In this episode, we look at the impacts of the pandemic on sexual and domestic violence (SV/DV) in Aotearoa (New Zealand).Sexual and gender-based violence specialists, Hala Nasr and Miriam Gioia Sessa join us to discuss recently released research data and issues more broadly within the SV/DV sector. They also discuss navigating the siloing effects of neoliberalism, government policy, community power and returning to the radical roots of the sector.Hala Nasr is a sexual and gender-based violence specialist, with experience working in sexual and domestic violence response and prevention programmes and intersectional approaches to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Now residing in the unceded Wurundjeri lands in Narrm/Melbourne, her family hail from Egypt and she was born and raised in Tāmaki Makaurau. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, looking at women and girl safe spaces.Miriam Gioia Sessa is an Italian-English national who began feminist and social justice activism at the age of 14 while living in Rome. For the last ten years, she has worked in different areas of the specialist sexual violence sector and is an experienced facilitator and community educator and organizer in the areas of violence prevention and intervention.

Women on the Line

COVID-19 and sexual violence in Aotearoa

This week we speak to Dr Maria Hach about the Sexual and Reproductive Health Data Report 2021.Dr Maria is the author of the report and the acting Research Advocacy and Policy Manager at Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health (MCWH). Due to the length of the report, we've had to narrow our focus to a few key areas. These areas include contraception use, family violence and reproductive coercion.In August, the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health (MCWH) launched its data report online. It featured a panel of health experts in the field, and in today's show, we will play highlights from the talk.

Sexual and Reproductive Health Data Report 2021

Mid-Late September has seen extraordinary reactionary mayhem in Melbourne. Anti-vaccination to anti-lockdown to far-right forces smashed the  CFMEU office, took to city streets and were repressed by riot police. To make sense of these events, we hear from long time anti-fascist, unionist, writer, Arrernte woman and Greens candidate, Celeste Liddle. We also hear more broadly about the left, the need to be critical of policing, failures of the state's responses to the pandemic, community responses and where to from here. Find the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Services statement read out at the end on policing the pandemic here. 

Melbourne reactionary mayhem & policing the pandemic

 This week on the program we look at COVID-19 vaccine access and inequality.We begin with an interview with Nadia Mattiazzo, acting CEO of Women with Disabilities Victoria, about how the COVID-19 vaccine roll out is going for people with disabilities and what is stopping women with disabilities from accessing the vaccine.Then we speak with Deborah Gleeson, Associate Professor of Public Health at La Trobe University, about global vaccine inequality, and the push to waive intellectual property rights to break the monopolies of pharmaceutical companies and allow developing countries to make their own COVID-19 vaccines and medical products to fight the pandemic.Support Amnesty International's campaign for vaccine equality here, or visit the Australian Fair Trade and Investments Network for more information.

COVID-19 Vaccine Access and Inequality

On today's episode, we are joined by Vickie Roach, a Yuin woman, abolitionist and advocate for Aboriginal women in prison. Vickie speaks about the new 20 Years On The Inside podcast, which she co-hosted with Kutcha Edwards. The 20 Years On the Inside podcast series reflects on 20 years of 3CR's Beyond the Bars prison radio broadcasts, giving voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Victorian prisons. This episode includes several brief excerpts from 20 Years on the Inside, as well as the song Inside My Kitchen by Tiddas.

20 Years on the Inside with Vickie Roach

 In this episode, we hear two conversations about the impacts of Australia’s border policy regime. Firstly, Renuga Inpakumar, a spokesperson for the Tamil Refugee Council, speaks about the current threat of deportation thousands of Tamil refugees face in Australia and the impacts of the pandemic on the community.Then, we hear from Nur Azizah who speaks to us about her lived experience as a Rohingya refugee living in limbo in Indonesia as a result of Australia’s operational border policies. Azizah appears in Freedom Street, a documentary about the lived experience and stories of people seeking refuge, stuck in Indonesia while deconstructing Australian policy.Freedom street is currently fundraising, donations can be made at Documentary Australia's website:[documentaryaustralia.com.au/project/freedom-street] 

Life under Australia's border policies

This week on Women on the Line, we’re joined by Melanie Joosten from Seniors Rights Victoria, to help us understand all about elder abuse. And later in the show, Georgia Mill, the host of the podcast A Fluorescent Feeling, explains how we can have better conversations about chronic pain. 

Elder abuse and A Fluorescent Feeling

Latoya is an Aboriginal & Maori, Takatāpui researcher, undertaking their PhD at UTS on Gadigal Land. Wiradjuri, Kokatha and Wirangu man, Wayne Fella Morrison, their brother, was a father, fisherman and artist. Wayne Fella Morrison died nearly 5 years ago in hospital after being restrained by prison guards on remand in Yatala prison,  Kaurna country in South Australia.  They speak on the circumstances of Wayne's death, the Justice for Fella campaign, including the call to legislate a ban on spit hoods nationally, and touch on abolition.  Find the #BanSpitHoods, Stop Black Deaths in Custody petition here. Follow the Justice for Fella campaign on Facebook, and support the Gofundme. You can listen to more of this interview on Queering the Air here. 

Justice for Fella & Ban Spit Hoods

In today’s episode, we’ll be hearing about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic outside of Australia.Firstly, we hear from Mumbai-based labour movement activist Sujata who speaks about the effects the pandemic is having on the working class in India. The interview is conducted by Jiselle Hanna and appeared on 3CR’s Asia Pacific Currents program.Then, we turn to Cuba where University of Sydney sociology professor, Dr Sujatha Fernandes speaks about Cuba's large-scale protests in July and the socio-political climate in the country. This interview is conducted by Genevieve Siggins from 3CR's Tuesday Breakfast program.

The pandemic and struggle: insights from Cuba and India

In this episode, we're joined by Dr Tracy Westerman, a proud Nyamal woman from the Pilbara region of Western Australia and an internationally recognised expert in Aboriginal mental health, cultural competence and suicide prevention. Dr Westerman is the founder of the Westerman Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health, which has a focus on improving access to clinically and culturally appropriate mental health services including intervention and suicide prevention programs for Indigenous young people. Dr Westerman discusses the need for these supports, and how the Westerman Jilya Institute is building them from the ground up.You'll also hear the song 'Koorndarm' by Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse from their 2020 album Koorlangka. This episode follows on from themes explored in Surviving and Resisting Institutional Racism with Kerry Klimm and Associate Professor Chelsea Watego.

Supporting First Nations mental health

In this week's episode, we are joined by Salua El Omari an activist and psychologist originally from the Rif in northern Morocco, working and living in Andalucia, Spain.She joins us to discuss the socio-/geo- political situation in the Rif region particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic and the largest social movement the Hirak Rif. Further, Salua tells us about the importance of matriarchal lineages and oral traditions in forging and maintaining identity and strength in resistance. Bordering the Mediterranean and sharing the only land border with Europe in Africa, the Rif is home to the first post-colonial state in Africa after a successful guerrilla war against the Spanish colonisers in the 1920s. Carrying on from then, the Rif has continued to be a centre of struggle for civil and social rights in North Africa.  Salua is the founder and president of the Rala Buya socio-cultural association and works with the human rights association APDHA in Andalusia. NB: This interview was conducted in Spanish and translated by Blossom Ah-Ket

Hirak al-Rif: Indigenous protest at Africa-Europe Border

This week we hear from two women holding state institutions accountable and using their platforms to bring issues such as structural racism and state violence to the forefront.Alison Whittaker looks at coronial inquests and whether they can be sites of justice, and Abiola Ajetomobi discusses her migration story, support networks and how to be a better ally.GuestsAbiola Ajetomobi is the director of Innovation Hub at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and Alison Whittaker is a Gomeroi poet and law scholar.Our interview with Alison was inspired by her article Indigenous deaths in custody: inquests can be sites of justice or administrative violence.

Holding state institutions accountable

This week we hear from two activists involved in the Homes not Prisons campaign, Amy and Karen, interviewed by Carly Baque on Thursday Breakfast. The campaign initiated by the advocacy service for criminalised women in Victoria, Flat Out, aims to stop the $188.9 million expansion of Dame Phyllis Frost women's prison in Melbourne's west and invest in public housing.  We hear Amy tell her story of the devastating impact of punitive bail laws contributing to her being incarcerated. A note for listeners: this episode includes descriptions of domestic violence. You can sign their open letter here.

Homes not Prisons

 This week on the program we hear an interview with Professor Lyndall Ryan, a leading historian of the Australian colonial frontier.Lyndall spoke with Marisa Sposaro, presenter and producer of 3CR Community Radio’s Doin Time show, about the Frontier Wars, the process of uncovering evidence of massacres of Aboriginal people, and a digital Colonial Frontier Massacres map covering the period from 1780 to 1930.Listeners should be aware that this episode contains historical description of massacres and mention of Aboriginal people who have passed away.

Lyndall Ryan on the Frontier Wars and digital Colonial Frontier Massacres Map

This week's episode of Women on the Line features two important discussions about the everyday operation and effects of racism on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.First, we hear from Kerry Klimm, a Kuku Yalanji and Koko Lama Lama woman living in Meanjin, who speaks about being subject to - and fighting - institutional racism while working in the not-for-profit sector, and the lasting toll this has taken on her health and wellbeing.We are then joined by Associate Professor Chelsea Watego, a Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman whose work has interrogated the role of race in the production of health inequalities. Chelsea expands on the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience, theorise and resist racism every day.

Surviving and Resisting Institutional Racism

A national feminist current affairs program for community radio. A gender analysis of contemporary issues, as well as in-depth analysis by a range of women and gender diverse people around Australia and internationally. Distributed nationally on the Community Radio Network (CRN). You can listen to some of our previous shows here: www.3cr.org.au/womenontheline/itunes

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Women on the Line

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