MEDIA RELEASES

MEDIA RELEASE

13 March 2026

NEW PROJECT LAUNCH – DADS FOR GENDER DIVERSITY

Tasmanian family violence service, Engender Equality has launched a new project –Dads for Gender Diversity – to support Tasmanian fathers in affirming, celebrating, and advocating for their trans and gender diverse ‘children’ (of any age). 

Engender Equality CEO, Alina Thomas said, 

“We are delighted to roll out this programme in Tasmania.” 

“It is such an important area and there is so little research available to guide the formation of a framework of support for fathers of trans/LGBTIQA+ people. 

“In a society of ongoing transgender prejudice and discrimination, parental support is the most important factor protecting the health and wellbeing of trans and gender diverse young people. 

“However, evidence from practice and the limited research available, suggest that this support is primarily provided and led by mothers.  

“Dads face unique challenges to understand, affirm, and support their ‘child’s’ gender identity.  

“Challenges come from rigid ideas in our community about gender, and what it means to be a man and father,” Ms Thomas said. 

Our Watch’s Innovation Grant underpinning this project comes through their Violence Prevention Innovation Lab. The Violence Prevention Innovation Lab is designed and led by Our Watch and funded by Minderoo Foundation and has enabled us to pick up this significant work. 

Project Manager, Don Pitcher said, 

“Ideas about male independence, and social judgement and prejudice towards trans and gender diverse people mean that dads are often isolated.”   

“They do not get the chance to talk with other fathers about either the barriers they confront, or the joy they can experience in understanding and affirming their kids gender identity. 

“This social judgement of gender diversity, along with rigid gender stereotypes can even invite some men to feel like a failure as a man and father when their young person identifies as trans or gender diverse. 

“We are going to create a space where dads of trans and gender diverse people can come together to share their experiences and love for their trans kids, and to support, challenge and inspire each other. 

“More than that, we want to find a way to collect these dads’ stories and learning, and to make them available to others, so that all dads of trans young people know that they can do this,” Mr Pitcher said.  

For more  information email don@engenderequality.org.au, visit the Engender Equality website or phone (03) 6278 9090. 

Ends. 

 Media Contact: Alina Thomas  0438 788 291 

MEDIA RELEASE

11 March 2026

CALL FOR TASMANIA TO TRANSFORM THE SYSTEMS THAT CONDONE AND ENABLE VIOLENCE – NO TO VIOLENCE NATIONAL CONFERENCE, HOBART 

CEO, Alina Thomas will lay down the gauntlet tomorrow to Tasmanian institutions saying systems are built on social norms that privilege male dominance and female compliance. 

Speaking tomorrow at the 2026 National Conference: Ending Men’s Family Violence: From local practice to national strategy, the CEO of Tasmania’s specialist family violence organisation, Engender Equality said, 

“If we are serious about addressing gender-based violence, we must examine the actions of individual people who use violence alongside the institutional ecosystems that enable and sustain harm.  

“Systems that claim impartiality while ignoring structural power dynamics may inadvertently reinforce those dynamics of inequality.  

“Transforming institutional responses therefore requires honesty, and sustained commitment. 

“It requires listening to victim-survivors, following the leadership of specialist services, and confronting the structural biases embedded within our systems.  

“Ultimately, we need to eliminate men’s violence, but we will not do this until we are willing to redesign the system that condones and enables the violence.  

“If we want different outcomes, we must be willing to design different systems,” Ms Thomas said.  

Ms Thomas spoke to Engender’s latest publication entitled Systems abuse, patriarchy, and the institutional production of harm which explores how institutional responses to intimate partner violence can inadvertently produce harm. It outlines three interrelated forms of institutional involvement in abuse: systems abuse, systemic harm, and systemic collusion. It also situates these dynamics within the broader framework of patriarchal social structures and argues for systemic reform grounded in gender equity, relational accountability, and victim-survivor expertise. 

If you would like to engage a lived experience representative (case study), please see Advocates for Change – Engender Equality,  email advocates@engenderequality.org.au or phone: 0415 740 524.  

Ends. 

Media Contact: Alina Thomas  0438 788 291  

EXAMPLES 

• Police identifying discrete incidents of violence instead of ongoing patterns of coercive behaviour 

• With a significant proportion of male police officers reporting having used violence in their own intimate relationships, complex questions arise about whether institutional culture and accountability can protect women 

• Legal systems frequently require victim-survivors to provide extensive proof while people using violence benefit from institutional caution 

• Child protection systems sometimes interpret mothers’ inability to avoid violence as “failure to protect”, effectively penalising victim-survivors rather than holding perpetrators accountable 

• Family law processes may prioritise male parental contact over safety concerns, placing victim-survivors and children at continued risk. 

MEDIA RELEASE

29 October 2025

DEATH OF YOUNG ABORIGINAL WOMAN IN CUSTODY SPARKS CALL FOR REFORM

Tasmanian advocate organisation, Engender Equality has called for reform after the death of Chelsea Bracken at Mary Hutchinson Women’s prison on Monday 27 October. 

Engender Equality CEO, Alina Thomas extends deep condolences to the family and friends of Chelsea Bracken for their profound sense of loss, grief and anger. 

“While the circumstances of Chelsea’s incarceration and death are unclear, the factors leading to women entering and returning to prison are deeply complex and often rooted in repeated and intergenerational experiences such as family and sexual violence, homelessness, poverty and child removal.  

We know up to 98% of women prisoners have experienced physical abuse and up to 90% have experienced sexual violence and/or survived childhood sexual assault.1 

Kianna Whaling, a victim-survivor advocate with lived experience of the Tasmanian prison system said, 

“Throughout my life, I was heavily addicted to substances as a coping mechanism to both numb and block out trauma that stemmed from intimate partner violence and sexual assault. 

“As a result, I began selling substances to support my addiction which led to incarceration. 

“Before my trial commenced I was told to prepare for 12 years and realised I needed to take steps to resolve my trauma and reached out to a counselling service. 

I informed the prison nurse I was feeling a little uneasy after the counselling session and I was moved to solitary confinement under ‘suicide watch’ where I was left for several days without human contact, and only a camera monitoring my state. 

Alina Thomas said we must move away from a model that punishes victim-survivors for surviving violence, and instead focus on support, rehabilitation and justice. 

“Correctional staff need to be more trauma-informed, and protocols should be in place to prevent re-traumatising women in prison. 

“Our justice system must do better at supporting victim-survivors in prison.” Ms Thomas said. 

In the ten years from 2014 to 2024, Tasmania had the highest increase in the adult prison population; the highest increase in First Nations prisoners; and the highest increase in women prisoners of any State or Territory in Australia.2 

Women with lived experience of violence and incarceration are available for interview by contacting 0415 740 524, email advocates@engenderequality.org.au or visit Advocates for Change – Engender Equality. 

Ends. 

Media Contact: Alina Thomas 0438 788 291 

MEDIA RELEASE

30 September 2025

NEW RESEARCH SHOWS TASMANIAN SYSTEMS ENABLE ABUSIVE PRACTICES

New research launched today by a Tasmanian specialist family violence service, Engender Equality, has found at least one form of systems abuse has been experienced by 75% of those engaging in family violence counselling. 

The report launched today – Systems abuse and family violence in Tasmania: Evidence and recommendations for action – proposes a framework for deeper understanding of the ways systems themselves enable or enact abusive practices that negatively impact on victim-survivors.  

Engender Equality CEO, Alina Thomas said, 

“No one would agree that being re-traumatised by systems that are meant to serve the public, including victim-survivors is acceptable, yet on average, each victim-survivor experiences 3.44 incidents of organisational systems abuse.” 

“Half of all victim-survivors experienced systems abuse in relation to Tasmania Police (50%) and family law proceedings in Tasmania (49%).  

“Our analysis shows that systems abuse is also regularly experienced by victim-survivors across non-legal service systems,” Ms Thomas said. 

Victims-survivors experienced system abuse through public and private housing (27%), primary care providers (19%), child safety (16%), mental health providers (12%), church or religious groups (9%), and education providers (8%).  

Traditionally, systems abuse is generally defined by focusing on the perpetrator’s manipulation of systems, such as the legal system, to exert control over, threaten, and/or harass a current or former partner. Perpetrators might, for example, use systems to deplete the victim’s finances, emotional wellbeing and affect her capacity to care for children or work.    

Organisational systems abuse, including people in power in these organisations, replicates the abuse of power and discrimination against victim-survivors. It is reflected in practices and attitudes that are discriminatory based on gender, financial impost, administrative requirements, time and mental load and emotional wellbeing.  

Engender Equality Peer Worker, Ms Whaling said,  

“I have been told in the court room, by financial institutions, and in prison, that the abuse did not happen. That I was an instigator. Those words came from people who were supposed to help… who knew what the perpetrator did to me, and how deeply it impacted me and my child.”  

Lived experience coordinator, Sneha Sapkota explains, 

“When a woman seeks help, she brings with her the trauma of abuse and the hope of being heard.  

“The systems she encounters, through design, culture, and policies, either opens a door or builds another wall. 

“Whether that space becomes protective or punishing depends on the service provider/practitioner’s ability to see beyond the surface and respond with both skill and humanity. 

“These are structural and organisational processes and cultural attitudes that fail to recognise and respond to family violence, putting barriers in place instead; consequently enabling the views, values and beliefs of the perpetrator”, Ms Sapkota said. 

The report’s recommendations are intended to identify and redress the organisational systemic elements that enable and enact systems abuse, in line with the Tasmanian Government’s Survivors at the centre: Tasmania’s Third Family and Sexual Violence Action Plan 2022-2027. 

Ends. 

Additional Information 

A copy of the report can be obtained at Systems abuse and family violence in Tasmania: Evidence and recommendations for action, August 2025 – Engender Equality 

Media opportunities will follow the launch that will be held: 

Date: Tuesday, 30 Sept 2025  

Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm  

Location: Mayor’s Suite, Town Hall   

If you would like to engage a lived experience representative (case study), please see Advocates for Change – Engender Equality, email advocates@engenderequality.org.au or phone: 0415 740 524. 

Media Contact: Alina Thomas 0438 788 291 

Please find below – short overviews offered by Lived Experience Advocates on experiences of how systems have replicated power and control dynamics and how systems themselves are experienced as abusive by victim-survivors. Each of these people are available to talk to the media. 

Deb H 

“My ex exploited the social security system, and his employer colluded with him. My Sole Parent Benefit was being docked, as incentive for chasing up child support. I was being docked, the amount he should have been paying in child support, deducted from his wage, even though he was not paying anything. Once he was forced to start paying, he had to pay arrears but not having rent assistance, my situation was very dire, as I was paying mortgage, therefore, my social security payment was much less than for a sole parent renting. I struggled. I had to go to legal aid and get solicitor onto it before he started paying.” 

Chantel  

“Centrelink - When you move from a partnered to single parent, Centrelink asks for a lot of evidence, for e.g., third party statements. If a victim-survivor has no friends or people willing to be contacted, they cannot supply this statement. It becomes one more bureaucratic hurdle to jump when you are in crisis. 

Child Support - Makes a victim-survivor stay connected to the abuser. Even when the abuser doesn’t pay, they can get away with it. 

GP - I was forced to use the same GP as my perpetrator and was not allowed to see female doctors. 

Loans/Payments - I split a loan to buy a car. My perpetrator only put his name on the car, but on the loan agreement had both of our names. I have to pay the loan back because I would get blacklisted otherwise.” 

Bec 

“The Child Support System is facilitation of abuse. In my case, my daughter has been withheld against me. He benefits financially. There was an issue and tax benefits occurred as debt in child support. My tax return was withheld from me and given to my ex. The child support worker advised to stop working as it’s the only way to stop the abuse. 

I never received child support from him all the years as he would say if I went through with it, i would get no help and I can just get $30 a month as he was on Centrelink.” 

Tracey  

“Child Support - stated he made 10k while taking 3 overseas holidays.  

Centrelink - payments affected due to how much he SHOULD pay.  

And the fact that so much child support was owed, it effected my borrowing capacity with banks.”