Archive for AVP news

Premier Daniel Andrews full apology for old laws criminalising homosexual behaviour

// May 24th, 2016 // No Comments » // AVP news, Elders past and present, Media discussion, Within Australia, Within Victoria

“For a future that is strong and fair and just!” – Hon Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria, May 24, 2016.

“Challenging some of the fundamental imbalances that today still stop gay men from reporting violence & harassment!” – Greg Adkins JP, executive director, Anti-Violence Project of Victoria Inc.

“(The) Apology is a powerful symbolic act to repair the harm caused by unjust laws & affirm the value of sexual difference” – Anna Brown, director Advocacy & Strategic Litigation, Human Rights Law Centre

AVP and other LGBTI groups hope to find a home in the Pride Centre

// April 21st, 2016 // No Comments » // AVP news, Media discussion, Within Australia, Within Victoria

Grace

Journalist Beau Donelly (The Age, April 21, 2016) writes that the Anti-Violence Project are hopeful they will find a home in Melbourne’s new Pride Centre, announced by the Andrews government on Wednesday. Tipped to be one of the world’s leading hubs for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community, the $15 million centre is expected to be larger than its counterpart in San Francisco.

For the past 20 years, the group on the front line of supporting victims of homophobic attacks and same-sex domestic violence has been run from its board members’ garages and living rooms.

The Anti-Violence Project of Victoria does not have an office, so when its leadership team comes together once a month to discuss the charity’s future they meet in a Thai cafe in Fitzroy (photo of the AVP’s executive director, Greg Adkins by Simon O’Dwyer).

Read more here:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lgbti-groups-vying-for-space-in-the-multimilliondollar-pride-centre-20160421-goc0jv.html

LGBTI Pride Centre is also a coup for Regional Victoria

// April 21st, 2016 // No Comments » // AVP news, Relationships, Within Victoria

A GAY Pride Centre to be built in Melbourne will be a coup for regional LGBTI people, according to a AVP’s Ballarat director consulted for the project.
Luke Gahan told the Ballarat Courier that he and another regional spokesperson from Shepparton were part of a wide consultation process for the centre.

Read more here:
http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3862958/pride-centre-a-huge-win-for-ballarat/?cs=62

Third-party and assisted violence reporting links to VicPol needed

// March 15th, 2016 // No Comments » // AVP news, Media discussion, Relationship violence, Trans and Gender Diverse, Within Australia, Within Victoria

Grace

Violence impacts the LGBTi community yet remains vastly under-reported. According to the state’s LGBTi Anti-Violence Project this hides the true nature and extent of harassment and violence in Victoria and nationwide.

The AVP has asked Victoria Police to partner with them and other LGBTi community organisations to help reduce harm for LGBTi individuals while also enhancing the range of ways violence can be reported, how reports are accepted by Victoria Police and becoming integrated into their data systems and how those impacted by violence can be triaged more effectively from experiencing violence towards the supports necessary to provide support to them.

This need has been long discussed and the research available for many years but what is missing is a mechanism to pull the threads together”, says AVP executive director Greg Adkins.

“Whatever the source of violence, street harassment, relationship violence or lateral violence between individuals, if the necessary work can be undertaken to bring police, unfunded community-led organisations and other non-government organisations who are funded to provide services to victims of violence, more closely together then the whole society stands to gain.

“Service gaps will be readily identified, gaps in current police resources to fully address the actual extent of violence can then be identified and planned for, and funding gaps for unfunded community-led organisations working in this space can be plugged.

“Community, police, government working together in a new whole-of-life approach to violence impacting LGBTI people.

“In 2016 only a small percentage of LGBTi individuals report their experiences of violence to anyone, the needs of the majority of victims is unknown and healthy outcomes for individuals are delayed well beyond what the broad society would expect is acceptable. This means the long-term cost for society blows out of proportion to the policy solution that should be put in place today.

Anger erupts over rainbow noose image – harmfull effects of Marriage Plebiscite in question

// February 4th, 2016 // No Comments » // AVP news, Media discussion, Within Australia, Within Victoria

Fears about the dangers to the LGBTI community over the Federal government’s proposed marriage plebiscite have been revealed as accurate after an anti-same-sex marriage lobby group posted an image of a woman with a rainbow noose around her neck in its latest social media campaign.

Anything that allows prejudice and homophobia to have an acceptable public platform is dangerous and un-Australian and will damage the health and lives of vulnerable people in the LGBTI community, says the AVP.

Read more here:
http://indaily.com.au/news/national/2016/02/04/anger-erupts-over-rainbow-noose-image/

Grace

Queer men are victims of street harassment nobody talks about

// November 28th, 2015 // No Comments » // Around the globe, AVP news, International, Media discussion, Relationship violence, Within Australia, Within Victoria

Grace

This week we observed White Ribbon day and discussed how pervasive and destructive masculinity can be towards women.

However as Derrick Clifton writes in The Guardian, ‘uncomfortable, if not traumatizing, experiences (of harassment of gay men) get swept under the rug, or worse, internalised as something that “just happens” and shouldn’t be taken seriously’, revealing that many gay men, too, cope silently with harassment and consent issues in male dominated social spaces.

In Australia, governments are yet to turn their social policy lens and budgetary spends towards violence and harassment targeting the LGBTI community. The AVP believes that this makes Clifton’s argument, that its time to have more of a conversation about how the misogyny and patriarchy imbued in rape culture targets gay and gender non-conforming men, a very real and timely conversation to be had.

Read the full article here:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/27/queer-men-like-victims-street-harassment-nobody-talks-about?CMP=share_btn_tw

White Ribbon Day – Walk Against Family & Relationship Violence

// November 25th, 2015 // No Comments » // AVP news, Media discussion, Relationship violence, Relationships, Within Australia, Within Victoria

Grace

We in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community have grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts and other family members who have been and will be victims of relationship and family violence at the hands of men.

The abuse of power within many relationships is a common thread that joins the broader community to our LGBTI community in our shared experience of family and relationship violence where patterns of power, control and violence have been passed on and learned from male family members.

With great sadness we note that one in three women has experienced family and relationship violence and that family and relationship violence is also the silent epidemic within the LGBTI community despite being the subject of increasing scrutiny in heterosexual relationships. One in three LGBTI couples experience family and relationship violence echoing the general population. Additionally many women within the LGBTI community have experienced relationship violence with men before coming-out as same-sex attracted.

We say, with determination, on White Ribbon Day, that the Anti-Violence Project of Victoria recognises and acknowledges that our joint LGBTI and broader heterosexual Victoria and Australia community, cannot be safe until family and relationship violence by men in our society is named, called out as being unacceptable and is dealt with in a way so that it cannot reoccur and is prevented from being passed-on to future generations.

Just as relationship and family violence by men in the broader community is under-reported, we acknowledge homophobia and prejudice motivated violence against the LGBTI community is another form of violence emanating from mens’ behaviour and being passed on through generations.

We call on the Australian and State governments to increase data collection on all forms of violence driven by mens’ behaviour, to develop new strategic public policy, to fund front-line services supporting all victims of family and relationship violence and increase funding and infrastructure to support a community-led response to under-reported violence in all its forms.

Congratulations Sally Goldner – Victorian LGBTI Person of the Year!

// October 17th, 2015 // 1 Comment » // AVP news, Media discussion, Within Victoria

Congratulations Sally Goldner from all at the Anti-Violence Project for your well deserved GLOBE award as the Victorian LGBTI Person of the Year 2015!

We’ve enjoyed a long, friendly and productive association with you and look forward to many collaborations together in the years to come!

Victorian LGBTI Person of the Year

Tackling violence against LGBTI people and defenders

// October 9th, 2015 // No Comments » // Around the globe, AVP news, International

From Geneva, Anna Brown writes for the International Service for Human Rights about Tackling violence against LGBTI people and defenders.

Governments must also take steps to curb violence and protect individuals from discrimination, she says.

This should include measures to improve the investigation and reporting of hate crimes, torture and ill-treatment, to prohibit discrimination, and to review and repeal all laws used to arrest, punish or discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, just to name a few. All too frequently, authorities (in some countries) fail to properly investigate crimes, even if victims have the confidence to make a complaint. As the statement by the UN agencies makes clear, this leads to widespread impunity and lack of justice, remedies and support for victims.

Anna Brown writes that we can take heart from the positive progress in many parts of the world. In Australia there has been legislation introduced to a number of states to erase or ‘expunge’ historic convictions for consensual homosexual conduct. Recently in Ireland reforms have ensured that transgender people have access to birth certificates on the basis of their own declaration rather than requiring stigmatising and invasive medical procedures. Improved responses to LGBTI hate crime, including training of law enforcement officials and specific specialist taskforces or prosecuting teams dedicated to tackling bias-motivated violence have been introduced in countries such as in Spain, Honduras and South Africa.

Anna Brown is Director of Advocacy with the Human Rights Law Centre, a former ISHR trainee and Co-Convenor of the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnaHRLC.

Read more at: ANNA BROWN WRITES IN THE INTERNATIONAL SERVICE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS website

Time to step up and talk about violence! Old laws expunged & old convictions can be removed.

// September 21st, 2015 // No Comments » // AVP news, International, Media discussion, Within Victoria

Expungement of old offences is GO!

Great to see this process underway.

It can also be used in relation to criminal records for trans and gender diverse people convicted of cross-dressing related “crimes” under those old laws.

Check out this link:
Department of Justice Criminal Law Expungement Scheme

After facing the law for an offence for which you can no longer be charged or convicted, you may have experienced prejudice motivated or other violence and not felt able to talk with police about. Nows the time to throw off the shadow of this expired law conviction and step up and talk about your experiences.

Visit the AVP’s Violence Reporting Service, or email vicavp@antiviolence.info and make contact and we’re more than happy to assist you!