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Senator STOTT DESPOJA |
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South Australia, 10.10 p.m. Monday 15/9/03 |
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I begin by acknowledging that tribute by Senator Stephens
to Anna Lindh - a woman who was an impressive role model, a woman
who campaigned for women's rights and a woman who died as a consequence
of senseless violence.
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Tonight I want to talk more broadly about the issue
of violence against women. Domestic violence, as we all know, is a
devastating epidemic that endures through several generations. It
is an issue that crosses all classes, income groups and races. The
issue of male violence against women has for years been couched in
language that has been easier to stomach: re-termed `domestic violence'.
The effect, of course, has been to take it back into homes and turn
it into an issue that should be dealt with in the privacy of the home-thus
making it off-limits to the public. It is difficult to measure domestic
violence against women with any accuracy because it is a crime that
remains mostly hidden. It is an issue that affects hundreds of thousands
of women and children, and its repercussions not only ripple throughout
our community but also impact on the business and economic sector
through absenteeism and replacement costs to employers. |
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Tonight one angle I want to look at in relation to
this issue, in the hope that it might convince the powers that be
and the legislators to do something about it, is its economic impact.
First, I turn to the statistics and figures. In 1996 the Australian
Bureau of Statistics surveyed 6,300 Australian women for the Women's
Safety Survey. The survey was designed to provide national estimates
of the nature and extent of violence experienced by women in our country.
It asked women about their experience of actual or threatened physical
or sexual violence and found that, in relation to violence by a male
partner, 2.6 per cent of women who were married or in a de facto relationship
had experienced violence perpetrated by their current partner in the
12 months preceding the survey. The survey also looked at women's
experience of violence throughout their lifetime and found that 23
per cent of women who had ever been married or in a de facto relationship
had experienced violence in that relationship. |
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According to the 1996 Women's Safety Survey, 7.1 per
cent of Australian women had experienced an incident of violence in
the last 12 months, 4.9 per cent of Australian women had experienced
physical violence by a man and 1.9 per cent of Australian women had
experienced sexual violence by a man. According to the 2002 Crime
and Safety Survey, 320,891 women had experienced an assault in the
previous 12 months, which is fairly consistent with the 1996 survey
figures. The Crime and Safety Survey detailed incidences of personal
assault only, but if we focus on sexual assault then the figures show
that 86 per cent of victims of sexual assault were women, accounting
for 28,300 victims of sexual assault. Based on the 1996 Women's Safety
Survey, the AIC conducted a secondary analysis of the data to assess
women's fear of violence. The study found that 70 per cent of the
4,684 women surveyed were fearful when walking alone after dark. |
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Of course, it is very difficult to assess real trends.
Crime victim surveys indicate that the majority of assaults upon women
are not reported to the police where the victim knows the offender.
Estimates of underreporting vary significantly. The 1998 ABS crime
victim survey estimated that only 28 per cent of assaults and 33 per
cent of sexual assaults are reported to police, whereas the 1996 survey
indicated that only two out of every 10 women-or 18.6 per cent to
be precise - who had been assaulted in the previous 12 months had
reported the assault to police. Only those instances that are reported
to the authorities are recorded in the official crime statistics data.
Even then, domestic violence is not recorded as a category of assault
distinct from other assaults, hence the difficulty in obtaining reliable
statistical data on its incidence. |
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Crime victim surveys provide another measure of domestic
violence, as these surveys include both reported and unreported incidents.
However, there is no update of the 1996 Women's Safety Survey conducted
by the ABS. In fact, the next survey is not planned until 2006. How
can we treat this as a significant issue - one that we are supposedly
putting resources and finances towards-when it will be a number of
years before we have another survey? We are failing to implement an
up-to-date system of collating crucial information that is needed
in order to properly execute those program initiatives. In the context
of the government's decision to take $10.1 million in underspent funds
for domestic violence and sexual assault programs to fund fridge magnets,
you can see why people get very upset about this issue. |
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In relation to the economic costs, a literature review
conducted by the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse
pointed to both Australian and international literature, demonstrating
the value of taking an economic perspective on domestic violence.
It provides a powerful angle from which to view the consequences of
domestic violence and further argues for social policies to improve
services and protection for victims. |
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While the human impact of domestic violence is incalculable,
the direct costs of staff absenteeism and replacement costs were estimated
in 2000 to be over $30 million a year for Australian employers. The
total cost to the corporate and business sector was estimated at $1.5
billion. In another study, back in 1991, the annual cost of domestic
violence to state and Commonwealth governments was estimated to be
around $400 million. |
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Academics have long argued that the value of economic
studies on domestic violence lies in the potential to promote social
policy and reduce violence against women. It must be highlighted that
violence against women is a public problem, not a private one, because
of the negative effects which are borne by all of society and not
solely by the victims. Costs of violence studies are one means for
strengthening the argument that violence against women is indeed a
social problem which deserves to be seriously addressed. Information
about the economic costs of domestic violence emphasises the seriousness
of the problem and also identifies ways in which it penetrates the
work of social services, community organisations, business and governments
in Australia. Violence against women is enormously costly to the women
who experience violence directly, and to women generally, as their
lives are constrained by the fear of violence and even for governments
who have to pay money in order to ensure that the consequences of
violence are addressed. It is a ubiquitous and debilitating criminal,
social and health problem affecting individuals, communities, business
and governments in Australia. |
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There are a number of international studies that show
the costs of domestic violence in Switzerland, the US, Canada, the
UK, Chile, Nicaragua and New Zealand. All of these demonstrate overwhelmingly
that organisations and government must work in tandem to overcome
this crippling social issue. For example, the annual cost of family
violence in New Zealand is around $NZ1.2 billion. A UK study shows
that it cost more than £5 million in 1996 for one particular
area of London. According to the Swiss government, the cost of domestic
violence is 400 million Swiss francs, or $US290 million, per annum.
There are many other statistics-from Ontario, Canada, British Columbia.
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Essentially, though, there is no best approach to estimating
the economic costs of domestic violence. Most arguments about the
value of bringing an economic perspective to the field of domestic
violence are based on the assumption that identifying the enormous
costs of domestic violence will result in increased efforts to eliminate
it. In saying this, we need to work as a nation to improve-firstly,
data collection, both to better estimate the prevalence of domestic
violence and to better identify service usage by victims and perpetrators
of domestic violence; secondly, evaluations for interventions and
programs using experimental or quasi-experimental designs as an essential
foundation for cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses; and,
thirdly, better methodologies for calculating the long-term social,
educational and psychological impacts of domestic violence on women
and children. |
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However, should the mounting evidence of the economic
costs of domestic violence to women, children, the community and governments
fail to result in increased commitment to the prevention and eradication
of domestic violence, academics have issued the following challenge
that I would like to repeat today: |
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If studies showing the economic costs of violence against
women are not effective in directing government and business efforts
towards reducing male violence, it may be because the economic costs
revealed in such studies are less than the unspoken economic benefits
of maintaining male dominance in social institutions. The millions
of dollars in costs resulting from male violence may be a small price
for men to pay in exchange for their continued control of political
and economic power, resources and status. In this case, we may have
to use an economic perspective to address a different question-Who
benefits economically from violence against women? |
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I hope tonight that some of these figures will go some
way towards convincing the powers that be that we need to address
this issue. At the risk of talking against a backdrop of tragedy this
evening, I do want to commend Four Corners on what was a harrowing,
compelling, moving and touching program on the Bali survivors. If
fellow senators have not seen it, it was quite extraordinary. On a
final note, I would also like to add my condolences to the tragedy
that occurred in a domestic situation in Sydney this evening." |
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