Centre Against Violence supports new national stance on violence

CENTRE Against Violence (CAV) Wangaratta is excited to be working with the community to ensure the principles of the new 10 year national plan to end violence against women and children "within a generation" are followed through. The updated plan will focus on the prevention of violence before it starts, by advancing gender equality, closing the gender gap and working with victims and survivors to draft policies and solutions towards the violence. Federal, state and territory governments have all endorsed the plan, which calls on a whole of society approach to reform education and stigmas within Australia's schools, justice systems and media and promote boys and men to learn "healthy masculinity". Chief executive officer at CAV, Jaime Chubb, said she believes the plan is strong and includes important priority areas such as a focus on prevention, which were lacking in the last 10 year plan submitted in 2010. "We're really excited to be a part of this focus, I think the other thing is there's a really big focus around being told or informed when we talk about gender based violence and we know in our work that's vital in not just helping victim survivors but also in terms of addressing the gaps and systems like law courts and things like that," she said. "But also it's around making sure that prevention and working with children who have been impacted by violence by making sure their life a adults is as safe and healthy as possible." The new plan acknowledges the previous plan and its failures in addressing the prevalence in violence against women and lack of influence on sexual assault statistics in Australia. Ms Chubb said the new plan is much stronger in its messaging and information because it has been informed by victim survivors themselves who now get their voices heard. "The plan is much broader than the previous one which we'd hope we learn as a community what works, what doesn't and what we need to prioritise and that's certainly been a positive in this plan and we welcome that and we look forward to the action that will be released early next year," she said. Ms Chubb said creating gender equality is for everybody and it starts with promoting conversations around the community and in schools to better educate the community on the support systems available to them. "It's really important that when we talk about gender equity and closing the gender gap, we recognise we're actually talking about all genders and making sure that regardless of how people identify in terms of their gender, that people are treated with respect, they're protected, they're safe and have access to the same opportunities and support," she said. "Gender isn't a determining factor in terms of how safe you are or how able you are to earn income or how able you are to access health services" The report said intimate partner violence is the main preventable cause of illness and death in women aged 18 to 44, with one woman killed by a partner every 10 days on average. Ms Chubb said through the work done at CAV, she has found that gender based violence has as much to do with society treatment and expectations on men as there is any other gender. "Any pressure that there is on males, they're expected to be tough, to be strong, to have no emotions, to not show they're soft, to be in control... that's way too much pressure for any person to carry," she said. "As much as we talk about how hard it is to be a young girl and the pressure on body image etc., there's as much pressure on boys. "It's unfair for men that as a society we have those expectations on them, and it creates a really dangerous dynamic in relationships and that's what we see play out when we talk about gender based violence. "My eldest is 16 and a half and we kind of see this new age of young boys coming through and in the 25 years difference between us coming through at the same age it's a very different world, in a good way. "But there's still a lot of work to do, it's still a lot of pressure on them to be these things and it's hard." Ms Chubb said CAV is excited to be a part of the continuing support of the community to ensure the principles laid out in the report are followed through. "We recognise in our own community we have a lot of work to do, we look at some of the behavior that is encouraged in men in terms of excessive drinking and sexual activity that are actually kind of held up as the standards of what men and boys should be doing compared to how females and people who identify as females are expected to behave," she said. "We want to be part of every step of it and we think its vital organisations like ours step and help lead the delivery of the plan and the action plan in local areas. "Our focus has already been collaborative with having conversations with our community, providing opportunities for schools and community groups to learn more around family violence and gender based violence and that's what we want to continue to have. "Saying that we're going to eradicate gender based violence within a decade is massive, in an ideal world we would have that, but what we would love to see is that we've made enormous steps reducing gender violence but also that we've as much as possible eradicated systems that add to the trauma for victim survivors."

Centre Against Violence supports new national stance on violence

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