{"id":518,"date":"2015-03-08T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-07T23:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/?p=518"},"modified":"2015-03-09T14:56:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T04:56:27","slug":"womens-only-police-stations-to-combat-violence-against-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/2015\/03\/08\/womens-only-police-stations-to-combat-violence-against-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s only police stations to combat violence against women"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image002[2]\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Professor Kerry Carrington\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

On International Women\u2019s Day 8 March 2015 it is timely to reflect on Australia\u2019s progress on addressing violence against women. The data shows persistent increases<\/span><\/a> in the incidence of domestic violence\u00a0 –\u00a0 although this could mean an increase in reporting, rather than an increase in violence. A variety of measures<\/a> reveal that domestic violence is a chronic problem accounting for 44% of homicides <\/a>in Qld from 2006 to 2012.<\/p>\n

The recently released Qld Taskforce report Not Now Not Ever<\/a> made 140 recommendations designed to combat the persistent problem of domestic and family violence. While there are many worthwhile suggestions here, one obvious one has been overlooked \u2013 women\u2019s only police stations.<\/p>\n

Brazil was the first country to establish women’s only police stations in 1985 and now has 485. Since then, women\u2019s only police stations have spread across Latin America, including\u00a0Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru, and Uruguay. These are specialist police stations that deal exclusively with female victims of sexual and domestic violence. Female police officers are specially trained in how to sensitively address women\u2019s experience of violence. Evaluations<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have found they\u00a0enhance women\u2019s willingness to report, increase the likelihood of conviction and enlarge access to a range of other services such as counselling, contraception, legal, financial and social support. Women\u2019s only police are being introduced in other parts of the world, including India, Philippines, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Uganda.\u00a0Given their effectiveness, United Nations Women<\/a> is encouraging other countries to consider the success of women\u2019s only police stations. Perhaps it\u2019s time Queensland, indeed Australia, looked to these examples from unlikely parts of the globe.<\/p>\n

Why have Latin American women\u2019s groups been so effective? I believe\u00a0the key to their success has been the high participation rate of women\u00a0in politics and their ability to work together through Los Encuentros. These are annual meetings that bring together a diverse array of women\u2019s and feminist agencies and organistions with the aim of enhancing women\u2019s \u00a0justice and equality. Women have met every year for the last 22 years, more formally as Encuentro Feministas<\/a> since 2001, to plan how they can tackle the problems women face across the vast South American continent. \u00a0Collectively they have lobbied for the governments of South America to introduce women only police stations and other measures\u00a0that assist the victims of domestic violence.<\/p>\n

Latin America women\u2019s participation in the political sphere is among the highest in the world<\/span>,<\/a> at 38% of MPs.\u00a0This is\u00a0higher than women\u2019s participation in politics in the United States and Australia. Women in Australia have a long way to go to in terms of political representation.<\/p>\n

Women in politics and public life are subject to systemic ridicule and belittling \u2013 the most recent being the\u00a0unwarranted attacks on\u00a0Gillian Triggs,<\/span><\/a> the President of the Human Rights Commission. Who could forget the \u2018ditch the witch\u2019<\/span><\/a> campaign and unrelenting hammering of Julia Gillard, Australia\u2019s first Prime Minister, and her brilliant heartfelt speech<\/span><\/a> about sexism and mysogny that went viral.There are only two female Ministers in the LNP coalition Australian cabinet.<\/p>\n

The new Qld Labor Government led by Annastacia Palaszczuk<\/span><\/a> has a female deputy (Jackie Tradd) and more female ministers (8) than male (6) and an Indigenous woman, Leeanne Enoch, as minister for housing and public works. This historic cabinet is a fine first for Australia and provides hope that things just might be improving for women in politics. It is cause for celebration on International Women’s Day 2015. Let\u2019s hope this historic cabinet look outwards and sidewards to Latin America for examples of innovative ways to address violence against women.<\/p>\n

Professor Kerry Carrington is Head of the School of Justice, Faculty of Law QUT and author of Feminism and Global Justice,<\/em> Routledge, (2015).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Professor Kerry Carrington\u00a0 On International Women\u2019s Day 8 March 2015 it is timely to reflect on Australia\u2019s progress on addressing violence against women. The data shows persistent increases in the incidence of domestic violence\u00a0 –\u00a0 although this could mean an increase in reporting, rather than an increase in violence. A variety of measures reveal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9719,3],"tags":[9704,9705,9717,8490,9728,9729],"class_list":{"0":"post-518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"category-justice-policy-issues","8":"category-news","9":"tag-crimejusticequt","10":"tag-criminology","11":"tag-domesticviolence","12":"tag-human-rights","13":"tag-policing","14":"tag-vaw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/crime-and-justice-research-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}