Submission

Engender Equality provides specialist counselling, psychoeducation and support for individuals and groups affected by family violence throughout Tasmania, together with advocacy and training to address gender inequality and reduce violence against women and children.

Yemaya Women’s Support Service provides free and confidential counselling and support to women who are experiencing, or have experienced, abuse from an intimate partner. Together, we welcome the opportunity to provide a submission on the draft Family Violence Reforms Bill (the Bill).

Engender Equality commends the Tasmanian Government’s commitment to reducing levels of family violence. It is promising to see the issue of family violence and abuse as a priority and that action is being taken to strengthen family violence laws. As a specialist service, we support people who have experienced family violence and are intimately aware of the adverse effects and long-term suffering that can result from family violence. We are deeply concerned with prevention of further family violence for both individuals and our community as a whole.

Engender Equality is Tasmania’s state-wide specialist family violence service, providing frontline counselling and support to all people affected by family violence and abuse, alongside advocacy, community education and training to address gender inequality and gendered violence in all its forms. Established in 1987, we are a Tasmanian leader in promoting gender equality and addressing family violence to benefit the whole community. We welcome the opportunity to comment on the Family Law Amendment Bill 2023.

Submission to the Department of Justice – Office of Strategic Legislation and Policy – Review of the Domestic Violence Orders (National Recognition) Bill 2016

Engender Equality provides specialist counselling, psychoeducation and support for individuals and groups affected by family violence throughout Tasmania. Engender also delivers advocacy and training to address gender inequality and reduce violence against women and children. The safety and wellbeing of children is at the heart of our work as a specialist family violence service. Our practice is child-centred and we seek to elevate the interests of children in all that we do. Engender Equality strongly endorses the development of a legislative framework to uphold children’s safety in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (the Royal Commission).

Given Engender Equality’s specialisation in working with women and families who have experienced family violence, this submission is primarily focused on their specific experiences. People who have experienced abuse are often significantly disempowered, and may not be able to identify the impact of bullying behaviour as it generally occurs alongside other forms of domestic abuse. Furthermore, for family violence victims who are required to engage in court processes, intimate partner bullying may be difficult to distinguish from an otherwise formal, authorative and alienating process.

Children living in family violence situations are directly subjected to, and live within, the web of abuse woven by the dynamics of control and coercion maintained by people who use violence and abuse. A pattern of behaviour and coercively controlling tactics underpin the more obvious incidents of family violence that widely referred to in legislation and policy. The same course of conduct often continues post separation despite women trying to address their fears for this in the family law court.

Submission to the fiscal allocation – Tasmania’s Family Violence Action Plan – September 2015

Given Engender Equality’s specialisation in working with women and families who have experienced family violence, this submission is informed by their experiences. This submission is also guided by the work we do in our Advocates for Change program. In partnership with Our Watch, Engender Equality coordinates Advocates for Change, a group of women who have experienced violence and abuse who, after comprehensive training, are supported to speak to the media about their experiences.

Engender Equality is a Tasmanian specialist family violence service providing counselling, psychoeducation and support for all people affected by family and intimate partner violence, alongside advocacy, community education and training to address gender inequality and gendered violence in all its forms. We welcome the opportunity to comment on the Sentencing Amendment (Restorative Scheme) Bill 2021 (the Bill).