Category: Inequity

Justice for Tamica and Charlie Mullaley: 9 years, no action.

Unlike the names Hannah Clarke, Jill Meagher, Daniel Morcombe and most recently Cleo Smith – another WA child that went missing in the night – the story of what happened to the Mullaleys in 2013 hasn’t been seared into the psyche of Australians in quite the same fashion.

Time and time again the Mullaleys were faced with what they say was blatant discrimination at the hands of police. Like the police request that Tamica go home and produce a birth certificate to prove that the man who took Charlie wasn’t his birth dad – as if who took him mattered. Like the six thousand Google hits Charlie had in media mentions compared to the 70 million for Cleo.

Because this isn’t just about police discrimination – it was media discrimination, too.

“If you’re a white baby and you’re abducted, everyone knows your name. People know Cleo’s name, they know the Beaumont children. But I challenge people to name the Bowraville children who were murdered, and no one outside of the Indigenous community in WA have even generally heard of baby Charlie, ” Mr Newhouse told Mamamia.

Source: Justice for Tamica and Charlie Mullaley: 9 years, no action.

UNsynced: United Nations Out of Sync with Grassroots Global Feminists — FiLiA

Anna Kerr looks at why male interests will continue to dictate the human rights agenda, including specifically in relation to women and children, despite men’s overwhelming track record as the perpetrators of violent and sexual crime.

Source: UNsynced: United Nations Out of Sync with Grassroots Global Feminists — FiLiA

World’s 10 richest men doubled their wealth to $1.5 trillion during pandemic

The 10 richest men in the world doubled their fortunes during the pandemic, a new Oxfam report has found.

The report also noted that even if the men were to lose 99.999 per cent of their fortune, they would still be richer than 99 percent of the world’s population

Chairperson of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, Jayati Ghosh told Business Today that the unequal access to income and opportunities during the pandemic did “more than create unjust, unhealthy and unhappy societies”.

“What makes this situation even harsher is that women in many countries face a second pandemic of increased gender-based violence- while, as with every crisis, having to absorb the shock of a mountain of unpaid care work that keeps them trapped at the bottom of the global economy.”

Source: World’s 10 richest men doubled their wealth to $1.5 trillion during pandemic

EXCLUSIVE: Major developments in Kathleen Folbigg’s case may prove her innocence – Lawyers Weekly

The 2003 conviction of Kathleen Folbigg for the smothering deaths of her four children over a 10-year period branded her Australia’s “worst female serial killer”, despite there never being any evidence to support the supposed cause of death. Almost two decades on, new clinical research and expert evidence shine a light on what really happened and expose crucial flaws in the criminal justice system.

Earlier this year, a legal team behind Ms Folbigg circulated a petition containing new research into an unreported cardiac mutation found in two of her children, Sarah and Laura, that explains how they likely died from natural causes. In a development shared with Lawyers Weekly, that mutation has been added to the list of mutations in ClinVar, a worldwide authoritative database used by clinicians and geneticists.

Alongside barrister Dr Robert Cavanagh, Ms Rego has prepared a submission for pardon on behalf of Ms Folbigg and has handed it over to NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman. In this exclusive interview, Lawyers Weekly breaks down the submission, including more on the research that designates a natural cause of death to two children. We also look at where the justice system got it wrong the first time and the ramifications should it falter again in deciding Ms Folbigg’s future.

Since releasing the petition earlier this year, Ms Rego and Dr Cavanagh have pulled together expert reports – discussed below – to support the submission to Mr Speakman. As part of that, they explored where and how it went wrong at both the initial trial and the 2019 inquiry. For example, the argument that there were no known cases of three or more infant deaths became a focal point for the prosecution.

Another major flaw in the prosecutions’ argument was that it heavily relied on Meadow’s Law, the now-discredited theory that “one infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder until proven otherwise”. Although discredited prior to Ms Folbigg’s trial, Ms Rego said it “pervaded the tone and approach of the case”.

Source: EXCLUSIVE: Major developments in Kathleen Folbigg’s case may prove her innocence – Lawyers Weekly

HILDA reveals women still do almost double the unpaid work of men

Women do almost double the hours of unpaid work per week compared to men, according to the latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA Survey), out today. The statistic was among several worrying trends for Australian women including soaring costs in childcare, and the fact that single parent families and young people continue to be disproportionally disadvantaged compared to the rest of the community.

For those aged over 65, poverty is both more prevalent and more persistent, especially for women. Welfare reliance is higher among people aged 65 and over than among people aged 18 to 64.

Roughly 71.6 percent of young people who are not in the labour force or studying say they are undertaking caring duties, have a disability or experience health barriers.

Housework is the largest form of unpaid work, averaging roughly 10 hours per week, followed by caring for one’s own children.

Source: HILDA reveals women still do almost double the unpaid work of men

IOC: Males No Longer Required to Reduce Testosterone to Compete in Women’s Sports – Women Are Human

On November 16, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued new guidelines, which it said followed a two-year consultation with over 250 athletes and concerned stakeholders.
“IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” determined there should be no presumption that male athletes seeking to participate in women’s sports have an automatic advantage over female competitors.
While 2015 IOC guidelines recommended male athletes maintain testosterone blood levels at 10 nmol/L or below for at least 12 months before they were eligible to compete in women’s sports, the new framework discards the requirement, concluding that athletes should not be pressured to undergo medically unnecessary procedures or treatment or be forced to undergo invasive physical exams to determine their sex.
The IOC’s new framework flies in the face of recent professional research.

Source: IOC: Males No Longer Required to Reduce Testosterone to Compete in Women’s Sports – Women Are Human

Competing with confidence: Why we need to bring women’s sport uniforms into the 21st century

While sexism is a pervasive issue when it comes to women’s clothing, the chauvinism in sport is abundantly evident.

This display was highlighted recently when the International Handball Federation was called on to amend athlete uniform guidelines. Their rules stipulated that women beach handball players wear “bikini bottoms with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg” explicitly noting that “the side width” be a maximum of 10 centimetres.

Following a protest from Norway’s national team, months of pressure and an online petition, the governing federation finally agreed to modify their uniform protocols.

In highlighting the sexist norms baked into women’s sport uniforms, researchers Sarah Zipp and Sasha Sutherland noted that uniform designs are less likely to be centred around performance, and more likely to cater to the “male gaze.”

This has the unfortunate effect of unjustly prioritizing the esthetic appeal of women over their athletic talent. This superficial approach completely neglects the multiplicity of body types and cultural nuances. It’s also completely arbitrary.

Ernst & Young found that 94 per cent of women executives reported playing sports — which means girls who play sport are more likely to become women who lead.

Let’s let women and girls dress for the role they want to play in women’s sport. And when stale uniform policies get in the way, don’t be afraid to take a page out of Team Norway’s book: speak up and say enough is enough.

Source: Competing with confidence: Why we need to bring women’s sport uniforms into the 21st century

Women missing from key areas of reporting according to new media report

Women’s Leadership Institute Australia released their latest Women for Media report, examining the role of female voices in the media.

The report divides the collected data into two separate sections.

The first, titled Big Picture, explores a sample of more than 57,000 online news articles published in May this year across outlets including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Australian and The Australian Financial Review to determine the number of women quoted, compared to men.

The results found that men’s voices continue to dominate — ‘she said’ appeared in 32 percent of the quotes in all the articles, while ‘he said’ made up 68 percent of the quotes.

The second section, titled ‘Top Billing’ looked at roughly 4000 articles appearing on either the first page of print publications or on the main section of the publication’s home page to determine the gender of the authors of the articles.

The data shows that men had the first (or only) byline in 65 percent of stories compared to women, who had 35 percent.

\Source: Women missing from key areas of reporting according to new media report

Where Are the Women? Breaking International Law’s Glass Ceiling | IntLawGrrls

Just a few days ago, we received the happy news that Australian law professor Hilary Charlesworth has been elected as a judge to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Almost in parallel, at the same time, the University of Chicago Law Review published an essay by Fred Shapiro, containing the list of most cited legal scholars of all time. The top 25 such scholars are all men. In other words, despite the seeming prominence of some of our notable female colleagues, not a single one of them has amassed a sufficiently high number of citations to be included on this list.

Six years ago, a group of human rights lawyers launched the GQUAL Campaign in order to raise awareness about the absence of women in international justice as well as to promote solutions which would contribute toward inclusion of women.

First, the Report includes crucial information about the under-representation of women at various UN bodies and mechanisms.

Second, the Report makes it clear that several of its goals would be best achieved through the informal and formal work of professional networks, which can reach women from under-represented backgrounds and adopt a proactive advocacy agenda.

Third, the Report makes clear that it is necessary to explicitly include gender parity or balance as a criterion in the selection and nomination procedures, and that it is therefore crucial to obtain personal and institutional commitments and pledges toward this goal. Fourth, the Report underscores the need for women to break the glass ceiling as a right to gender equality and non-discrimination.

And, fifth, the Report recognizes that the fundamental problem regarding women’s under-representation at international institutions is the lack of appropriate domestic nomination processes, which, coupled with the lack of institutional mechanisms to remedy the issue at the international level, lead toward a perpetual absence of gender parity.

Once international law’s ceiling is hopefully broken, not only will women occupy a respectable number of positions at prominent institutions, but in addition female scholars will be cited equally as their male counterparts. Let’s hope that, in the near future, Judge Charlesworth is in mostly female company at the ICJ and that the list of top-cited legal scholars includes the names of our distinguished female colleagues.

Source: Where Are the Women? Breaking International Law’s Glass Ceiling | IntLawGrrls

Australia’s Prison Dilemma – Research paper – prison-dilemma.pdf

Imprisonment rates have been rising and crime rates falling
Australia’s imprisonment rate — measured as prisoners per 100 000 adults — is at its highest in a century (figure 1.2). The imprisonment rate has more than doubled in Australia since the mid–1980s and at its peak

Imprisonment growth has been higher among women in several jurisdictions, particularly since 2010. Nonetheless, men still make up the bulk of the prison population.

A study of Aboriginal mothers incarcerated in Western Australia found that women who reported using violence were more likely to have experienced it themselves. Of those mothers who reported using violence, 91 per cent had experienced family
violence compared to 77 per cent of those mothers who did not report using violence (Wilson et al. 2017).

Women in prison are more likely to have a history of mental illness than men — in 2018, 65 per cent of females compared with 35 per cent of males reported a previous diagnosis of mental illness (PC 2020, p. 1016). 

Moreover, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison have a higher incidence of mental ill health than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men or non-Indigenous women.

Another feature of Australia’s imprisonment trends is that imprisonment rates are increasing faster for some demographic groups. While women comprise only 7.7 per cent of the national prison population, female imprisonment rates have increased faster than male imprisonment rates nationally and in several
jurisdictions (figure 2.7). This faster growth in female imprisonment has been common across Western countries including New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

There is some evidence from New South Wales that much of this increase has been driven by more women presenting to courts as repeat offenders.

There is little evidence that women are committing more serious crimes or spending longer in prison (Ooi 2018).

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have experienced the fastest growth in imprisonment rates. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s imprisonment rates have increased by 115 per cent between 2000 and 2020 compared with an increase of 65 per cent for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men. (ABS 2020b; SCRGSP 2020b). The underlying structural, relational and personal circumstances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women put them at greater risk of imprisonment (SCRGSP 2020b).

Imprisonment rates have increased steadily over the past two decades in all Australian jurisdictions from different base levels. This growth has been more pronounced for women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

And the rate of suicide has been measured to be between five times higher in men, and twelve times higher in women incarcerated in Australian prisons compared to the general population (Kariminia et al. 2007).

Source: Australia’s Prison Dilemma – Research paper – prison-dilemma.pdf