‘A safe place to call home’: The tireless effort to keep domestic violence survivors out of homelessness
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Family and domestic violence (FDV) has reached crisis levels in Australia, with a woman killed every 11 days by an intimate partner on average in 2022–23, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
Can religion help prevent domestic violence?
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Domestic violence is a whole-of-society problem. But how are faith communities dealing with the current crisis?
Nationally, the rate of intimate partner homicide is getting worse, not better. So can religions be an ally in preventing violence and making changes to attitudes on marriage, divorce and gender roles?
Victorian teachers also victims of fake explicit images created by students using AI
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New laws not tough enough, says expert
Asher Flynn, an associate professor of criminology at Monash University, said deepfake pornographic images normalise the sexualisation of women and children without consent and more needed to be done.
“I think it sends a really negative message around women’s worth and particularly young girls’ worth,” she said.
“It essentially means that they are just there for the pleasure and sexual gratification of other men.”
She said the government’s proposal to introduce laws that would make sharing non-consensual deepfake pornography a criminal offence did not go far enough.
“I do feel like the laws could have gone further to also think about how we can place more onus on the people who are creating these types of tools for people to use, for example expanding the powers of the e-Safety commissioner and expanding the recourses available to [them],” she said.
“What we do need to see is much more recognition and onus on tech providers, the tech developers and also the social media platforms and websites.”
These new laws only cover images created of people over the age of 18. Child exploitation material, like in the case of Bacchus Marsh, is dealt with separately.
Ms Martin agreed that more needed to be done but acknowledged it would be difficult given the nature of AI.
“This is a global issue and there is only so much that Australia can do because they are dealing with perpetrators who can reside halfway around the world,” she said.
“The question is how effective will these laws be for Australians?”
She said it would ultimately come down to how law enforcement police the issue and how seriously it is taken in the courts.
What is Australia doing to address violence against women?
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Our CEVAW Chief Investigators have come together to express their views on Australia’s current responses to violence against women, and the importance of incorporating evidence-based research and solutions, including on Indigenous experiences.
First Nations women at forefront of talks on gendered violence crisis
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The disproportionate number of First Nations women affected by violence is at the forefront of roundtable talks in Canberra, where the country’s gendered violence experts, service directors and survivor advocates have gathered. The Tuesday national roundtable, called by Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin, focused on the rates of Australian women dying as a result of violence, particularly women who are murdered, missing, or have died by suicide following violence.