Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence on Tuesday 8Th September 2020

FACULTY OF ARTS

Standing Committee

on Social Policy and

Legal Affairs: Family,

domestic and sexual

violence

Response to questions

taken on Notice

Prepared by the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, 22 September 2020.

22 September 2020

The Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs Response to Questions on Notice

Thank you for the opportunity to provide a response to questions taken on notice when presenting to the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence on Tuesday 8th September 2020.

Please find our response to each of the questions taken on notice attached to this letter.

Since we provided our submission to the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs at the end of July 2020 there has been a significant increase in public debate and political attention surrounding calls for the criminalisation of coercive and controlling behaviours. In this response we repeat our recommendation to this Committee that state and territory governments should be cautioned against the introduction of a stand-alone criminal offence of coercive and controlling behaviour without developing a sufficient evidence base first. We have provided further detail on what is needed to improve responses to what is already known about coercive and controlling behaviours across Australia.

Our response also includes an appendix with a written response by our colleagues Associate Professor Asher Flynn (Monash University) and Associate Professor Anastasia Powell (RMIT) with leading expertise in the area of technology facilitated abuse.

We would welcome the opportunity to provide any further detail to inform the work of the Standing Committee’s reference to examine family, domestic and sexual violence with the view of information the next National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children.

Kind regards,

Kate Fitz-Gibbon Silke Meyer Naomi Pfitzner Marie Segrave Sandra Walklate JaneMaree Maher

Table of contents

1. Update on COVID-19 related research, findings and recommendations ...... 4 Update on research findings and recommendations relating to women’s experiences of violence and help seeking behaviours ...... 4 Update on research findings and recommendations relating to practitioner wellbeing ...... 4 Update on research findings and recommendations relating to service innovations ...... 5 Update on research findings and recommendations relating to women experiencing family violence who are temporary visa holders ...... 5 The need to ensure the support and service needs of children are adequately recognised in the covid context ...... 6 2. Integration and streamlining of justice processes for women and children experiencing domestic and family violence in Australia ...... 8 The integrated domestic violence court model ...... 8 Access to justice for women with disability experiencing family violence ...... 8 Evidence on the economic benefit of investing in wrap around supports for women and children victims of violence ...... 12 3. Evidence on the benefits and efficacy of gender equality interventions and primary prevention programs operating in Australia...... 12 4. Barriers for victim/survivors when reporting to police and the evidence on police training, education and cultural change...... 13 UK research on police training and coercive control ...... 13 importance of specialised police and valuing the work that police do in this area...... 14 5. New technologies and coercive control: do you think police need more training in these new technologies? Do you think the technology companies themselves should take more responsibility for it? Is it an area that needs more regulation? ...... 15 Other information for the Inquiry ...... 15 The criminalisation of coercive control ...... 15 References ...... 17 Appendix A: Response to Questions on technology-facilitated abuse, prepared by Associate Professor Asher Flynn (Criminology, Monash University) and Associate Professor Anastasia Powell (Criminology & Justice Studies, RMIT University) ...... 20 Update on COVID-19 related research, findings and recommendations ...... 20 References ...... 23

We have structured this response according to the chronological order of questions taken on notice during our appearance at the Public Hearing. Like our submission, the focus of our responses here recommendations are forward facing and directed largely towards what action can be undertaken, coordinated and achieved by the Australian Government and through the next National Plan.

1. Update on COVID-19 related research, findings and recommendations

Here we provide an update on emerging themes and findings from the Centre’s research on COVID-19 and DFV. Drawing on these findings as well as those presented in our July submission to the Inquiry, we note that the Australian Government should commit additional resources to ensuring the safety of women and children experiencing DFV during the pandemic – both to prevent escalation and to ensure responses to women’s help seeking. Investment requires targeted funds for safe housing and to support the specialist sector to develop and deliver services remotely. As we have noted previously, it has also never been more important to invest in the development of supports for the wellbeing of family violence practitioners, both during and beyond this period of restrictions, since the safety of all families depends on these professionals. Here we have provided an update on emerging themes and findings from the Centre’s research on COVID-19 and DFV.

UPDATE ON RESEARCH FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS RELATING TO WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES OF VIOLENCE AND HELP SEEKING BEHAVIOURS

Our ongoing research examining women’s experiences of violence during the pandemic, has continued to document the ways in which women’s help seeking behaviours have altered under periods of restriction.

Specific to the second wave of restrictions in Victoria, in August 2020 we published an article on The Conversation (see Fitz-Gibbon, True and Pfitzner, 2020), which presented trend data from three key frontline services - 1800 Respect (the national helpline), No to Violence (the peak body for men’s services) and Victoria Police - to better understand how the Victorian restrictions have impacted family violence help-seeking behaviours. The findings are relevant to understanding how women may access services throughout future periods of restrictions and what needs may emerge during the easing of restrictions and recovery periods. This data evidenced that under stage 4 restrictions across Metropolitan Melbourne opportunities for women to help seek are significantly limited. One of the notable changes compared with the pre-COVID period has been the increased use of the online chat function. Between May and July 2020, Victorians represented 31% of all 1800 webchat. This represents a 30% increase in use compared to the three months prior to May. The other key change in help-seeking that the 1800RESEPCT data show is the increased volume of calls placed late at night, peaking around midnight.

While in this rapidly changing environment the true extent of DFV during the COVID-19 pandemic will only emerge in the months and years to come, this data coupled with the findings of our earlier research in Victoria and Queensland (Pfitzner et al 2020) demonstrates why there is a need to ensure that services are adequately resourced to adapt and respond to DFV victimisation and perpetration as Australia moves through the pandemic.

UPDATE ON RESEARCH FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS RELATING TO PRACTITIONER WELLBEING

The second phase of our Victorian research on family violence and the COVID-19 pandemic involved online focus groups and an online anonymous survey to capture the voices and experiences of practitioner responding to family violence during the Victorian COVID-19 lockdowns in July to August 2020. 113 Victorian practitioners completed the second survey and 28 practitioners from specialist family violence services and men’s services participated in the online focus groups. This report will be released in October

2020 and a copy can be provided to the Committee upon release. Emerging findings from this phase of the research are detailed below and also overviewed in Pfitzner, True, Fitz-Gibbon and Meyer (2020).

As the COVID-19 restrictions tightened in Victoria during July and August 2020, practitioners reported significant challenges associated with remotely supporting people experiencing family violence at this time. Key themes include the following:

• The importance of incidental support and debriefing when working remotely, • The isolation and loneliness of remote work, • The drain of constant service adaptation, • The invasion of workers’ safe space through the reduced separation between home and work life, and • Concerns about potential vicarious trauma for other people sharing homes with family violence practitioners during periods of home confinement.

These findings build on the evidence from our first Victorian report and demonstrate that the wellbeing of domestic and family violence practitioners as well as men’s services must be a prioritised as Australia moves forward in responding to the coronavirus.

UPDATE ON RESEARCH FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS RELATING TO SERVICE INNOVATIONS

The second phase of our Victoria research on family violence and help seeking behaviours during COVID- 19 reveals that the service innovations identified in our first Victorian report (Pfitzner, Fitz-Gibbon and True, 2020) have become widespread across the state, particularly the transition to web-, message- and phone-based service delivery. New practices and service adaptions continue to emerge including the use of digital vouchers to provide material aid to clients, phone engagement to hold men in behaviour change programs, remote cross-agency care team meetings and the transition to digital files and forms. Our research indicates that service innovations during the COVID-19 pandemic have increased service accessibility for people living in regional and remote communities as well as people with disability and individuals with health concerns. Some challenges with remote service delivery have been observed unique to family violence work. In particular the absence of visual cues in client assessments provided through face-to-face contact and concerns about client confidentiality, privacy and safety during home confinement.

UPDATE ON RESEARCH FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS RELATING TO WOMEN EXPERIENCING FAMILY VIOLENCE WHO ARE TEMPORARY VISA HOLDERS

Our recent research (Segrave & Pfitzner 2020), which will be publicly released on 24th September 2020 highlights the following critical issues for women who hold temporary visas and who are experiencing family violence:

1. The weaponisation of visa status is critical. 70 per cent of the perpetrators were Australian citizens or permanent residents. Threats to have women ‘deported by Immigration’ were noted in 55 percent of cases, and threats to withdraw sponsorship (for women holding temporary partner visas) in 60 percent of cases. Women indicated that they were most afraid of being killed or harmed by the perpetrator (70%), and that they feared being forced to leave the country, including forced to leave while their Australian born children would remain with their Australian father. The fear of returning home is significant for some women for different reasons: some women fear the perpetrator will follow her and harm her, or that his family in the country of origin will harm her, others fear being ostracised from their community because they are no longer married, others have Australian-citizen children who they fear being separated from. Others do not want to return because they are pursuing

a life or their future in Australia: for example, working or studying. This builds on Segrave’s extensive 2017 report on temporary migration and family violence.

2. Housing and financial stress were the most significant challenges for supporting temporary visa holders during this time.

a. Our report revealed the impact of for temporary migrants being excluded from JobSeeker and JobKeeper, as detailed in Berg and Farbenblum (2020). In our study, 70 per cent of women who had paid employment lost their job due to COVID-19. Lack of money is clearly linked to lack of options in relation to family violence: seeking security in these circumstances can mean remaining with an abusive perpetrator to ensure children are fed and have beds to sleep in. This is partly also a consequence of the limited availability of safe housing options.

b. Recent Australian research on women experiencing domestic and family violence during COVID- 19 has shown that the shortage in safe housing options has been an acute service gap for the sector (Pfitzner, Fitz-Gibbon & True, 2020; Pfitzner, Fitz-Gibbon, Meyer & True, 2020). In our study, housing/accommodation was a key issue for two thirds of the women in this study. Housing issues varied: for some women who lived alone the accommodation was unsafe because the perpetrator had previously lived there, he knew the address and had a key. In other cases, women were couch surfing with their children: relying on friends who were also under financial and other pressures due to COVID-19. Some women stayed with their abusive partners because of the absence of anywhere else to go. When we spoke with case managers, we were also told that some clients had been offered the airfare home, because there simply were no available resources in Australia to help them.

c. The impact of closing down of various services, and other services being overwhelmed, has had complex consequences. For example, the closing of libraries and restrictions on movement has impacted many women’s ability to access forms to sign and share and/or to have documents certified and emailed, which slows down applications for family violence provisions to be made. The adjournment of IVO applications has impacted family violence provision applications as well, as provisional IVOs are not accepted as judicial evidence of family violence and this requires paying the cost (financially and in terms of time) of external independent assessment regarding whether there was family violence in the relationship and this caused the breakdown of the relationship.

Overall during the first lock down period there was an increase in the proportion of temporary visa holders seeking support, usually around 40%, to 50%. However, it is anticipated that the additional and length Stage 3 and Stage 4 restrictions across Victoria will have consequences for service seeking as restrictions ease. This requires monitoring over the long term.

THE NEED TO ENSURE THE SUPPORT AND SERVICE NEEDS OF CHILDREN ARE ADEQUATELY RECOGNISED IN THE COVID CONTEXT

In 2016, The Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence (2016) labelled children the ‘silent victims’ of DFV. In 2019, the short- and long-term consequences of childhood trauma, including DFV, were estimated to cost the Australian economy A$34 billion each year (Deloitte Access Economics 2019). While not exclusively male-to-female perpetrated, DFV remains a gendered issues that disproportionately affects women and children in Australia and globally (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2019; World Health Organisation [WHO], 2017). Between one in four and one in eight children grow up with parental DFV at some point during their childhood (Devaney, 2015; McTavish, MacGregor, Wathen & MacMillan, 2016).

While children may witness and experience parental DFV in many ways, extensive research evidence generated over the past two decades clearly identifies childhood exposure to DFV as a predictor of adverse social, emotional and behavioural outcomes for children and adolescents (Holt, Buckley & Whelan, 2008; Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt & Kenny, 2003; Lourenco et al., 2013). Children exposed to DFV have been found to experience increased levels of behavioural problems, depression and anxiety, which may result in withdrawal from peers, school and family, and/ or by expressing themselves through anger and aggression (Kitzmann et al., 2003; Lourenco et al., 2013). In some cases, this behaviour may continue into adulthood, maintaining the cycles of violence established by abusive parents (Lourenco et al. 2013). The well documented adverse outcomes disproportionately affecting young people exposed to DFV highlight the need to identify opportunities for early interventions to mitigate this risk.

Service responses to families affected by DFV have increasingly begun to recognise the adverse effects of children’s exposure to DFV (Campo 2015; Carlson et al. 2019; Turner et al., 2015). However, most interventions remain parent- rather than child-centred (Meyer et al. 2019; Swerin Bostaph, King & Kirkland Gillespie, 2018). Responses focus on removing the abusive parent from the home (e.g. through arrest, incarceration or exclusion orders), ordering the abusive parent to complete a perpetrator intervention program, placing mothers and children into crisis accommodation or removing children from both parents where substantial child welfare concerns arise. All these current responses, guided by recent policy and legislative reforms in western countries such as Australia, the US and the UK, aim to put a halt to children’s exposure to DFV due to the known adverse, and often lasting, effects on children’s safety, development and long-term wellbeing. However, these interventions are parent-focused, rather than child-centred. Few of these responses recognise the importance of ongoing, child-centred recovery needs (Akerlund & Gottzen 2016; Campbell & Thompson, 2015; Commission for Children and Young People [CCYF] 2016; Meyer, Hine, McDermott & Eggins, 2019; Meyer & McDermott, 2020). Those that do are usually not resourced to provide ongoing support.

While establishing and maintaining child-centred early interventions and recovery support must form a critical component of government responses to DFV in general, this will be particularly pertinent in the wake of the current pandemic. In April 2020, the United Nations labelled women’s experiences of domestic violence the ‘shadow pandemic’ (UN Women, 2020) and recognised that children, including those growing up with domestic violence, may be the biggest victims of the COVID-19 pandemic due to their exacerbated vulnerability (UN, 2020). Across the globe, stay-at-home orders have created grave concerns for the wellbeing of women and children (Cluver et al., 2020), who are disproportionately affected by intensified, prolonged experiences of DFV during home confinement restrictions. Emerging Australian research has revealed an increase in women and children’s exposure to DFV during the pandemic, along with challenges around meeting ongoing and newly arising support needs (Boxall, Morgan & Brown, 2020; Pfitzner et al, 2020a; 2020b; Usher et al., 2020). While most research has been adult victim focused, children’s exposure and vulnerability would have increased alongside that of adult victim. This raises specific questions for understanding children’s experiences of parental violence during times of home confinement. In the wake of COVID-19 restrictions, their support needs will likely increase to a level never seen before and it is essential that recovery policies mitigate the risk of long-term adverse outcomes for children.

In addition to meeting the recovery needs of children affected by DFV-related childhood trauma, future responses to DFV need to consider long-term investment in early interventions and primary prevention of the intergenerational transmission of DFV. While cost-benefit analyses are limited, research suggests that early intervention and primary prevention programs directed at strengthening parenting, families at risk and community support for vulnerable families show promising results in reducing the risk of intergenerational transmission of DFV and its related economic impact (see for example https://www.eif.org.uk/report/early-intervention-in-domestic-violence-and-abuse) for a comprehensive UK based review of emerging and promising evidence.

2. Integration and streamlining of justice processes for women and children experiencing domestic and family violence in Australia

THE INTEGRATED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE COURT MODEL

We welcomed the opportunity during the public hearing to restate the need for justice processes for women and children experiencing domestic and family violence in Australia to be streamlined and integrated wherever possible. We support the findings and recommendations of various recent Australian national and state-based inquiries, including the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence (2016) which emphasised the need for improved streamlining and integration of justice processes.

The New York Integrated Domestic Violence court model is one example of an approach to court specialisation, streamlining and integration that should be considered in Australia. The model is a fully integrated one, often referred to as the “one family, one judge” model (see further Fitz-Gibbon, 2016). Multiple courts and independent support agencies are located in one single building, together addressing a very broad range of matters arising in DFV cases, including civil protection orders, juvenile matters, custody, child relinquishment, child support, and orders sought for adolescents (Persons in Need of Supervision). On entry to the court building, there were a significant number of pamphlets provided by support organisations, very clear directions to each different type of DFV matter, and sets of definitions for all DFV related processes and legal terms. Unlike in Australia, the New York Integrated Domestic Violence court model does not require applicants and respondents to navigate multiple courts and justice systems. A key strength of this approach is that there are no jurisdictional and structural distinctions between family violence matters and other types of family need. This structure allows for all families’ needs (in relation to both protection from violence and other issues, including family law and housing) to be addressed simultaneously. This approach should be considered in Australia to remedy well documented failures of the current system where family law and DFV justice processes do not interact.

ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR WOMEN WITH DISABILITY EXPERIENCING FAMILY VIOLENCE

In responding to the Standing Committee’s questions on access to justice for women with disability experiencing family violence we present information about our completed national project, the Access to Justice: Women Disability and Violence project, which was funded by ANROWS and completed in 2018 (Maher et al., 2018). This project aimed to build the evidence base to better understand:

• Women’s experiences of violence, especially sexual assault and/or intimate partner violence, • How women positioned and interpreted these experiences in relation to their disability, • The mechanisms and factors that lead to incidences of violence, especially sexual assault and/or intimate partner violence being reported, and • Women’s experience, if they report, of responses in terms of services and justice systems.

The project team undertook fieldwork in two Australian states, Victoria and New South Wales. In total, 36 women participated in our study, through semi-structured interviews or focus groups. These women lived in urban and regional locations in Victoria and New South Wales: the complexity and diversity of their insights has been the primary critical source in our project analysis. We also interviewed 18 specialist violence and disability stakeholders across the two states.

Further details about the research methods and data analysis can be found in the research report Women, disability and violence: Barriers to accessing justice: Final report (Maher et al., 2018), also available on the ANROWS website (note Easy English and Auslan translations of the research report, including key findings are available on our website).

Here we provide a summary of the key findings of that project.

We need to listen to the voices of women with disability and to believe them

Many women who participated in this project were motivated by a strong desire to achieve change for others in the future. As identified in the Stop the Violence Project (Dowse et al., 2013), supporting the leadership and participation of women with disability in legislative change and policy making will be necessary to achieve such changes. They spoke clearly about their experiences and often detailed a growing understanding of what they were experiencing as “violence” as part of a pathway to achieving greater everyday security. For those tasked with supporting women’s everyday care needs, ideas of violence may often be more limited and troubling. A recent study highlighted the way in which care workers’ concern about raising violence as an issue with women in discussion and in-service provision can operate as a form of gatekeeping, preventing them from making informed decisions and taking control of their lives (Dyson et al., 2017, p.31). In moving towards the removal of barriers to women’s access to justice, attention to women’s own accounts and aspirations is critically important.

Women with disability face particular and sustained challenges in achieving everyday safety and security

Typically, economic security, housing stability and care and service support are not readily accessible or available for women with disability. Understanding how violence impacts on women’s lives in this context requires attention to types of violence that may be invisible or less well understood, including attention to how women’s need for resilience and survival in the face of precarious everyday safety and security may impact on their definitions of, and decisions about, violence and the support and services they need. Women were clear that different forms of justice, personal and legal, were important to them in different contexts. Support to achieve the justice that they sought, that is, recognition of their legal capacity, autonomy and independence, was vitally important.

In considering how women might actually move towards pathways to justice, everyday security was identified as a critical first step in all that followed. As some of the women explained, without a secure living situation in which they could feel confident, referrals and other forms of response to support transitions away from violence had little chance of succeeding.

Possible pathways to just outcomes

Data gathered in this project indicated that women with disability face violence in multiple ways. Violence occurs through a diverse range of incidents, consistently as part of everyday experiences and through the operations of family structures, relationships, institutions, service delivery and policy settings. Legislative frameworks played a crucial role in diminishing women’s legal capacity: this was routinely denied or inhibited; reproductive and sexual autonomy were compromised; women’s decisions about treatment and desired outcomes were not respected; appropriate communicative methods and approaches were not offered; and therefore, agency to act as full citizens before the law was not accorded them.

This complexity in terms of denying or limiting the legal capacity of women with disability has implications for effective responses, for how justice is defined and for how access to these different types of justice is understood. Women sought effective, respectful and prompt responses to disclosures as one important form of access to justice. Women’s aspirations for everyday security for themselves, and in many instances their children, were also a critical aspect of what they identified as justice and access to justice. They often distinguished personal and legal justice. Our data suggests that definitions of violence and access to justice require considerable attention and expansion if we are to effectively address the needs, and embed the human rights of women with disability into service delivery models. However, as

9 identified in the context review, action on existing recommendations which would change the extant patterns of injustice that this study confirms, is a critical pathway.

Service challenges across the specialist violence and disability service sectors

In addressing the needs of women with disability, different services (here including disability support and advocacy services, specialist violence and family violence services, and legal support services) faced different challenges in supporting women to achieve access to justice. Understandings of disability and violence were variable and at times seemed reliant on common or pre-existing assumptions about women with disability – about women’s legal capacity and rights, about what “needs” women were likely to have, about what “barriers” to accessing justice might exist, about how violence might manifest and about what responses might best serve women. Supporting services to build cross-sectoral and grounded knowledge in workers, embedded in cross sector training packages, would ensure best practice outcomes, and build robust evidence bases for new and emerging knowledges about how best to support women to achieve safety, security and justice.

Impact of “siloed” knowledges

The impact of assumptions about women with disability, their needs, strengths, aspirations, and concepts of violence, justice, security and safety are critical in influencing how effective social, institutional, service and policy responses are in supporting women to achieve everyday safety, security and justice. The notion of “silos” as creating risks for women with disability and reducing the likelihood of effective responses have been urgently emphasised in multiple recent reports and also arose as a key issue in our study (see for example: Healey, 2008; Dowse et al., 2013; Dyson et al., 2017). The impacts of assumptions and siloed knowledges vary according to different sectors and service agencies: the outcome however is that women’s access to justice is often contingent on partial knowledge, insights, skills and service delivery models. Many service providers were aware that these complementary skills and knowledges were crucial to building effective and just responses for women experiencing violence: pathways for information exchange and service sharing were not always clear, however. Despite systematic investigations, reports, and recommendations for change, there appears to be limited progress towards embedding access to justice for women with disability facing violence in meaningful and concrete ways.

Implications: Actions to achieve access to justice for women with disability

The past five years in particular have seen numerous reports and inquiries that outline both the existing issues and pathways forward for women with disability facing violence and seeking access to justice. This study serves to reinforce that there has not been action on these existing recommendations. In securing access to justice and freedom from violence for women with disability, it is clear that we need to act on what is known and has been proposed, as follows:

1. ensure access to everyday security and safety with attention to housing, economic well-being, and respectful and responsive service structures that support and enhance women’s autonomy; 2. ensure international instruments enshrining inclusive human rights for all are active; 3. ensure that women with disability have access to specialised violence services; fourth, support disability services to facilitate access to specialised violence services for the women they support; and 4. continue to expand and rethink how we define violence with regard to understanding the experiences of women with disability.

As our findings indicate, women with disability require responses and support that we, as a society and community, are still struggling to deliver in the face of gendered disability violence. They also require the urgent development of structures that support their leadership and inclusion and which attend to their

10 views of just outcomes including the particular barriers they face in achieving such outcomes. These structures and effective good policy and practice models can be sourced in the Stop the Violence Project outcomes.

Women participating in this study were articulate about the everyday ways in which their safety and security has been compromised. The deleterious and long-lasting effects of violence and a lack of access to justice were evident: all of the women identified extensive and on-going effects, many of which remain unaddressed. In our view, as in the views of these women and the service providers we interviewed, the changing landscape of the disability and specialist violence sectors not only offers uncertainty, but also hope and opportunity. We are entering into a period in Australia’s history where traditional approaches to violence are being challenged and new understandings of the capabilities, choice and control of people with disability are emerging. Accordingly, for us, there is a real opportunity at this time to support services across the specialist violence and disability service sectors to build cross-sectoral and grounded knowledge in workers. Yet, we face a depressing recent history of the failure to effectively implement existing recommendations. As has been consistently emphasised and reinforced, there is a need for cross-sector training packages that support the specialist violence and disability service sectors to form stronger linkages and referral pathways which make use of the full range of provisions emerging across all sectors that support women with disability. However, the success of these initiatives will depend on close attention to what women say they want and need. It will also depend on the willingness to act to implement existing recommendations to ensure autonomy and participation in regard to legal and other processes.

Clear and consistent recommendations that could achieve change already exist but have not been implemented. Multiple reports, ground-breaking projects such as the Stop the Violence Project (Dowse et al., 2013; WWDA, 2013), findings from national investigations such as the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC, 2014) Equal before the law: towards disability justice strategies, and the ALRC (2014) Equality, Capacity and Disability in Commonwealth Laws have in fact identified the barriers women with disability face. Further, they have proposed changes that would create pathways to justice through supporting and enabling women’s full citizenship and participation, recognising their legal capacity and ensuring Australia meets its human rights obligations.

Key implications for policy settings and service providers

• The Stop the Violence Project (Dowse et al., 2013) recommended a number of strategies to support the full participation and leadership of women with disability in the development of legislative and policy frameworks: this is critical to achieve long term change and effective social and service responses. • The AHRC (2014) call for a Disability Justice Strategy and the implementation of prior recommendations in relation to legal capacity for people with disability. This call and the importance of rethinking current legal capacity frameworks and existing legislation in line with human rights frameworks and obligations (PWDA, ACDL, AHRCentre, 2014; Didi et al., 2017) must underpin movement forward. • Recognising and identifying diverse types of violence that impact on the everyday safety and security of women with disability requires attention to individual, environmental and institutional factors because they influence, impact on, and in many instances, constrain those women’s autonomy and agency. • Experiences of violence are commonplace and contextual: effective responses to support women with disability to achieve justice, in ways that offer meaningful resolutions and pathways forward for them, will require integrated service systems that offer distinct services, insights and expertise, informed by the leadership of women with disability. • Currently, as identified in our key findings, expertise exists across different sectors (disability services, family services, specialist family violence services, sexual assault services, and justice

services) and is not generally accessible through one service portal. Knowledge of different sector expertise and insights is not readily accessible to service providers. • Our key sector-focused recommendation is the development and provision of cross sectoral training packages (a model and trial that we hope will occur as one outcome of this ANROWS project) as a valuable and concrete way to address the current “siloed” knowledges and expertise around support for women with disability to access justice, most particularly in relation to just outcomes that support their identified needs. Such training will need to embed knowledge about how the experiences of violence at the intersections of gender, disability, indigeneity, cultural diversity and other forms of social disadvantage impact access to all forms of justice.

In addition to cross sectoral training, we recommend sponsored three-month placements/ professional development internships for those working in disability service provision and specialist family violence/sexual abuse service provision and associated legal sectors. All these sectors bring distinct yet critical knowledge about disability as complex and environmental in its impacts on women’s everyday safety and security; and violence rooted in practices of coercive control that can extend well beyond commonly understood types of violence. Ensuring these knowledges, which are always developing and emerging, are able to transition across all of the sectors that support women with disability is crucial in moving towards everyday safety and security in an inclusive society that strives towards the human rights of all. It is critical in ensuring women with disability have access to both personal and legal justice.

EVIDENCE ON THE ECONOMIC BENEFIT OF INVESTING IN WRAP AROUND SUPPORTS FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE

We have included information about the value of investing in wrap around supports for women and children victims of family and domestic violence in our update of COVID related research on children (see first section of this response).

3. Evidence on the benefits and efficacy of gender equality interventions and primary prevention programs operating in Australia.

The emerging body of Australian research on intimate partner and sexual violence primary prevention has identified several promising environmental entry points for prevention initiatives including health and workplace settings. The negative health and developmental outcomes of violence against women are well documented and health services have long been at the forefront of responses to violence against women (Upston, Poljski, & Wirtz, 2015; World Health Organisation, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, & South African Medical Research Council, 2013). Recent Australian primary prevention activities delivered in health settings have sought to engage men and women through parenting programs. The transition to parenthood marks a critical point in the production of gender inequality and increased risk of violence against women. International practice shows that breaking down rigid gender stereotypes and engaging men in parenting can effectively prevent violence from occurring. Emerging Australian programs address gendered expectations regarding parenting roles and encourage men and women to model gender equality in their own relationships (Flynn, 2011; Keleher & Hutcheson, 2016; Our Watch, 2018; Pfitzner, Humphreys, & Hegarty, 2020, 2018, 2017; Taket, Büsst, Coady, & Cris, 2016). Evaluations to date have reported some positive short term outcomes in areas of knowledge and attitude change (Flynn, 2011; Keleher & Hutcheson, 2016). Investment in large scale evaluations to determine the effectiveness of such initiatives to support changes in the attitudes, norms and behaviours that help sustain violence against women over the long term is required.

With approximately 65 per cent of Australians aged 15 years and over employed or actively seeking employment, workplace initiatives have the potential to reach large populations and play a key role in promoting gender equality and preventing family violence in the community (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018). Although there is growing interest in work-based primary prevention initiatives, many

activities undertaken to promote gender equality and prevent family violence in Australian workplaces have not been documented and/or rigorously evaluated. Local governments, particularly in Victoria, have a significant history of engagement with actions to prevent violence against women (Castelino & Whitzman, 2008). Recent local government initiatives to prevent violence against women centre on workforce development and cultural change (Municipal Association of Victoria & Nous Group, 2017; Powell, Sandy, & Findling, 2015; Upston et al., 2015). For example, the Darebin City Council’s Darebin Says No to Family Violence initiative is a workplace program centred on internal capacity building through embedding and promoting gender equality across the Council’s organisational structures, leadership and operations (Powell et al., 2015). The program involved a number of activities such as the creation of a dedicated PVAW officer and bystander and family violence identification training (Powell et al., 2015).

The introduction of the Gender Equality Act 2020 in Victoria will likely lead to greater involvement in gender equality and primary prevention initiatives in public sector workplaces. Investment in comprehensive and coordinated evaluation with a view to the scalability and sustainability of workplace primary prevention strategies is required.

4. Barriers for victim/survivors when reporting to police and the evidence on police training, education and cultural change.

Members of the Committee asked whether we were aware of barriers that women face in seeking support from police when experiencing family violence, in particular coercive and controlling behaviour and what barriers present in shifting policy attitudes and improving understanding of coercive control. Committee members asked if we were aware of any education programs that have helped to change policy attitudes, both here and internationally.

UK RESEARCH ON POLICE TRAINING AND COERCIVE CONTROL

To date there has been little empirical investigation and evaluation of policing responses to the coercive control legislation introduced in England and Wales in December 2015. However, work done in conjunction with one large northern police force engaged in a quantitative analysis all the police domestic abuse data from January 2016 to June 2017 (18.289) and followed up all the cases identified as coercive control within that data set (156) and compared the responses made to these cases with a random sample of cases actioned as actually bodily harm (102) (see Barlow et al. 2020). This work found that:

• 95% of victims were women and perpetrators were much more likely to be men, highlighting the gendered nature of this offence • Victims rarely contacted the police specifically to report coercive control. The crime of coercive control often only became apparent as a result of other offences (such as assault or criminal damage) being reported to the police. • Compared to other cases of domestic abuse-related crimes, coercive control cases were given a lower priority grading by call handlers. • Coercive control cases were also less likely to lead to an arrest or be solved in comparison to other forms of domestic abuse (such as actual bodily harm) • Findings also suggested that there were possible missed opportunities for using the coercive control offence. First and other responders found it difficult to identify patterns of behaviour commensurate with coercive control and/or focused on the behaviours that could be identified and actions (like for example, physical assault). • A significant number of potential coercive control cases resulted in no further action because of difficulties in securing appropriate evidence • This work also exposed some weaknesses in the risk assessment process deployed within this force and its capacity to capture coercive control.

A coercive control learning tool was developed for training purposes for the force partnering in this research (Barlow et al. 2020). Initial findings from the evaluation of that tool indicate improved understandings of the relationship between vulnerability and coercive control (from 5.1 to 8.9 on a scale of 1-10; 800 officers trained, 400 evaluated the training) with the arrest rates for coercive control increasing from 10 per cent (before training) to 28 per cent post training (evidence based on responses from a 10% sample of those trained).

This research by Barlow, Johnson, Walklate and Humphreys (2020) also found that:

• The range of abusive behaviours encapsulated by the legislation was ambiguous and this impeded its implementation. • The legislation potentially masks levels of violence experienced by victims, as the offence, for recording purposes, is placed in the ‘violence against the person without injury’ category. This may change once the Domestic Abuse Bill currently before the UK Parliament comes into law.

IMPORTANCE OF SPECIALISED POLICE AND VALUING THE WORK THAT POLICE DO IN THIS AREA.

In 2016 a research project with 200 police officers across Victoria (Segrave, Wilson & Fitz-Gibbon 2018) found that extra police and training is not the single answer improve outcomes for victim-survivors of family violence. It requires listening to frontline police to recognise how we can make steps toward better results for victim-survivors and ongoing job satisfaction for police.

Our research had four key findings for reform of police responses to family violence and the need for specialisation:

1. Policing methods have to vary across a state or region. Communities are diverse and their needs are specific. Police must be responsive to this including tailoring family violence policing. In inner- city areas, the issues and responses required can be vastly different from regional areas. This can reflect very different police-family members relationships, and the likelihood of individual police having repeated contact with the same family.

2. Police training cannot be separated from the training that occurs on the job. In our study, police made consistent reference to ideas learned in the academy about domestic and family violence, but would then reflect on their “real” training that occurred once they were operational. Given this, family violence training must not just be targeted to new recruits, but across all levels of police. Training should also be specific, rather than generic online training modules that police complete when they find the time.

3. Resources and pressure impacts good policing. In nearly every interview with police across Victoria the lack of resources was a consistent concern. Many frontline officers were well aware of the increasing pressure to ensure victim notification processes were followed to enable victim/witnesses to be kept up to date. But this was often a source of frustration, given the challenges of maintaining this communication while managing shift work and a heavy case load. It is critical that we understand the pressures on police. This is the starting point for recognising that in responding to situations of family violence, some police can simply become exhausted and frustrated with a situation they may view as resolvable through criminal justice interventions and separation. This is not an excusable reaction but we have to recognise this, rather than simply criticising it.

4. Policing domestic and family violence would benefit from a significant investment in family violence units, with dedicated officers in every station everywhere, and career advancement and acknowledgement for this work. Domestic and family violence is an overwhelming proportion of police work, yet it remains undervalued work: because it is complex and often involves ongoing contact. Good policing requires Victoria Police working closely with other organisations and having a deep understanding of the complexity of the issues. This is in direct contrast to the largely reactive tasks of general duties police.

5. New technologies and coercive control: do you think police need more training in these new technologies? Do you think the technology companies themselves should take more responsibility for it? Is it an area that needs more regulation?

To respond to these questions, we have provided a written response by our colleagues with leading expertise in the area of technology facilitated abuse. Please find attached Appendix A: Response to Questions on technology-facilitated abuse, prepared by Associate Professor Asher Flynn (Criminology, Monash University) and Associate Professor Anastasia Powell (Criminology & Justice Studies, RMIT University).

Other information for the Inquiry

THE CRIMINALISATION OF COERCIVE CONTROL

Research clearly indicates that coercive control is a significant dynamic of DFV and that it manifests in a wide variety of ways including financial, psychological and technology facilitated abusive practices (see, inter alia, Johnson et al 2019; Harris & Woodlock, 2019; Buchanan & Humphreys, 2020; Singh & Sidhu, 2020). Research also evidences that coercive control is a key risk factor preceding intimate partner homicide (Myhill & Hohl, 2019). We acknowledge the seriousness of this form of family violence, the importance of recognising intimate partner violence as a pattern of abusive behaviours rather than a single isolated incident, and the critical need across Australia to improve responses to, and the prevention of, all forms of coercive control.

We repeat our recommendation to this Committee that state and territory governments should be cautioned against the introduction of a stand-alone criminal offence of coercive and controlling behaviour without developing a sufficient evidence base first. We draw attention to the findings of the two landmark Australian reviews of domestic and family violence - the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence (RCFV, 2016) and the Queensland Special Taskforce (2015) neither of whom recommended the introduction of a stand- alone offence of coercive control.

To improve responses to what is already known about coercive and controlling behaviours across Australia we recommend:

• A national review of domestic and family violence definitions of coercive control in civil law to ensure consistency across the states and territories. At present while some state jurisdictions expressly recognise coercive control as a form of DFV other states and territories do not. The lack of a consistent definition can provide barriers to obtaining an intervention order/protection order, among other policy and practice challenges.

• The Australian Government commission a national study of state and territory risk identification, assessment and management practices for coercive and controlling behaviours with the aim of

ensuring that coercive control is embedded in all DFV relevant risk policies and practices nationally. This study should cover specialist and mainstream frontline responders and practitioners. Coercive control is a key risk factor preceding intimate partner homicide and significantly restricts victims’ ability to seek help and access relevant support. It is essential that all common risk assessment and management frameworks across Australian states and territories embed a shared language on, and an understanding of, the behaviours that constitute coercive control. Developing practice guidance for the identification, assessment and management of risk for coercively controlled relationships is central to improving practitioners’ ability to facilitate women’s help seeking behaviours, meet their support needs and better identify and respond to the high level of risk that this form of DFV presents.

• All Australian state and territory police and related criminal justice practitioners move to develop consistent and mandated training on identifying and responding to coercive and controlling behaviours in DFV matters. This should include education on the range of behaviours that can constitute coercive control, the impact and seriousness of coercive control, the barriers it creates to help-seeking for and disclosure of DFV and the need to understand DFV as a pattern of behaviours rather than an isolated event. This training should be targeted to specialist DFV and entry level police officers alongside related criminal justice practitioners, to ensure cross institutional awareness and the necessary cultural change in the understanding of how this form of DFV is manifested.

We believe the above combination of practice reform and research would build the evidence base to better understand current responses to coercive control and to ensure that frontline responders are adequately trained to identify, assess and manage the risks associated with the full range of coercive and controlling behaviours.

We note the body of research in Australia, the UK and elsewhere documenting the limits of the criminalisation of coercive control and urging caution in the adoption of coercive control offences (see, among others, Hanna, 2009; Walklate & Fitz-Gibbon, 2019; Walklate, Fitz-Gibbon & McCulloch, 2018). In reaching this conclusion, our research has critically examined:

• The challenge of assuming that victims of coercive control will report their victimisation to the police, • The barriers to help seeking experienced within a coercively controlled relationship and the inability of new legislation to address these barriers or facilitate women’s access to necessary supports, • The limitations of police (and other criminal justice professionals) to effectively identify and investigate coercive control, • The significant challenges that arise in evidencing coercive and controlling behaviours to the requisite legal standard.

Failure to address these challenges will undermine the purpose of any legislation as women will be unable to prove their accounts of coercive control to the requisite legal standard and the legal process may serve to undermine the seriousness of what they experience and the impacts of the perpetrators’ pattern of abusive behaviours.

The recommendations above are framed by over two decades of feminist legal and criminological research that has documented the ways in which the criminal law and the criminal justice system has served as a site of re-victimisation and injustice for women victims of DFV (Douglas, 2008; Goodmark, 2018; Meyer, 2011; Nancarrow, 2019; Reeves & Meyer, forthcoming). Criminal law responses to DFV are necessary but limited in effectiveness and carry significant risk of unintended impacts.

We urge the Committee to keep in view the range of policy and practice reforms that can and should occur outside of and in addition to the realm of the criminal law in order to improve responses to and the prevention of coercive control across Australia.

References

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Appendix A: Response to Questions on technology-facilitated abuse, prepared by Associate Professor Asher Flynn (Criminology, Monash University) and Associate Professor Anastasia Powell (Criminology & Justice Studies, RMIT University)

UPDATE ON COVID-19 RELATED RESEARCH, FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Though data is still emerging, there is evidence that the lockdown measures associated with Covid-19 are also connected with increases in multiple forms of violence and abuse. For example, according to figures provided to our researchers by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, it received more than 1,000 reports of image-based abuse between March and May 2020 (Flynn & Powell, 2020). This represents a 210% increase on the average weekly number of reports they received in 2019. There was also a huge spike over the Easter weekend, where there was an almost 600% increase on usual reporting figures (Powell & Flynn, 2020). Since lockdown, the eSafety Commissioner has also observed an increasing trend in people being blackmailed over their intimate images, as well as people trying to monetise intimate content such as through sextortion scams.

Q taken on notice: In terms of your observations on coercive control and the points you make about the need for more police training on what is coercive control, could you comment on new technologies that we’re seeing being used in these situations to exert control.

I was particularly concerned about the reports of small bank transfers being used as basically a messaging service and people sending 1c transfers to ex-partners with messages like ‘I will kill you,’ ‘I will control you’ and all these kinds of things. So, to delve into that: do you think police need more training in these new technologies? Do you think the technology companies themselves should take more responsibility for it? Is it an area that needs more regulation?

Technology-facilitated abuse involves the use of mobile and digital technologies in interpersonal harms such as online sexual harassment, stalking and image-based abuse. Australian research has shown that technology-facilitated abuse is a growing problem, in particular, as a tool used by perpetrators of gender- based violence. Much of which occurs in the context of domestic and sexual violence, as well as in dating contexts and from strangers online. As Dragiewicz et al. (2018: 611) observe in the context of domestic violence:

Digital media offer a variety of everyday options for effectively controlling partners. Some of these are contemporary iterations of traditional forms of abuse, like stalking and verbal abuse. However, the accessibility and immediacy of mobile, digital, and social media may result in abuse perpetration with greater ease, using new methods and channels.

Emerging evidence from a survey conducted with 15,000 Australian women in May 2020 suggests that domestic violence has indeed increased in first time occurrence, and increased in severity of violence, since the onset of the pandemic. In addition, technology-facilitated abuse was found to be strongly associated with experiences of other forms of emotional, harassing and controlling abuse (Boxall, Morgan & Brown, 2020). Though the survey did not report on the association between technology facilitated abuse and coercive control, it is clear that many monitoring, harassing and surveillance behaviours are greatly aided by technologies. The 2020 study did report that there was a high correlation between coercive control and both physical and sexual forms of partner violence (Boxall, Morgan & Brown, 2020), further indicating that while technology may not be a driver of abuse, it is a feature that coincides with a wide-range of abusive tactics and behaviours.

It is also emerging that as victims attempt to limit a perpetrator’s access to abuse them via digital and communications technologies, abusers are finding alternative means to threaten and harass intimate or

20 former intimate partners. For example, in figures released by the Commonwealth Bank in June 2020, more than 8,000 separate customers had received threatening and abusive messages via banking apps and systems, often associated with low value deposits of $1 or less (Commonwealth Bank, 2020). In some instances, victims of domestic violence were harassed with dozens or hundreds of such messages through descriptions threatening violence via multiple one cent transactions (Brook, 2020). The Commonwealth Bank has since strengthened its Acceptable Use Policy making it unacceptable for customers to use banking services to stalk, harass or intimate another person (Commonwealth Bank, 2020). Certainly, there continues to be a vital role for service providers to proactively consider how their platforms may be being repurposed for harassment and abuse, and to take active measures to reduce and address that abuse. There is much still unknown about the extent of such forms of technology facilitated abuse, yet such examples also highlight the multiple avenues and lengths perpetrators of domestic and family violence will go to in order to abuse their victim.

In this response, we further focus on Asher Flynn and Anastasia Powell’s collaborative work on ‘image-based sexual abuse’. Image-based sexual abuse involves three main behaviours:

(1) The non-consensual taking or creation of nude or sexual images; (2) The non-consensual sharing or distribution of nude or sexual images; and/or (3) The threat to distribute nude or sexual images.

Flynn and Powell’s collaborative research suggests that despite the existence of image-based sexual abuse laws, victim-survivors continue to experience difficulties in obtaining justice through the legal system (Flynn & Henry, 2019; Henry et al., 2020; Henry, Flynn & Powell, 2018, 2019; Powell et al., 2020; Powell, Henry & Flynn, 2018). This is partly due to police responses and a lack of training.

Research has shown a range of factors that hinder police from being able to provide appropriate support and responses to victims of image-based sexual abuse, including a lack of resources, evidentiary limitations, jurisdictional boundaries, victim-blaming, or harm minimization attitudes held by police, and an absence of training on relevant laws or on appropriate responses to victims (Bond & Tyrell, 2019; Flynn & Henry, 2019; Henry, Flynn & Powell, 2018; Powell & Henry, 2019). In a recent survey of 738 police and related personnel in England and Wales, Bond and Tyrrell (2019) found police had a limited understanding of image-based sexual abuse laws and lacked confidence investigating cases and responding to victims. Overall, 95% of their respondents had not had any formal training on how to conduct investigations into IBSA (Bond & Tyrell, 2019). Flynn and Powell’s previous collaborative qualitative research (Henry, Flynn & Powell, 2018, 2019; see also Henry & Powell, 2015) exploring 52 stakeholder perspectives on IBSA across three Australian states (including police, domestic violence and sexual assault service stakeholders, legal/policy experts, academics, youth sector representatives, LGBTIQ representatives, industry representatives, and disability service stakeholders), similarly found that both police and prosecutor awareness of image-based sexual abuse laws was limited and their training involving image-based sexual abuse offences was minimal, if existent at all.

The challenges and limitations of policing and prosecuting technology-facilitated offences that are motivated by control must be addressed through more education, training, and resources for police, prosecutors, judicial officers, and victim support services, specifically on technology-facilitated abuse. Police and other criminal justice agent training, in terms of understanding new offences, will vary according to jurisdiction. However, we recommend training be given to all police and prosecutors on relevant offences that can be used to prosecute technology-facilitated abuse harms. Training should focus on appropriate responses to victims when receiving reports, and specific training should also focus on the reporting barriers faced by members of minority and marginalised groups including women, LGBTIQ, culturally and linguistically diverse, indigenous, and disability communities.

The law plays an important symbolic role in recognising harms, deterring future abusers, holding perpetrators accountable, and helping victims to seek justice for wrongs done to them. However, we recognise the limitations of this one mechanism alone and support a range of different legal and non-legal options to address and prevent digital coercive control. Other measures should include those focused on corporate and

21 organisational “bystanders,” including government and community representatives working collaboratively with Internet, website, social media, and other service providers in order to promote service agreements and community codes of conduct that include clear statements regarding the unacceptability of digital coercive control and appropriate consequences for an individual’s violation of such terms of service/ codes of conduct.

It is also vital that changes in the law are accompanied by education campaigns that raise awareness of the causes, harms, and impacts, and that promote proactive and safe bystander interventions to challenge problematic behaviours and attitudes. Addressing digital coercive control requires a concerted approach to address problematic norms, values, and beliefs around gender, masculinity, and sexuality, and the structural inequality that is exists in society.

Q taken on notice: Is there any research around the prevalence of technology based coercion or technology based violence as opposed to physical violence? Is the technology stuff rising in contrast with physical violence? Are they the same? Is technology still a lot less? Can you elaborate on that?

Communications devices are being increasingly used as tools to enact power and control over both known and unknown victims. Domestic and family violence service providers report the increasing use of digital technologies in the tactics and strategies of perpetrators (Douglas, Harris, & Dragiewicz, 2019; Henry, Flynn & Powell, 2018; Henry & Powell, 2015; Southworth, Finn, Dawson, Fraser & Tucker, 2007; Woodlock, 2017). Such behaviours include harassing text messages, GPS tracking, impersonation, computer hacking, restricting access to technology, using technology to access, monitor and control, as well as image-based sexual abuse. Researchers note that digital technologies form part of a “constellation of tactics” that perpetrators of domestic abuse employ alongside other more widely recognised forms of physical and psychological abuse that take place in face-to-face encounters (Douglas et al., 2019; Reed, Tolman, & Ward, 2016).

The research we discuss below is based on Flynn and Powell’s collaborative research drawing from online surveys with 6,109 respondents aged 16–64 years across Australia (n=2,054), New Zealand (n=2,028) and the United Kingdom (n=2054), as well as semi-structured interviews with 75 victim-survivors who had one or more experiences of image-based sexual abuse (Henry et al., 2020; Henry, Flynn & Powell, 2019; Powell et al., 2020; Powell et al., 2019).

In the 2019 survey, one in three (37.7%, n=2,306) respondents reported they had experienced at least one form of image-based sexual abuse in their lifetime. This compared to one in five (22.7%, n=969) Australian respondents found in an earlier 2016 survey conducted with the same method, suggesting that the prevalence of image based abuse behaviours are increasing. The 2019 results further found that one in three (33.2%, n=2,029) respondents reported experiencing someone having taken a nude or sexual image of them without their consent, one in five (20.9%, n=1,278) had experienced a nude or sexual image of them being shared without their consent and almost one in five (18.7%, n=1,142) had experienced someone threatening to share a nude or sexual image of them. One in seven (14.1%, n=862) had experienced all three forms of image-based sexual abuse. The abuse was reported as primarily taking place in the context of an ongoing (33.5%, n=321) or previously intimate relationship (27.4%, n=262), with 60.9% (n=583) of victim-survivors experiencing the abuse in this context.

In terms of perpetration, one in six respondents (17.5, n=1,070) reported perpetrating at least one form of image-based sexual abuse in their lifetime against a person over 16 years. This included 15.8% (n=967) who had engaged in the non-consensual taking of a nude or sexual image, 10.6% (n=648) who had shared a nude or sexual image without consent, and 8.8% (n=536) who had threatened to share a nude or sexual image of another person. Almost half (44.8%, n=479) of respondents who self-reported perpetration disclosed they had engaged in all three forms of image-based sexual abuse. The survey and interview data revealed that men (22.3% n=653) were significantly more likely than women (13.1% n=417) to engage in image-based sexual abuse perpetration.

In the survey, we asked perpetrators about motivations underpinning the behaviour. These ranged from for fun, to flirt or be “sexy”, impressing friends, maintaining relationships, attention-seeking, revenge or “getting back” at the person, to embarrassment, control, financial gain or to obtain further images. Respondents could select multiple motivations. Overall, we found a majority of Australian respondents who disclosed engaging in perpetration behaviours identified control as their motivation. The motivation of wanting to control the victim was most prevalent where images were shared or posted online (57%, n=106) and where threats were made to share or post intimate images (59.0%, n=92). The study did not find significant differences in motivations according to gender, although overall men were almost twice as likely to engage in image-based sexual abuse behaviours as compared to women (as noted above). Heterosexual respondents were more likely than LGB+ respondents to be motivated to control the person (60.6%, n=307 (heterosexual) vs. 44.7%, n=63 (LGB+)). Those aged 50–64 years were also significantly less likely than other age groups to be motivated by control when taking (28.6%, n=12), sharing (19%, n=8), or threatening to share (33.3%, n=8) nude or sexual images. The only differences in relation to race and ethnicity were in respect of the non-consensual taking of nude or sexual images, with those from minority racial and ethnic communities being more likely than White, European or Pākehā respondents to be motivated by the desire to control the person (52.6%, n=169 vs. 41.2%, n=266).

The interviews with victim-survivors demonstrated that image-based sexual abuse was often perpetrated as part of a pattern of domestic violence or intimate partner abuse, with many experiencing the abuse in the context of either an ongoing or previous intimate relationship (30.7%, n=23). Many participants identified control as being a primary motive, reflecting research on other forms of sexual and domestic violence which identifies control as being a central motivation of perpetrators (see Griffin, 1986; Kelly, 1988). This shows the strong relationship between image-based sexual abuse, domestic abuse and coercive control (Stark, 2007). Together, these findings suggest that image-based sexual abuse is being used as a tool by perpetrators to carry out harassment, sexual violence or intimate partner violence in ways which both facilitate and extend the harms of that abuse (see also Douglas et al., 2019).

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