'Yes' to respect; 'no' to violance

Today we've seen a victory for respect. Violence against women has received a set-back. That's happened with the just-released news that a campaigner for Real Social Dynamics who was touring in Australia has just had his visa cancelled. Real Social Dynamics promotes the humiliation of women. Its followers are young men with no respect for women.

I was among thousands who signed the Change.org petition calling for the Real Social Dynamics visit to end. Now, its representative's visa has been cancelled.

Respect for others is the basis of a civilised society. When we lose respect for other people we are throwing decency out the window. If we lose our basic values, how can we look in the mirror and face ourselves, respect ourselves?

Human beings have such a capacity for good, for generosity, kindness and being thoughtful for others. Let’s nourish these good characteristics. Let’s be our best selves and show respect, care and thoughtfulness in our relationships.

Thank you Matt Jowett for organising the Change.org petition that has brought about this good result.  

The Suffering Season

In the lead-up to Christmas just past, I signed an online petition asking Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to establish life-saving funding for domestic violence refuges. The petition came to me through Change.org and by then some 7,000 people had also signed it. I know Malcolm Turnbull cares about domestic violence – he said so. But action is needed urgently.

We need more refuges. The writer of the petition I signed said that one in every two women who seek shelter in a refuge is turned away because of lack of space. That is shocking.

Many who have studied the subject know that attempting to leave a violent partner creates escalated danger for the victims. Violent partners want control: they want their woman and children in their power, to do with them as their aggressive mood dictates. To attempt to leave is to risk shocking retribution.

To then be unable to leave because there just isn’t a safe place to go is also shocking. Timely, safe help is an absolute priority in these crisis situations. There’s no use receiving a message to say ‘try again in business hours and you can talk to a counsellor’ if someone is about to bash you for simply picking up your phone! Yet if one in two victims can’t find shelter, then that grim scenario is the reality.

Please Premier (of my state of NSW) Mike Baird; please Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull put additional refuges for victims of violence at the very top of your funding priorities. This is a national emergency, just like the sort of natural disasters we have seen over these past weeks: the bush fires and the floods that have taken lives and destroyed livelihoods.

Domestic violence destroys lives too. Our news coverage has been full of domestic violence tragedies these past few weeks. Women – it nearly always is women, though there are men victims too – suffer physical and psychological abuse. But so do the children, who will suffer the psychological scars probably life-long – and sometimes be killed, as Luke Batty was.

Meanwhile, the perpetrators themselves are victim too, in a way. Violent people not only lack empathy, they are locked out of decent, kind, loving relationships with the people they most need.

The problems of domestic violence are many and complex. But providing safe shelters for women and children fleeing from terrifying situations is surely something we can put at the very top of our priorities list. Please.

My novel ‘Finding Felicity’, which takes an in-depth look at domestic violence and dealing with troubled relationships, will be published early this year.