Domestic Violence campaign (Australia).
The Australian federal government launched an ad campaign today against domestic violence that will run until November 25th (International Violence Against Women Day). This campaign's aimed at bystanders (particularly men), encouraging them not to ignore DV they see around them. I'm not sure how many ads are in the campaign, but one was featured on ABC news tonight.
A middle-aged couple (man and woman) are sitting down to dinner in a flat, next to a wall. There's some shouting and screaming audiable through the joining wall, and something hits the wall, hard enough to shake the table, and the couple give each a look. After a brief hesitation, the man excuses himself and gets up, picks up a baseball bat, and goes out and knocks on the door of the flat next door. Someone (presumably the abuser) opens the door. "Here" says the man, "I thought you might need this." He hands the other person (who we don't see) the baseball bat. A voiceover says something like "if you ignore domestic violence you're as bad as they are."
Here's a brief article on the campaign.
Campaign to target domestic violence 'bystanders'
A national media campaign targeting violence against women and children has been launched in Sydney today.
It is estimated about 2 million Australian women have been sexually or physically abused during their lives.
The campaign will be aired in the lead up to international Violence Against Women Day on the November 25.
Dr Michael Flood from La Trobe University says while most people do not condone violence, research shows about 15 per cent of young men and teenagers think it is acceptable to abuse women.
Dr Flood hopes the campaign will provoke men to stand-up to men who abuse women.
"We can't simply address those men who use violence we have to address those men who are bystanders to other men's violence," he said.
"Address those men who stay silent, who don't do anything when a mate is abusing his girlfriend, or when a family member is being sexually violent."
Here's some more statistics on violence against women, from the Australian Institute of Criminology, from a 2002-2003 survey. It states around 57% of Australian women have experienced violence (physical and sexual) at some point in their lives (Australia's population, for the record, is around 20million).
Recently the government also ran the "Australia says no" campaign, and the NSW Police Comissioner is currently holding a national summit on how to reduce rates of child abuse, so it'll be interesting to see how/if these things'll tie in with each other.
A middle-aged couple (man and woman) are sitting down to dinner in a flat, next to a wall. There's some shouting and screaming audiable through the joining wall, and something hits the wall, hard enough to shake the table, and the couple give each a look. After a brief hesitation, the man excuses himself and gets up, picks up a baseball bat, and goes out and knocks on the door of the flat next door. Someone (presumably the abuser) opens the door. "Here" says the man, "I thought you might need this." He hands the other person (who we don't see) the baseball bat. A voiceover says something like "if you ignore domestic violence you're as bad as they are."
Here's a brief article on the campaign.
Campaign to target domestic violence 'bystanders'
A national media campaign targeting violence against women and children has been launched in Sydney today.
It is estimated about 2 million Australian women have been sexually or physically abused during their lives.
The campaign will be aired in the lead up to international Violence Against Women Day on the November 25.
Dr Michael Flood from La Trobe University says while most people do not condone violence, research shows about 15 per cent of young men and teenagers think it is acceptable to abuse women.
Dr Flood hopes the campaign will provoke men to stand-up to men who abuse women.
"We can't simply address those men who use violence we have to address those men who are bystanders to other men's violence," he said.
"Address those men who stay silent, who don't do anything when a mate is abusing his girlfriend, or when a family member is being sexually violent."
Here's some more statistics on violence against women, from the Australian Institute of Criminology, from a 2002-2003 survey. It states around 57% of Australian women have experienced violence (physical and sexual) at some point in their lives (Australia's population, for the record, is around 20million).
Recently the government also ran the "Australia says no" campaign, and the NSW Police Comissioner is currently holding a national summit on how to reduce rates of child abuse, so it'll be interesting to see how/if these things'll tie in with each other.