Victorian govt to launch a crackdown against domestic violence

Baillieu,while paying tribute to the 23 year old Indian woman Sargun Ragi,said “We can’t (launch the plan) without reflecting on the unspeakable violence that has been perpetrated on women and also children in our own community,particularly in recent weeks.

The plan is supported by over AD 80 million of funding announced in the 2012-13 budget and a further AD 16 million announced last month,” he said.

The new plan outlines tougher action against perpetrators of family violence,with a new graduated offences regime for breaches of intervention orders.

Significant breaches of intervention orders would carry a maximum five-year prison term,up from two years. Immediate protection orders issued by police would be extended from three to five days.

“We must build attitudes and cultures of respect between men and women,boys and girls and we have to stop the violence,” Baillieu said adding “Violence against women and children is just not acceptable under any circumstance and we all have a responsibility to act to ensure it is not tolerated,that it is never tolerated,not excused and not ignored”. Minister for Women’s Affairs Mary Wooldridge said the plan aimed to change attitudes before they led to violence.

“We have to look at violence in is totality,” she said.

“We have to look at where it starts,such as bullying in schools,we have to look at what happens in workplaces,in our sporting environments,our community activities,and we have to look right through to women who work in the sex industry”.

It was said that Ragi’s husband Avijit Singh had breached an intervention order which was taken out by Ragi weeks before her murder.

Court documents,obtained by Herald Sun,had said that Ragi’s husband treated her like an unwanted possession,locking her inside his Fawkner unit and giving her food only once a day.

“(Ragi) claims that she is beaten on a daily basis because of the affair. (She) also states that the respondent has sex with her daily and if she refuses to have sex with him he beats her,” the intervention order stated.

“The respondent has taken the AFM (affected family member’s) phone off her… has kept the AFM locked inside the unit where they are now living and will not let her leave the house and locks her in with a key”.

The document goes on to report that Ragi sustained injuries from the assaults on her legs and it was believed she had been the victim of a serious sexual assault.

The latest incident has raised serious concern over domestic violence cases within Indian community here.

According to a consultant psychiatrist Manjula O’Connor who has been researching domestic violence and mental health related problems in the Indian community in Melbourne for the last two years,there were nearly 11 Indians in murder-suicide case this year.

The number of such cases with domestic violence history was low, however,there was a need for such victims to come out and speak rather than suffering in silence.

“The cases of domestic violence happening in the community has seen an increase and one reason could be that the growing Indian community here,” she said.

She said her research also showed that nowadays victims were more confident to come out and talk about their ordeals.

“These incidents are common among newly wed and young girls who come here,” she said qouting her research.

The need is to have a trained community support group to help such victims,create gender sensitisation and awareness of power imbalance,she said.