Our feminist commitment to ending family violence

Kara Family Violence Service publicly stands as a feminist organisation, committed to enacting lasting change within a framework informed by the global evidence base. We are dedicated to protecting and empowering victim-survivors of family and intimate partner violence through intersectional, best-practice support that challenges the root causes of violence and oppression.

Kara Family Violence Service values each component of the family violence system, and we express our gratitude to the dedicated workforce that drives it, along with the voices of victim-survivors and advocates. No part of this system exists in isolation—primary prevention, early intervention, crisis response, justice, perpetrator accountability, and recovery are all multi-layered and interconnected, each relying on the others to enact real change.

Many still ask, 'Why do men perpetrate family violence?' Addressing this question through a depoliticised, medicalised, and individualised lens ignores the structural inequalities that enable and encourage violence. A more insightful question may be, 'Why wouldn’t he?' Understanding the unchallenged benefits and lack of accountability for violent men reveals how society condones, and at times even encourages, the continuation of such violence. It is women and children who bear the greatest cost however in a more macro sense, it is a burden borne by all. In purely economic terms, for instance, the national cost of domestic and family violence is estimated at around 22 billion dollars per annum. Then there is intergenerational trauma, mental health impacts, job security, educational deficits, alcohol and other drug issues, impacts on government services and the health system - the list goes on. The epidemic proportions of domestic and family violence raises questions for all of society, along with the responsibility to provide answers.

As such, Kara Family Violence Service is committed to providing primary prevention education alongside our core business of casework and intervention. In this, we follow the ground-breaking work provided by Our Watch, most particularly with their Change the Story framework (2021).This identifies the specific gendered drivers of violence against women, as well as the various reinforcing factors such as those that weaken prosocial behaviour, like substance abuse, backlash and resistance, and the impacts of past experiences of violence by perpetrators themselves. The framework also makes clear the fact that violence against women is a serious violation of human rights and concludes that such violence ‘is both a symptom and a cause of gender inequality, and a barrier to its achievement.’ 

In their role as a frontline service, the specialist family violence practitioners at Kara Family Violence Service are skilled in identifying and responding to factors that increase safety concerns for our clients. These can include the use of alcohol and drugs, the presence of childhood trauma, financial stress, gambling, and accessing pornography. Kara Family Violence Service strongly supports any structural changes that may reduce these risk factors, however, we emphasise that adults who choose to abuse and harm family members do so by their own choice and must be accountable for their actions. This approach was reiterated by the Royal Commission into Family Violence (2016) and has since been echoed through the work done by Our Watch amongst others. Violence is a choice. To claim otherwise is to diminish the choices made by the majority of men, and women, to not use violence. There are no excuses.

While Kara Family Violence Service is funded to protect women and children escaping violence, we understand that, ultimately, what they seek is not just protection but freedom. They will not be free until we dismantle patriarchal and oppressive structures and build communities based one quality and care. This will require a whole of system approach, and a whole of society obligation. Aided by its commitment to feminism, Kara Family Violence Service is proud to be playing a part across both.

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