The Department of Social Services (DSS) is calling for feedback on a new 10-year draft plan to end violence against women and children.
Announcing the draft plan’s release, Minister for Women’s Safety, Anne Ruston said the draft National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 outlined a long-term commitment to a future free from all forms of gender-based violence built on four pillars: Prevention, Intervention, Response and Recovery.
Senator Ruston said the voices and experiences of victim-survivors were essential to delivering trauma-informed services and solutions.
“We must recognise how race, age, disability, culture, gender, including gender identity, sexuality amongst other forms of identity, intersect and impact on this lived experience,” she said.
“To succeed we must listen, engage and be informed by diverse lived experiences, which is why we are committed to ongoing engagement with victim-survivors.
“We must get this right.”
Senator Ruston said the mechanisms for victim-survivor engagement would be determined during the establishment of the Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Commission.
The Minister said that, since the first National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022 was established, the evidence on gender-based violence had grown significantly.
“Australia has seen a significant shift in perceptions, with Australians now more likely to recognise controlling behaviours as domestic violence and are less likely to excuse domestic violence in all its forms,” she said.
“We now understand there must be a stronger focus on sexual violence, children as victims in their own right, perpetrator interventions as well as the prevalence of coercive control and technology-facilitated abuse.”
Minister for Women, Marise Payne said the draft Plan committed to two, five-year Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plans to be developed and delivered by First Nations people.
Senator Payne said the National Plan was being developed in consultation with the States and Territories through the National Federation Reform Council Women’s Safety Taskforce.
She said feedback on the draft Plan was open until 31 January and could be provided via an online questionnaire on the DSS Engage website.
The Department’s 60-page draft Plan can be accessed at this PS News link.
