Women with Disabilities South Australia Keynote address – Domestic violence law change
25/11/2011
Thank you for having me here to speak on such an important topic, and one which has extra complications and implications for women with disabilities.
I think everyone here would likely know that the rights and independence of people with disabilities is one of the key principles on which I’ve built my life and career. I am a passionate advocate of people with disabilities doing things for themselves.
I am stunned and disappointed when I hear Governments and other social organisations STILL speaking about us like we are in need of charity.
When I hear these things it reminds me that while we might all know that we are independent, autonomous, free-thinking people who have the right to a good quality of life like everyone else – there is still confusion and misunderstanding among many Australians.
The confusion, I think, comes from the fact that people with disabilities do need support. We sometimes need support workers or carers to help us do everyday things. People unfortunately confuse this need for support to do some activities with dependence.
This is the wrong way of looking at it. We are not dependent. We just sometimes require support to do the things which make us independent. Our thoughts and actions are as autonomous as anybody else’s.
Our unique needs as independent beings do not only result in a confused public perception. It also makes our relationships with others extra complicated.
I think to some extent everybody in the world is a carer. Most people have been there to look after someone when they were unwell, injured or emotionally destroyed. I’ve made countless cups of tea and provided hundreds of kilograms of chocolate to friends of mine who had collapsed under an emotional stress in the past.
But as women with disabilities, we tend to have more care-heavy relationships than most. We have professional relationships with support workers who provide care. Our families and friends also often double as carers, and partners will often take on some caring responsibilities too.
This makes us unusually vulnerable to domestic violence, and also makes the already knotted and thorny issue of domestic violence more complicated for us.
I am no expert in this particular area, but I speak about it with a great fierceness and sadness because I know how widespread and hidden it is in our community.
Domestic violence, at its heart, is about power. It is an insipid and evil systematic destruction of a person’s autonomy in order to gain control. In the cases where domestic violence is perpetrated on someone with disabilities, the perpetrator will often use the caring role to their advantage and relish in holding this extra power over their victim.
This is not to say that domestic violence perpetrators are black and white cut-out villains. This is another component which makes the domestic violence situation so complex – perpetrators are human and loveable and flawed, like us all. Victims are torn between the pain and manipulation visited upon them, and the other, more attractive dimensions of their victimiser.
This attachment to the perpetrator is but one hurdle which must be overcome before a victim can extract themselves from the tangled web of domestic violence.
There are myriad other issues: There’s the often highlighted problem that the perpetrator will have isolated the victim from their wider support network, leaving them with no-one to turn to for help when attempting to leave the situation.
There’s also the impact of low self esteem which is often a result of domestic violence, frequently meaning the victim feels in some way like they deserve the abuse or that they can’t do any better in life.
There’s considerations to be made when others are involved too – be it children or other loved ones in the extended network. Victims will often continue suffering in the belief that they are protecting or doing the right thing by someone else.
And of course, there are problems with the nature of services offered to domestic violence victims. Women’s shelters are often full, and even when they’re not they might not be the most attractive option for someone to flee to. People might not feel comfortable or safe in that environment. And for women with disabilities, the shelter may well be inaccessible. Counselling services are hard to find and even harder to get into, meaning some people might wait weeks before seeing a counsellor increasing the risk of the victim returning to the perpetrator.
Further, perpetrators are often also inclined to make it logistically impossible, as well as emotionally very difficult, for a victim to leave. They might take control of all finance and personal property. Or leave the victim in enforced ignorance about debt or housing so they feel ill-equipped to provide for themselves. Or they could take control of the phone, the internet and any other avenues of communication so as to shut down the possibility of getting out.
The worry of losing a home, losing access to financial support, losing access to children, losing transport, furnishings or even clothes, or access to a child’s school can often be used to keep a victim under the control of the perpetrator.
These logistical barriers are already tangled and exceedingly difficult to extract yourself from, once again things are even more complicated for victims of domestic violence who have disabilities. If the person who helps you get out of bed in the morning is also the person who commits domestic violence against you, how do you leave the situation?
What if the perpetrator is the person who helps you eat? What if they are the only by which you can communicate with the outside world?
Leaving your home and your family to escape domestic violence is almost impossible. Leaving the person who supports you in your most essential needs is impossible.
This brings me to another point which I think it is important to highlight. Most of the time when we think about domestic violence we think about it happening between a couple. But there are lots of kinds of domestic violence and lots of kinds of perpetrators and victims. Most pertinently for people with disabilities, I think we should always remember that a carer or support worker can be guilty of domestic violence and we should be vigilant that this is not seen as inevitable.
It is easy to understand how people might feel that they have to put up with being called names, or having a bit of money stolen by someone who provides them with essential support. It is easy to see how people would think ‘What choice do I have? I’ll just have to live with it’, in much the same way that a wife whose only financial support is her husband might think the same thing.
I am here to help spread the word that you do have a choice, and that these examples do indeed constitute domestic violence, and there is no shame in speaking up.
I’m pleased to say that I can also talk about some changes to the law which will hopefully make the dreadfully daunting task of leaving the domestic violence situation easier, particularly for women with disabilities.
These new laws will take effect on December 9. Now these are changes which were discussed in Parliament before I was elected, so I wasn’t part of making these changes – but I am very glad that the Parliament of the time had the vision to make a brave transformation of domestic violence laws.
Usually when we make legislation in Parliament about the justice system and police powers we have to tread very carefully. I am a strong believer that personal freedoms and rights should never be curtailed unless there is good evidence to do so. However, in the case of domestic violence laws these high standards of evidence have proved problematic.
Even to get a restraining order which prevents the domestic violence perpetrator from going near the victim, a court was involved and a certain standard of proof had to be satisfied. Domestic violence is often hidden and private and it was hard to satisfy this need, and on top of that the time leading up to a court date could often be effectively used by a perpetrator to convince a victim to stop pursuing the order.
There are a number of other examples in domestic violence where the need for time and proof in the process stopped the law from effectively protecting victims from perpetrators.
The Parliament of 2009 wisely recognised that in situations of domestic violence, this issue needed addressing – so they’ve instituted a bunch of measures which can be instantly invoked to keep victims safe.
Police will now be able to hand down restraining orders which are effective immediately. Pertinently for women with disabilities these orders will also be able to specify various things to do with property – for example, an order might specify that the victim must be given access to a car or other personal property, or that the perpetrator is not allowed to come to the victim’s home.
This is a really important step for women with disabilities because it means they can stay in their home which is accessible and fitted out with equipment particular to them, rather than fleeing to what is likely to be an inappropriate shelter environment.
The new laws back this temporary intervention provision up with permanent orders which, if appropriate, can be made over the woman’s home. These mean that even if the person responsible for the domestic violence owns the home or is signed on to the lease, the court can force them to relinquish their ownership and rights to the victim.
Legally these are extraordinary measures, but they match the extraordinary tangled nature of domestic violence, and the urgent need to help victims of it.
I am hopeful that they can make a difference for all victims of domestic violence, and am glad to finally see some changes made on behalf of the victims with disabilities.
Thank you for hearing me speak today.
