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According to the ABS, one third of the 26,892 sexual assaults that were reported to police in 2019 were 'family & domestic violence related', which means that two thirds occurred outside of a 'family' or 'domestic' context 1/ https://twitter.com/VincentTarzia/status/1389851200095354881
We will not be addressing women's safety if we do not address ALL forms of violence against women & that includes the two thirds of sexual assaults that occur outside of a 'domestic' or 'family' setting. 2/
Perhaps all forms of sexual violence were discussed in this meeting, but there's been a distinct pattern forming in the way governments are framing 'violence against women' & it's a pattern that erases an enormous chunk of the sexual violence Australian women experience.
The recent federal Inquiry into into family, domestic & sexual violence explicitly EXCLUDED sexual violence that occurred outside of family or domestic relationships. 4/
From the report: It is important to acknowledge that the Committee also received some evidence
on aspects of sexual violence such as sexual assault in the wider community and
sexual harassment in workplaces and on campuses. 5/
on aspects of sexual violence such as sexual assault in the wider community and
sexual harassment in workplaces and on campuses. 5/
While the Committee believes that these are serious issues that require further action from all governments, for the purposes of this inquiry, sexual violence beyond the family and domestic context was not examined in detail 6/
A federal government inquiry into sexual violence deliberately avoided examining sexual violence that did not occur in a family or domestic context. Which means the inquiry did NOT examine TWO THIRDS of the sexual violence that occurs in Australia.
What this means in the real world is that the experiences of young women - school & uni aged women - are erased. Because when they're assaulted, it's usually by someone they know, but not someone that fits into that 'family' or 'domestic' definition 8/
It means that the government did not consider circumstances where a woman student is raped by a teacher, like Grace Tame was. It means that they did not consider circumstances where a woman is raped by a colleague, like Brittany Higgins was 9/
'Women's safety' has very quickly come to mean 'women's safety but only if those women are in a family or intimate relationship'. The rest of us? Well, what happens to us apparently just isn't important enough for the government to consider 10/
Do we need to address the sexual violence that occurs within domestic & family contexts? Absolutely. But that does not mean that we ignore the two thirds of survivors whose assaults were perpetrated by someone they weren't in a relationship with 11/
Addressing violence against women means addressing ALL violence against ALL women. Don't let them reframe these discussions - & therefore the action & funding that will spring from them - in a way that erases two thirds of sexual assault survivors.
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(And if anyone wants it, here's the link to the ABS data that shows that one third of sexual assaults reported to police in 2019 were were family & domestic violence related https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/quarter-sexual-assaults-occurred-over-year-ago)
(And here's the link to the Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence report that was released last month: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportrep/024577/toc_pdf/Inquiryintofamily,domesticandsexualviolence.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf The outline of the exclusion of non-domestic or family sexual assault is on page x)
