'Saturated' Ads are Dangerous and Won't Stop Violence - Here's Why!
NATIONAL SAVING WOMEN AND CHILDREN'S LIVES PLAN.
Rosie Batty says here “We need to be loud! We need to be strong! We need to be unified!”?
I hope Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and all premiers and politicians start listening to lived and living experience and expertise because our lives are at stake.
Every single woman and child's murder should have been prevented.
There is no unity when we are left out of the equation and are not central to the changes needed; when we are not seen and heard and acted upon rather than leading the conversation about us.
It is extremely dangerous to saturate the community with ads whilst there are STILL no practical safety supports for women when we escape the relationship. Again, government is not listening to Victim Survivors or frontline specialists.?
As a Victim Survivor I did this 6 and a half years ago. I listened to government messaging about domestic violence and I escaped, finally, after 30 years and after our abuser threatened my and my children’s lives driving dangerously at the edge of a sheer cliff to terrorise us. I had tried numerous times to leave before, but I had no support.?
Since escaping I have lost my immediate family, many friends and my community to the perpetrator’s denials, deception, manipulation and discrediting. He made himself the victim before I had any clue what was happening or being said about me.
I lost my children for a time to dangerous contact and living arrangements with the perpetrator. I lost my car, my business, my home and hundreds of thousands of dollars to the perpetrator’s revenge debt and legal abuse. This is the norm, not the exception.
He had shown me in no uncertain terms what he was capable of. When I finally escaped, he told me what he was going to do to me.
It is up to the people of Australia to use their voting power in order to discipline bad actors who have monetised domestic violence and betray women and children every single day in our patriarchal, misogynist, racist, ableist, discriminatory systems. The people of Australia cannot exercise their democratic right to vote to remove dangerous individuals without the necessary information.
It is every woman's basic human right to live free from Gender Based Violence.
After escaping domestic violence, I was tortured by an unscrupulous family lawyer, engaged by my cashed-up perpetrator, and a number of Brisbane barristers who committed perjury for profit. One is now a judge.
I experienced over a year of judicial bullying and abuse from a notorious judge whose misconduct nearly killed me and has scarred me and my children for life. This judge stripped me of everything I owned and forced my children and I into homelessness. He taunted me to appeal his egregious misconduct, knowing that he had removed all access to my own money. The media has dubbed him "Australia's Worst Judge."
I have experienced 6 years of continued stalking, harassment, threats, counter parenting, withholding of child support and the financial abuse of my children as well as continued unwanted contact from numerous members of the perpetrator's enabler team. I have experienced continuous police failure to act and refusal to protect my children and I from our perpetrator.
Police repeatedly told me they could not intervene when there were family court orders. The family court orders overruled the protection orders that listed myself and my children, putting us all back into court ordered danger.
When the perpetrator was finally charged with breaching the protection order after 5 and a half years of stalking and over 10 reported breaches, he provided more lies - doctored texts - to police using a family member's law firm. I was told by the police prosecutor (who withdrew the charge for breaching the order) that this was a high conflict divorce case and to leave the perpetrator in peace.
A male Vulnerable Person's Unit police officer told me to keep ignoring the stalking and harassment and usually they give up. Meanwhile I couldn't leave my house or function under the continued reign of control and terror.
I suffer from PTSD and have suffered from suicidal ideation which is a completely normal brain function or nervous system response to constantly suggest escape from the reality and severity of the clear and present danger, betrayals and harms from so many and the systemic betrayal and abuse of power. The trauma has been unbearable and unnecessary and all premeditated, strategised, controlled and designed by my perpetrator in order to punish me and cover up his crimes.?Perpetrators use children as weapons.
It is utterly appalling that it's safer to stay in horrendous conditions whilst the government fails us so dismally. The greatest risk of death is when women escape coercive control. Betty Taylor AM CF former CEO of the Red Rose Foundation recently presented a list of RISK FACTORS for femicide from her work on the Queensland Coronial Death Review Board, including:?
We know the risk factors. We need to act. Government needs to act!
There is currently a focus on alcohol and other drugs and addictions. Though this is certainly a problem and exacerbates violence with loss of control and loss of inhibitions, the men who target, hunt, decimate and murder as revenge and punishment are coercive controllers.?Sadism is a characteristic of the coercive controller along with lack of empathy, conscience or remorse.
Coercive controllers are a different breed of abuser. Coercive controllers do not have an anger management problem, they can manage their anger just fine with people outside the family.
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They have a misogyny problem.
They have an intimate partner terrorism problem.
We must engage domestic, family and sexual violence specialists to diagnose these men and map their patterns of behaviour. We need early and swift intervention.?We know that 95% of people who report violence report a male perpetrator.
Our greatest problem is the misidentification of the perpetrator. Almost half the women murdered by an intimate partner in Queensland had previously been labelled by police as the perpetrator of domestic violence .Queensland police misidentified women murdered by husbands as perpetrators of domestic violence | Queensland politics | The Guardian
Had there been early intervention with my perpetrator instead of support and enabling of him, including paid legal enabling, our lives would be very, very different. We cannot keep making the same mistakes over and over again costing so many lives, livelihoods and safety.
My call to action is for everyone to listen to victim survivors. We are not broken, delicate flowers in need of saving, who don't know what we need. We are human beings of equal value, with the right to live. The right to self-determination like everyone else.
To the women of Australia I say from experience, it’s not safe to escape until the government commits to listening to Victim Survivors of coercive control and domestic, family and sexual violence.?We can better manage ours and our children’s safety with a coercive controller from within the relationship whilst the system is left in its current discriminatory, harmful state.
Whilst we 'do as we're told' by our abusers we are safer than we are when we leave. We shouldn't have to 'do as we're told' of course but we are continually betrayed by successive governments, by the perpetrator's family, friends and workmates and too often by our own families.
The first change we need to see is the EARLY IDENTIFICATION of the true perpetrator.
We need:?
Fund us! Fund Victim Survivors to self-determination and safety.
We already have laws that are not being enforced. Rape, assault, stalking, theft, fraud, perjury and protection order breaches are all crimes that are currently not being prosecuted or when they are, have dismal conviction rates. NSW and QLD have made coercive control a crime.
Perpetrators must know there will be consequences for their crimes. Police, lawyers and judges must know there will be consequences for misconduct.?Where is the long overdue Independent Federal Judicial Commission?!?
It’s not safe to leave until all levels of government commit to Saving Women and Children’s Lives. Stop wasting money on talk fests, round tables and reports. We already have far too many shelved reports and recommendations.
Coercive controllers do not listen to ads, they don't listen to anyone.
Listen to us!?
We deserve nothing short of a national apology for systemic failures and commitment to save lives.
Advocate for Child Protection, LGBTQI+ and disability rights with Lived Experience of CSA and DV
5 个月We need to be mindful of what and how we communicate. because it impacts the who? ??
Company Director Historian Poet
5 个月Pretty sure Ballarat is traumatised enough. Will the advertising drive the behaviour further into the darkness? We need to recognise that for many women, abuse has been consistent and ongoing for ages; no one wants to be “that one” who chose their partner badly. Rhianna told Barbara Walters of her deep embarrassment at having found herself in the hands of a violent abuser. I just think we need to be very careful about a confronting message to men, when an empowering message to women is absent. Make women the centre of the story - “you are loved, your are precious, you are respected & we are here for you, meaningfully, practically and functionally and none of this is your fault.” Support of women is not just the absence of abuse.