Domestic Violence In Australia

505 Words2 Pages

The increase awareness of children in domestic violence situation has resulted in policy changes for practitioners, including the introduction of mandatory reporting under NSW Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998. The Act identifies domestic violence as a child protection risk, and therefore imposes penalties on those who are heedless with their reporting (Zannettino, & McLaren, 2012). Consequently, Humphreys (2008) argues that the blunt response of policy and legislative agenda, has resulted in children being automatically thrown into the tertiary end of the child protection system. The relevancy of this problematic situation can be seen in the prevalence of the child abuse reporting, which has more than doubles from 1999 to 2005 throughout Australian (Humphreys 2008, p.231). …show more content…

However, all though the 3 sectors are different in terms of their philosophies, they are undoubtedly conditioned by the mutual ‘naming’ of the problem. Bacchi (as cited in Powell, & Murray, 2008) states that policies proposal carry with them explicit or implicit diagnosis of the problem. Law therefore becomes an important mechanism through which social problem are “addressed, defined, contested and challenged” and subsequently becomes a platform where established norms are confirmed or legitimized. For instance, the ‘naming’ of the children experiences in domestic violence is substantiated as “having witnesses or being exposed’ indicating a construction of a standardised understanding of the problem within the society. Such construction draws policies bringing attention to children’s experiences and therefore disregards the mother, and blames her as the one “constituting harm towards the child” (Powell, & Murray 2008,

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