, the adoption of particular gender roles and stereotypes and also how men relate to and bond with their male peers.
This work closely examines what is happening in the lives of men and how dominant norms, structures and practices of masculinity help drive men’s perpetration of violence, and it examines how we can address these patterns.

This also means we need to develop policies, programs and initiatives that engage men and boys in prevention efforts, as part of the overall approach to preventing violence against women and promoting gender equality.
Prevention work focused on masculinities and engaging men needs to employ the following four strategies: 43 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 a) Implement this work across all societal levels in order to address individual men’s attitudes and behaviours, but also the broader social norms, structures and practices.
Prevention work with a focus on addressing masculinities and engaging men should employ multiple strategies across all different levels of society, including the use of different and tailored strategies to engage different groups of men in ways that are meaningful and relevant, and within a range of key settings and contexts that offer opportunities to engage men and boys in different ways, for example, in education, sports settings, workplaces, or in their role as fathers.
Prevention efforts are more likely to be effective when they engage the whole population and work at all levels of society, including at the structural, systemic, organisational, community, interpersonal and individual levels of society.
b) Apply an intersectional approach to this work An intersectional approach is important for understanding differences among men, how these differences shape men’s violence against women and also how prevention efforts can engage different groups of men in ways that are meaningful and relevant.
This also requires ongoing effort to address the structural inequalities and social disadvantage that negatively impact particular groups of men by developing strategies to address the impacts of colonisation, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, poverty and ageism.
c) Continue to build the evidence base It is crucial that Australia continue to build the evidence base to develop our understanding of how dominant forms of masculinity help drive violence against women and what is needed to address these drivers, and how we can engage men as a key part of the prevention of violence against women.
d) Support and build partnerships and collaborations to do this work A national prevention approach should support collaborations and alliance building between organisations and research partners involved in prevention work with a focus on masculinities and engaging men and boys.

A collaborative approach will help promote consistency in how this work is framed and approached, ensure alignment with the evidence base, and enable the sharing of learnings and resources.
Organisations working on issues of masculinity or working directly with men should also build alliances and maintain a strong dialogue with women’s organisations in order to work effectively together towards the shared goals of achieving gender equality and preventing violence against women.
44 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 The qualitative and quantitative evidence base around prevalence, and how to overcome limitations in the collection of nationally consistent and timely qualitative and quantitative data Accurate, consistent and timely collection and publication of qualitative and quantitative prevalence data is critical to inform Australia’s approach to responding to and preventing violence against women.
Because this violence takes many forms, and is experienced across the life course in numerous contexts and settings, a range of different kinds of prevalence data is needed to ensure we build a comprehensive picture of prevalence (in contrast to the legitimate and necessary but also limited focus only on homicides that sometimes characterises public discourse).
The timely collection, publication and analysis of comprehensive and accurate data can help ensure that the full extent of violence against women is visible, and can inform decisions about resourcing – across the spectrum of interventions, but particularly to ensure appropriate funding of response services and systems.
When placed alongside other information (on changes to the drivers of violence), prevalence data also provides insight into how efforts to transform the underlying conditions that drive violence against women are tracking at the population level.

As acknowledged in Change the story, primary prevention is a complex, intergenerational endeavour, where progress is unlikely to be linear.
As Our Watch’s monitoring framework, Counting on change62 notes, Australian population surveys demonstrate that change in prevalence figures over recent decades has been incremental and inconsistent, and that: decreases in prevalence of violence against women cannot, therefore, be assumed or expected as the result of any ‘inevitable’ historical process, or improved responses to violence, alone.
Reductions in prevalence of violence against women can, logically, only be expected if we first achieve reductions in the factors that drive such violence.
Indeed, international meta-analyses suggest that, in some cases, prevalence of violence against women is resistant to even major sociodemographic shifts – such as improvements in national wealth or democratisation processes – unless accompanied by substantial shifts in the gender inequality that creates the necessary conditions for such violence.63 As outlined in Counting on change: a guide to prevention monitoring, while robust by international standards, there remain several challenges and gaps to tracking progress in the primary prevention of violence against women in Australia.
These relate most specifically to the measurement of 62 Our Watch.

(2017).

Counting on change: A guide to prevention monitoring.

Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.

pp.

26 63A 2015 study in medical journal The Lancet found factors relating to gender inequality predict the prevalence of intimate partner violence across 44 countries.
The findings suggest that policy makers could reduce violence by eliminating gender bias in ownership rights and addressing norms that justify wife beating and male control of female behaviour.

Heise, L. & Kotsadam, A.

(2015).

Cross-national and multi-level correlates of partner violence: An analysis of data from population-based surveys.
Lancet Global Health, 3(6), 332–340 45 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 prevention infrastructure and programming and change against the drivers and reinforcing factors of violence.
The absence of data poses obvious challenges to the tracking of progress, yet even where data gathering mechanisms exist, there are challenges for those seeking to accurately track change in relation to this complex issue.64 One of these challenges is the lack of consistency in data across the country, with significant variation across jurisdictions; in the definitions used for types of violence and the range of behaviours associated with each, as well as in legal and policy frameworks and data collection methods.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics and Australian Institute of Health and Welfare have begun addressing many of the data gaps in this area, however challenges and inconsistencies remain at the state and territory level.

(Recommendation 10) Our Watch recommends that all Australian Governments consider: • developing a collaborative, cross-jurisdictional approach to addressing data inconsistencies.
This could include agreement on standardised monitoring and reporting templates, a standardised minimum data set and a similar administrative approach to data collection.

Collaboration of this kind would improve consistency and comparability of results across jurisdictions.

training and capacity development for departmental staff on the importance of good data recording.
Improved data recording processes will improve the overall quality of data that can be derived from administrative by-product data sets.

Consistent data collection also helps government departments better perform their statutory roles and provides many organisational benefits.

• • opportunities to improve consistency of data on the prevalence of sexual harassment in particular.
The anti-discrimination boards and equal opportunity commissions in each state/territory keep records of reported incidents of sexual harassment.
In line with recommendation 3 from the Respect@Work: National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces, agencies that handle workplace sexual harassment matters should work to improve understanding through agreed data sets and formal arrangements for information sharing and data exchange.65 Each jurisdiction should use this data to inform prevention monitoring and assessments of prevalence in their respective region.
Accurate state/territory level data on sexual harassment in the workplace (and in public spaces) would also be useful in establishing a baseline.

• Establishing data partnerships to enable the pooling of resources.

If states/territories provide resources for national data collection work, the sample can increase in size, enabling data to be disaggregated by each state/ territory in a more robust manner.
This is particularly pertinent to the collection of accurate data on specific population groups, where greater sample sizes will enable a more accurate representation of the prevalence of 64 Our Watch.

(2017).

Counting on change: A guide to prevention monitoring.

Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.

pp.

93.

65 Australian Human Rights Commission (2020) Respect@Work: National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces, 122.
46 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 violence against women in those groups.
This in turn can help inform an intersectional analysis of prevalence and experiences of violence.66 As the first implementation of Counting on change, Our Watch’s forthcoming Tracking Progress in Prevention report finds that over the past decade, there has been important investment in the development of a national guide to monitoring primary prevention (Counting on change), a national research agenda (ANROWS), and the development of data sets and tools, such as the Directory of Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Statistics,67 the ABS Gender Indicators68 and funding for a National Data Collection Framework.
There is also commitment to national data collection, management and dissemination strategies, with clear efforts being made to continually refine shared datasets at the population level.

At the same time, gaps and limitations remain in existing population-level data, which inhibit the collation of data for key indicators of the drivers and reinforcing factors of violence against women.
Consequences of these gaps include: • Under-representation and under-recording of some population groups; for example, people who speak a language other than English or people living with disability may not be interviewed in population level surveys and may therefore be underrepresented.

Residents of non-private dwellings, such as university residences, aged-care facilities, and shelters may also be excluded from such surveys.
• Narrow definitions of violence producing data on some forms of violence (physical and/or sexual violence, some forms of emotional abuse) but far less on other forms, such as financial abuse, technology-facilitated abuse and technology-facilitated stalking.

Limited available data on sexual coercion, sexual pressure and unwanted sexual experiences, much of which is not disaggregated beyond gender.
• • Missing demographic information, and data that is not able to be disaggregated by multiple demographic factors (for example sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability).

• Data on discrimination that is not disaggregated by both gender and other factors (such as disability, sexuality or gender beyond a binary definition), and that lacks the multifaceted focus on prejudicial attitudes that is necessary to build a full picture of this issue.

One particularly significant data gap is data on perpetration.
The Personal Safety Survey and the Crime Victimisation Survey are surveys of victims, not perpetrators, asking about experiences of victimisation, and victims’ perceptions of incidents.

As such, these surveys tell us little about the dynamics and patterns of perpetration, or the characteristics of perpetrators.

(Recommendation 11) Our Watch recommends consideration be given to the development of a national, population level survey on the perpetration of violence.
66 Counting on change: A guide to prevention monitoring.

Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch 67 Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018) Directory of family, domestic, and sexual violence statistics.

4533.0.

Retrieved 5 May 2020 68 Australian Bureau of Statistics.

(2019).

Gender Indicators, Australia, Nov 2019 (cat.

no.

4125.0).
no.

4125.0).

47 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Another gap is the lack of robust data, especially data allowing for analysis of change over time, on the kinds of attitudes and norms related to masculinity that are subscribed to by men and boys in Australia.

This is an area in which there is a significant need for data development.
The limitations outlined above exist in part because the development of population level data sets involves the social construction of demographic categories (such as gender identity, sexual orientation, cultural background, Indigenous status, disability status, and so on), as well as choices about scope (which forms of violence to include, how to measure prevalence of violence, what defines a family or intimate relationship).
The administration and sampling techniques of data instruments also require choices about who to include and how.

Moreover, the purpose of each data instrument, and the people and power relations involved in developing and administering it, all have implications for ‘who and what counts’.
All these factors mean datasets can reinforce existing patterns of power and privilege, invisibility and marginalisation, and often fail to adequately capture the effects of intersecting forms of discrimination and privilege69.

Consequently, many existing data sources provide an incomplete picture of the extent of all forms of violence against women in Australia.

This should be a consideration in efforts to overcome the limitations of existing surveys and other data collection instruments.
Improving disaggregated data collection is a key step towards an intersectional approach to monitoring.
However, while resolving these issues would give us ‘data about diversity’, we must then ensure we adopt an appropriate intersectional approach to analysing such data, in a way that doesn’t simply ‘add’ diversity characteristics together, but looks at how they might intersect.70 The presentation and interpretation of data, if not carefully considered, can have the effect of decontextualizing issues and ‘problematising’ certain groups, adopting a deficit-focus that can reinforce harmful stereotypes.
(Recommendation 12) Our Watch recommends: • Establishing a coordinating body or mechanism to measure national progress on primary • prevention an ongoing basis.
Investment in and development of specific strategies to build evidence at the sub- population level that can better inform primary prevention practice, for example: o development of reliable place-based and aggregated data to inform communities designing responses to and prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.71 69 Merry, S. E. (2016).

The Seductions of Quantification: measuring human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking.
Chicago, USA: The University of Chicago Press.

70 Our Watch.

(2017).

Counting on change: A guide to prevention monitoring.

Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.

pp.

21-22.

71 Our Watch.

(2018).

Changing the picture: A national resource to support the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their children, Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.
48 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 o research to better understand the drivers of violence against LGBTQI people, to generate empirical data on these drivers; and examine both the areas of overlap and the differences between these and drivers of violence against women72 o support for data projects and research led by members of the communities about which data is to be collected, and designed to respond to limitations and gaps in current data collection platforms and approaches (such projects governed by the principles of Indigenous data sovereignty73) and to design and administer data collection in more participatory, ethical ways.
72 Our Watch, Rainbow Health (Formerly GLHV) (2018) Primary prevention of family violence against people from LGBTI communities, Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.

73 History of Indigenous Data Sovereignty -- Maiam Nayri Wingara.

(2020).

Retrieved from: https://www.maiamnayriwingara.org/projects-1 Kukutai, T. and Taylor, J.

(eds).

(2016).

Indigenous Data Sovereignty: toward an agenda, Research Monograph No.

38, Canberra: ANU Press.


49 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Impacts of COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on and amplified existing inequalities which drive gender- based violence, further reinforcing the need for continued commitment to this goal.
Actions and reform aimed at preventing violence against women will be crucial to the crisis recovery period in Australia, to ensure that we both sustain the gains made in the past decade and continue to make progress towards the aims of ending violence against women and their children.

Like many other crises, COVID-19 is having specific and disproportionate health, social and economic impacts on women.
These include: • Exacerbating women’s experiences of violence • Placing predominantly female workforces onto the frontline of the crisis • Amplifying rigid gender roles • • Reducing women’s economic security • Increasing the burden of unpaid work borne by women Impacting on women’s health These impacts are being felt severely in the short term and will continue to have medium- and long- term consequences for women.
International and national evidence from previous disasters and crises identifies that violence against women often increases during and in the wake of these events.74 Situations of heightened stress, family disruption, social isolation, financial pressures, and disruption to people’s usual personal and social roles can all compound or exacerbate the underlying gender inequalities that lead to violence against women.
While such stress-related factors do not in themselves cause violence against women, they can increase the severity and frequency of this violence.

Key areas of concern relating to violence against women in Australia during the pandemic, both while social distancing restrictions were at their strictest and as they loosen, include: • Social distancing restrictions meant that women experiencing violence were isolating at home with their abusers with limited contact with social support networks.
As restrictions lift and people can move around more freely, there is a risk that perpetration may increase as perpetrators use more controlling behaviours to reassert power and control • Reduced access to services for women experiencing violence while isolating at home with their abuser, or in regional and remote areas due to restrictions on movement.

As restrictions are progressively lifted, there will likely be increased rates of reporting as 74 A Peterman et al, Centre for Global Development.
(April 2020).

‘Working Paper 528: Pandemics and Violence against Women and Children’; International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

(2015).

Unseen, unheard: Gender-based violence in disasters.
Global study; Gender and Disaster Pod, an initiative of Women’s Health Goulburn North East and Women’s Health in the North: https://www.genderanddisaster.com.au/ 50 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 women who have been experiencing violence are able to access support.
This may cause strain on response services if appropriate resourcing is not put in place • It may be harder for women to leave an abusive partner because of economic impacts of the crisis (including job losses) which disproportionately effect women and may restrict their financial independence • An increase in online abuse including image-based abuse75 • Intensified risks of work-related discrimination and sexual harassment perpetrated by colleagues through online means 76 , with many more people working from home, and reports of workplace abuse of workers in female-dominated customer service/public-facing roles such as healthcare and retail77 • Reduced oversight (formal and informal) in closed residential settings, increasing concerns about the risk of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation for people with disability78 and older people • Increased reports of racism, particularly for women from Asian backgrounds79 Due to its disproportionate impacts on women, the health, social and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic threaten to reverse the gains that we have made in addressing this critical issue, both by increasing violence against women in the short term, and by amplifying or further entrenching the underlying gender inequalities that drive this violence in the first place.
Primary prevention can help build long term community resilience and cohesion, through the promotion of gender equality and by addressing other intersecting forms of discrimination and 75 Anastasia Powell and Asher Flynn.

(3 June 2020).

‘Reports of “revenge porn” skyrocketed during lockdown, we must stop blaming victims for it’.
Retrieved from: https://theconversation.com/reports-of- revenge-porn-skyrocketed-during-lockdown-we-must-stop-blaming-victims-for-it-139659 76 Shalailah Medhora (22 April 2020) “eSafety office records 340% spike in complaints as coronavirus impacts online behaviour”.
Retrieved from: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/complaints- esafety-increase-341-percent-because-coronavirus/12174654 77 Abbey Dinham (6 April 2020) ‘Minister slams 'unacceptable' abuse of healthcare workers wearing uniforms in public’.

Retrieved from: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/minister-slams-unacceptable-abuse-of- healthcare-workers-wearing-uniforms-in-public.
Anastasios Hadjisolomou (5 June 2020) Abuse of shopworkers is on the rise – coronavirus brought it to our attention and now we need to act.

Retrieved from: https://theconversation.com/abuse-of-shopworkers-is-on-the-rise-coronavirus-brought-it-to-our- attention-and-now-we-need-to-act-139620 78 Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.

(26 March 2020).

‘Statement of Concern – The response to the COVID-19 pandemic for people with disability’.
Retrieved from: https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/statement-concern-response-covid- 19-pandemic-people-disability 79 Australian Human Rights Commission.

(8 April 2020).

‘Racism undermines COVID-19 Response’.

Retrieved from: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/news/racism-undermines-covid-19-response 51 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 disadvantage.
This is why it is so critical to the COVID-19 crisis response and recovery and there are many opportunities to build prevention approaches into the work that governments across Australia are undertaking across social policy, public health planning, and economic measures.
Beyond addressing the immediate impacts of the crisis on women, governments across Australia have an opportunity to address the drivers of violence against women and support primary prevention by promoting gender equality in crisis response and recovery planning and actions.
In the context of COVID-19, the UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls has said: The key benchmark of any new policy must be that it does not deepen existing structural inequalities, or create new vulnerability, but rather ameliorates and creates new opportunities that are just and equitable… The crisis is an opportunity to address structural inequalities and deficits that have consistently held women back, and to re-imagine and transform systems and societies.
In order to fully comprehend the gendered impacts of the crisis, it is crucial to understand the structural discrimination underlying the emergency which is not only causing but exacerbating serious violations of women and girls’ human rights.80 In Australia, embedding actions from our shared national framework, Change the story, in crisis recovery planning can contribute to the prevention of violence at this critical time and promote gender equality and women’s safety in the long-term.
Linking this crisis recovery planning process to the development of the Second National Plan to Reduce Against Women and Their Children, will ensure a consistent approach to preventing violence against women in both the immediate context and over the longer term.
(Recommendation 13) Our Watch recommends the following strategies for all Australian Governments: • Promote and normalise gender equality in public and private life – by embedding gender responsive policy-making and budgeting processes to COVID-19 crisis planning and in all COVID-19 response decision-making, ensuring women’s equal representation planning and decision making, and increasing the involvement of women’s and specialist violence against women organisations in decision-making • Challenge condoning of violence against women – by continuing to use strong messaging that violence against women is always unacceptable; ensuring that measures to address violence against women are informed by an evidence-based understanding of the dynamics of violence and continue to have a focus on the gendered nature of violence and its impacts; and addressing expected increases in violence against women during the pandemic 80 UN Working Group discrimination against women and girls.
(20 April 2020).

‘Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic must not discount women and girls’.
Retrieved from: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25808 52 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • Promote women’s independence and decision-making in public life and relationships – stimulus by ensuring a gender analysis measures; identifying opportunities to embed gender equality measures in government procurement and grant and funding agreements; and applying a gender lens to social security and other areas of policy to ensure that new measures introduced in response to the crisis are effective in helping to reduce the numbers of women living in poverty and supporting financial security and independence for women throughout their life course is undertaken on proposed economic • Foster positive personal identifies and challenge gender stereotypes and roles – by promoting and supportive gender-equitable domestic and parenting practices • Promote broader social equality and address structural discrimination and disadvantage – by challenging racism and all discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and women of colour; challenging ableism and exclusion of women with disability, including by increasing access to supports and services; and addressing systemic barriers to equal access to services and supports including for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women on temporary visas and women with disability.
53 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 A Second National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children Our Watch congratulates Council of Australian Governments on committing to a Second National Plan.81 The prevention of violence against women is a long-term goal, and the transformative social change we are seeking is generational in nature.
Multiple different kinds of stakeholders have a role to play in achieving this change, and their efforts need to be coordinated and mutually reinforcing.

In addition to the need for a long term-prevention approach, the current and ongoing high prevalence of all forms of violence against women in Australia requires ongoing action and adequate and sustained funding from all governments in order to support women who experience violence and ensure accountability for perpetrators.
A comprehensive, long-term and truly national plan, ideally developed through a co-design process, is critical to provide a strong framework and guide for the shared and sustained national effort that is needed, across all areas of prevention, early intervention and response.

Given the current National Plan ends in 2022, work needs to begin in earnest on the development of a second plan.
This section outlines key considerations for the process of developing a new National Plan, together with recommendations for the scope and content of the plan, with a focus on the prevention components required.
Developing the Plan: ensuring a shared approach The approach to developing a new Plan needs to be carefully considered and designed, to ensure that it is a collaborative, cross-jurisdictional and bipartisan process, with strong buy-in from commonwealth, state and territory governments, and meaningful engagement of civil society organisations, particularly those with existing expertise on this issue.

An effective national approach to prevention comprises the coordinated efforts of multiple stakeholders.
While Australian governments have primary responsibility for ensuring the health, safety and equality of women82 as part of their international human rights obligations, they cannot do this alone.

Every sector, institution, organisation, community and individual has a role to play in preventing violence against women.

Different stakeholders have different responsibilities, expertise and capacities and different spheres of influence.
Their efforts will be most effective if they take advantage of the specific opportunities available to them within their spheres of influence, as well as work in collaboration or partnership to ensure different prevention efforts are consistent and mutually reinforcing.
81 Council of Australian Governments, COAG Meeting Communique, 13 March 2020, https://www.coag.gov.au/meeting-outcomes/coag-meeting-communique-13-march-2020 82 United Kingdom Department for International Development (2012) A theory of change for tackling violence against women and girls, CHASE Guidance Note 1, http://gadnetwork.org/violence-against-women- and-girls/.
54 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Partnerships that include organisations working on violence against women, domestic and family violence, sexual violence, women’s health, and gender equality, including those that specifically engage men on these issues, will ensure that prevention efforts are informed by a well-developed understanding of the complex dynamics of violence against women, gender and other social inequalities, and draw on existing prevention expertise.
(Recommendation 14) Our Watch recommends that the Women’s Safety Ministers establish a national co-design group to lead the development of the Second National Plan, and that this group: a) is co-chaired by government and civil society b) include representation from all jurisdictions c) establish mechanisms to ensure that the plan is developed with the meaningful involvement of women’s and specialist violence against women organisations, including organisations working with women affected by multiple kinds of discrimination and disadvantage (Recommendation 15) Our Watch further recommends that, as the national organisation established under the first National Plan to lead the primary prevention of violence against women, Our Watch has a key role to play in identifying what is required to progress primary prevention work under a Second National Plan, and should be directly involved in its development – both as a member of the co-design group and as a source of specific expertise on the prevention elements of the plan.
Scope of the Plan As discussed above, in order to ensure Australian efforts are aligned with international frameworks, and reflect the evidence base about the spectrum of different but related forms of violence against women, it is important that the scope of the Second National Plan is one that aims to address and prevent all forms of violence against women.
(Recommendation 16) Our Watch recommends that: a) the Second National Plan be framed as a plan to address and prevent ‘violence against women’, rather than ‘family, domestic and sexual violence’ (although these forms of violence can be defined within the plan and where they are perpetrated against women, can be included in the scope) b) the scope of the Second National Plan be described as including all forms of violence against women c) the definition of ‘violence against women’ used in the Second National Plan remain consistent with that used in the first plan, as derived from the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, namely: “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” d) the Second National Plan pay specific attention to the inclusion of forms of violence against women that have to date received less attention; including non-physical forms of 55 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 violence, violence perpetrated in a range of settings, and new and emerging forms of violence.
A specific focus on prevention in the Plan It is important for the Second National Plan, like the First, to span prevention, early intervention and response aspects of the issue, and to present the three as not only equally important but interlinked and complementary.

As part of this holistic approach, a separate dedicated focus on primary prevention is critical.
The findings from Tracking progress in prevention suggest that as a nation Australia is headed in the right direction with our emerging approach to primary prevention and should stay the course.
While early progress on building the foundations for this approach is promising, we need a sustained, long term commitment to significantly reducing and ultimately eliminating violence against women, and a coordinated, national approach – a new National Plan provides the opportunity to embed critical elements of this approach for the long-term.
(Recommendation 17) Our Watch recommends that, like the first plan, the Second National Plan include a specific, dedicated and continued emphasis on primary prevention.

We recommend that this aspect of the Plan: a) Be developed in collaboration with Our Watch, as the national prevention organisation b) Reflect and be grounded in the evidence base provided by Change the story as the national shared framework for primary prevention, developed under the first National Plan.
In line with this framework, the Second National Plan should identify the need to change norms, structures and practices at all levels to address the gendered drivers of violence against women.
c) Specify strategies and actions that all governments will undertake to address these drivers of violence d) Set out how Australia will continue to build the necessary primary prevention infrastructure, including mechanisms for coordination and quality assurance; and for building and supporting an expert prevention workforce e) Include a national research agenda for prevention, developed in collaboration with Our Watch and ANROWS, and supported with dedicated prevention research funding Prevention components of the Plan The Second National plan should have a clear and dedicated focus on prevention, as a strategy that is separate from, but complementary to response components of the Plan.
(Recommendation 18) Our Watch recommends that the prevention section of the new plan include the following components: a) A long-term commitment and approach 56 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 Like the First National Plan, the Second National Plan should represent a long-term commitment on the part of all Australian Governments, and outline a long-term approach of at least 12 years, with rolling Action Plans to provide a means of updating the approach and commitment every three years.
b) A broad approach, using strategies to achieve cultural change via multiple levers Prevention action is needed across all levels of the socio-ecological model, including interventions in all of the multiple and diverse settings where Australians live, learn, work and socialise.
The Second National Plan can help drive this by taking a broad ‘whole-of-government’ view of prevention and include commitments across diverse portfolio areas (at both Commonwealth and state/territory levels), rather than for example, framing prevention only as an issue for women’s or violence-related portfolios.
Further, given the evidence on the need for prevention to focus not only on changing individual attitudes but on driving broader social and cultural shifts, it will be important for the Second National Plan not to rely too heavily on behaviour change campaigns and individual direct participation strategies and programs.
Investment in these areas needs to be complemented by a range of other strategies (as outlined in Change the story) that use multiple levers to create the systemic and sustained changes in structures, norms and practices at community, organisational and institutional levels that are necessary to drive social and cultural transformation.
c) A national, coordinated approach The establishment of a Second National Plan provides an opportunity to develop a national, coordinated approach with commitments from all governments contributing to the same goal, and learnings from activities and reform shared.

The Commonwealth Government has provided funding to Our Watch under the Fourth Action Plan to establish a National Primary Prevention Hub, which will support information-sharing and coordination on primary prevention nationally.
The provision of this funding is an important recognition of the importance of bringing together stakeholders to share, learn and coordinate on this issue in order to progress Australia’s national approach.
It will also be critical for the Second National Plan to include a governance and coordination mechanism for governments to coordinate policy on primary prevention and enhance mutually reinforcing actions nationally, with support and input from civil society organisations with relevant specialist expertise.
d) A stronger focus on achieving structural changes In addition to continuing to support attitudinal and behaviour change among individuals and communities, Our Watch recommends that the Second National Plan include a stronger focus than the previous Plan on achieving the kinds of structural change that are also critical to preventing violence against women.
57 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 International evidence shows that legislative change, the design and development of appropriate infrastructure for prevention and gender equality policy, and ongoing policy reform must all be included in a national prevention approach.

These structural change strategies are critical in order to support, reinforce and sustain changes from other kinds of interventions.
Gender responsive policy-making and budgeting are crucial to sustaining a focus on gender equality in government policy and legislation.83 The Second National Plan can be a way for all Australian Governments to commit to identifying and implementing key policy and legislative reforms which would address the gendered drivers of violence against women and advance gender equality.
e) A stronger focus on engaging men and boys in prevention, and challenging dominant forms of masculinity Our Watch recommends that the Plan include a stronger focus on the specific need to engage men and boys in prevention, and to challenge the harmful forms of masculinity that help drive violence against women.
The overall effectiveness of prevention efforts will be improved if the Plan adopts the following five strategies (as discussed in more detail on p. 43-44: • • Incorporate work on masculinities into national prevention efforts, to build a deeper understanding of the gendered drivers of violence against women and how to address them.
Implement prevention work with a specific focus on addressing masculinities and engaging men across all societal levels in order to address individual men’s attitudes and behaviours, but also the broader social norms, structures and practices.
• Apply an intersectional approach to ensure that prevention work is responsive to the differences among men, and addresses the structural inequalities and social disadvantage that negatively impact particular groups of men • Continue to build the evidence base on how dominant forms of masculinity help drive violence against women and what is needed to address these drivers, and how we can engage men in the prevention of violence against women.
• Support and build partnerships and collaborations between organisations and research partners involved in prevention work with a focus on masculinities and engaging men, as well as alliances with women’s organisations f) Adequate and sustainable funding for prevention A shared national commitment to a Second National Plan needs to include the provision of adequate and sustainable funding for prevention.

Ongoing funding for key reforms, services and activities is crucial to achieving sustainable change.
83 Gender responsive budgeting “identifies potential opportunities to advance gender equality through a government’s budgetary expenditures, allocations and taxation.

It aims to assess where policies proposed in a budget will benefit or disadvantage individuals based on their gender, and identify where changes can be made to promote greater gender equality” (Equality Rights Alliance (2020) Analysing the Gap Policy Paper: Opportunities to improve gender equality in Australia’s public policy processes).
Gender responsive budgeting is supported by gender responsive policy-making, which applies a gender analysis to policy processes beyond those associated with revenue, expenditure and budget development.
58 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 This requires Governments to embed funding models and modalities that facilitate sustainability and impact – moving away from ad hoc grants and short-term project funding to integrated and ongoing funding for key priorities in order to facilitate sustainability and impact.
g) Specific prevention funding commitments under the Second National Plan could include: • Funding to establish primary prevention work in settings where little work has been undertaken to date • Funding for women’s organisations to enhance their approaches in ways that are appropriate to their local context.
For some, this may mean taking a holistic approach and working across the whole spectrum of prevention, early intervention and response in order to address sexual violence and violence against women in ways that meet the needs of their local communities.
h) Ongoing and additional funding for Our Watch To enable the ongoing work of Our Watch and to enhance the organisation’s ability to provide national leadership on prevention, and contribute to the implementation of the prevention components of the Second National Plan, Our Watch recommends that the Plan include: • Secure and sustained long-term funding for Our Watch for the life of the next National Plan (as opposed to three-year funding cycles) • An increase in Our Watch base funding, through agreement by all member governments to jointly increase member contributions • Contributions by each state and territory to enable dedicated Our Watch staff located in each jurisdiction, focused on supporting and increasing prevention activity in that jurisdiction (similar to our current partnership with the Tasmanian Government) • New funding to develop practice guidance in settings where little work has been undertaken to date (such as faith-based contexts, the arts, popular culture, advertising and entertainment, public spaces, transport and facilities, legal, justice and corrections contexts).
Funding of approximately $1 million over three years (per setting) would enable development of a comprehensive approach for a given setting, with project phases including research, stakeholder consultation, development of models/tools/resources for testing and evaluation with stakeholders in the setting, production and publication of ‘whole of setting’ resources and development of a dedicated website, or other online capabilities • Continued funding for Our Watch to lead the National Primary Prevention Hub, to support coordination, information sharing, learning and connection on primary prevention nationally • Additional funding to support continuous quality improvement of Our Watch’s existing work, including Respectful Relationships Education, Workplace Equality and Respect, Equality and Respect in Sport, prevention in Local Government, and Media Making Change.
Funding to extend existing and established campaigns to continue effectiveness of impact.

And funding to support behaviour change campaigns connected to the drivers of violence against women when a communications focused solution is appropriate.

• 59 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • Funding to enable the continuation of the national monitoring work begun under Tracking progress in prevention.
i) Meaningful civil society engagement Civil society organisations, and particularly women’s and specialist violence against women organisations, including organisations working with women affected by multiple kinds of discrimination and disadvantage, have an important role to play in the Second National Plan.
Analysis has shown that the most important and consistent factor driving policy change relating to violence against women is advocacy by women and women’s organisations.84 Meaningful and ongoing engagement of these organisations will be crucial to the success of a Second Plan.
This can be achieved by supporting greater participation and collaboration with specialist organisations in governance, coordination and monitoring mechanisms for the Plan; and providing funding to organisations to support their ongoing engagement.
j) Robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks The recent Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit report, which reviewed the recent ANAO report on the administration of the National Plan, noted several concerns in relation to performance measurement and management.
Addressing these concerns is a priority for the development of the Second National Plan, with the need for a particular focus on developing a suitable performance framework to monitor, evaluate and report on progress and outcomes under the Plan.
This includes: robust mechanisms for regular reporting on activity and progress; • • mechanisms for program-level evaluation and evaluations that can look across activities to • understand whether broader change is being achieved; short, medium- and long-term measures of success, embedded in a robust national monitoring framework.
Our Watch’s forthcoming Tracking progress in prevention report provides a model for a comprehensive approach to monitoring and assessing progress at the national level, and with appropriate funding (recommended above) Our Watch could play a key role in monitoring national progress on the prevention aspects of the next Plan over its lifetime.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women Changing the picture identifies the importance of addressing the intersecting drivers of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in order to prevent this violence.
Those drivers are: • The ongoing impacts of colonisation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 84 S Laurel Weldon and Mala Htun, ‘Feminist mobilisation and progressive policy change: why governments take action to combat violence against women’ Gender & Development (2013) 21:2, 231-247.
60 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • The ongoing impacts of colonisation for non-Indigenous people and in Australian society • Gendered factors – both gender inequality in a general sense, and specific gendered drivers of violence that are a consequence of colonisation As part of a national effort to prevent violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, governments need to address the legacies and ongoing impacts of colonisation by identifying and amending discriminatory laws, policies and organisational and institutional practices; addressing power inequalities, particularly in decision making positions; and challenging and preventing all forms of racism.
(Recommendation 19) Our Watch recommends the establishment of a National Plan on Violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women.

This was a recommendation of the CEDAW committee in 2018, the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women in 2018, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2017 and the Special Rapporteur the rights of Indigenous people in 2017.
This plan would support the protection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s rights in Australia, and include: • a specific and dedicated focus on the primary prevention of violence against Indigenous • women sustained funding for Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, to allow for community ownership of prevention initiatives, with initiatives growing from and being driven by the community, addressing community-identified needs and priorities, using community-developed solutions and being implemented via strong community relationships Our Watch’s Changing the picture resource is aimed at encouraging, guiding and supporting a national effort to prevent violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
It contains a set of clear actions that are needed to address the complex and intersecting drivers of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, and it also outlines the principles that should guide work to prevent violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, to ensure for example, that it is culturally safe, trauma-informed and healing focused, and that it prioritises and strengthens culture.
As such, Changing the picture provides one valuable source of evidence that can be drawn on in the development of a National Plan on Violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women – particularly the prevention components of such a plan.
(Recommendation 20) Our Watch further recommends the following complementary actions be taken to support the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, in line with human rights frameworks: • The establishment of a National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People85 85 SNAICC and Family Matters, Position Paper: Establishment of a national commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people (2019), accessed - https://www.snaicc.org.au/wp- content/uploads/2019/10/SNAICC_Family-Matters_Position-Paper_national-commissioner_FINAL.pdf 61 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48 • Commitment to and implementation of self-determination principles including sustained funding for Aboriginal-controlled organisations (as recommended by the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women in 2018).
In particular this should include funding for the National Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Forum • Commitment to implementing key recommendations made by Aboriginal-controlled organisations including from the Family Matters Roadmap and Change the Record Blueprint for Change, and other recommendations such as from relevant Royal Commissions and UN bodies.

62 Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violenceSubmission 48