16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

Transcript

00:00 46 years ago today I moved out of Melbourne with police protection following a domestic

00:07 violence situation.

00:09 I owe my life to the police station in Richmond.

00:16 The way I got out was, I told my husband at the time, I'm just going down to the shop

00:23 to get some milk.

00:24 Straight to the Richmond pop shop who got me out and now they keep asking, have you

00:31 got enough money to get home?

00:32 Yes.

00:33 Have you got a place to stay?

00:34 Yes, if not we can put you in a refuge overnight.

00:37 Yeah, so I'm very fortunate to be alive actually, because I've had bruises, bumps and everything.

00:45 It's important to me as I feel Australia has an issue with gender based violence.

00:52 You can look at the statistics.

00:55 Last fortnight has been our highest rate of women murdered.

00:59 We've had around I think six or seven women murdered within one week.

01:04 I think Australia has an issue and we as Australians, it doesn't align I think with our core values

01:13 and I think we all want to do something about it.

01:15 So a lot of people that come to us and are seeking homelessness support, sometimes it's

01:20 as a result of experiencing family violence and not having a safe place to live.

01:24 We know that people that are experiencing family violence might sometimes go and live

01:28 at a family member's house, but sometimes it's in a dwelling that's not suitable, there's

01:32 overcrowding, there's couch surfing and things like that.

01:35 So I think the housing crisis that we're experiencing at the moment is directly linked to family

01:39 violence as well and then those people not having options and safe places to go to.

01:44 Well look, obviously 16As are actively, it's very important, especially with police.

01:49 Obviously we deal with family violence on a daily basis.

01:52 We like to see eradicated forever.

01:55 Of course it happens every day and yeah, events like this we call our partner agencies to

02:01 make it better and try and help those who need it, not only the victims survivors but

02:05 also the perpetrators, that's what it's all about.

02:07 Politically we need safer safe houses.

02:12 They're still at risk.

02:15 It's a difficulty hiding where they are and girls don't often feel safe there and often

02:23 they're left without any resources and they'll suddenly have second thoughts.

02:27 I shouldn't have done this, I better go back and so we lose that girl.

02:31 So those sorts of issues are still problematic.

02:34 Absolutely.

02:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]