Sydney Dads campaign for White Ribbon Day

By Sophie Trigger

Over 1000 residents marched to oppose violence against women. The march from Randwick to Coogee was to support the National White Ribbon Day campaign.
This is the fourth year that the Randwick City Council has teamed up with the NSW Police to produce the event, 2014 saw record numbers.
A spokesperson from the Randwick City Council said that the focus of 2014 was engaging fathers to set a responsible message for their sons.
“People aren’t going to stay silent about it, or turn a blind eye like they might have in decades gone by,” the spokesperson told City Hub.
“We had people from all different walks of life, we had local resident, we had people who had travelled from all over Sydney. We had dads and their sons, we had men in uniforms, we had members of the police force, of the army, and from surf-life saving.”
The White Ribbon Campaign is the world’s largest male-focused movement to end violence against women.
It was started in Australia in 2003  and is now active in 60 countries across the world.
2012 data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that 38.5% of Australian women have experienced male-perpetrated violence since the age of 15.
According to NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, “domestic and family violence takes up more police time than any other crime type,” equating to around 120,000 incidents in 2013 alone.
“Domestic and family violence affects people in all parts of our society – it is not exclusive to any socioeconomic group, gender, age or culture,” said the Police Commissioner.
Labor City of Sydney Councilor Linda Scott has long been supportive of the White Ribbon day campaign, and criticizes the NSW Government’s decisions to cut funds to women’s services.
“We’ve seen dramatic cuts to funding for women’s services and youth services,” Councillor Scott told City Hub.
“Sadly, we’ve seen a corresponding increase in the amount of people sleeping rough – anecdotally, it seems that those people are women and young people . . . this is when the state should step in and help.”
One woman on average dies each week in Australia, as a result of domestic violence, a figure that is on the increase in NSW.
It seems that although incidents of domestic violence have risen, so too has the support for campaigns such as White Ribbon Day.
“Each year the march seems to have grown and grown,” said the spokesperson for Randwick City Council.
“More and more people are coming on board to this important cause and … the feedback we’ve had from police is that it’s effective in sending out the message.”
The dads of Sydney were encouraged to take a photo of themselves and their sons, and to share it to social media with the hashtag ‘A Real Man Says No’.
The CEO of White Ribbon, Libby Davies believes that the father and son relationship is a crucial front.
“Men are the backbone of the White Ribbon Campaign,” she said.
In addition to the White Ribbon day March, the City of Sydney campaigns by promoting an anti-violence against women message on the back of their garbage trucks.