Janine Wilson was just 12 years old when she began standing up for women in her life affected by family violence.
“I just never condoned violence, and always tried to be the mediator and supportive of the females that were being perpetrated against in my own family and own community,” the Latji Latji elder says.
“Seeing it around you in your family and not liking it has an impact. When I became older and had my own children I didn’t like the girls or the women in my community getting hit and I’d tell their partners, ‘If you don’t stop we will not associate with you.’”
Wilson has been an advocate for the family violence sector ever since. For the past 16 years, she has worked with the Loddon Mallee Indigenous Family Violence Regional Action Group, much of that time as its chair, a position she left this year, but remains an active member working with victims. The Loddon Mallee region covers more than a quarter of Victoria, so Wilson has her work cut out for her with IFVRAG, travelling the region to raise awareness about and reduce family violence.
“I had actually seen my father hit my mother when I was growing up, and my grandmother, who was my role model and my rock, and myself intervened,” she says.
“I was just 12 the first time that happened. The police weren’t interested because they said it was just a ‘domestic’.
“I thought, ‘There has to be a better way.’ When I began work with the IFVRAG, I had a platform, an arena, to aid and assist women and children to address these issues and achieve change in the way we respond to them.”
Last year Wilson gave evidence at Australia’s first royal commission into family violence, which was ordered by the Victorian government. Wilson told the commission the police response in her region needed to change. Too often, she said, police prioritised hearing the perpetrator’s side of the story.
Police responses also improve when police stations include a specialist family violence unit, she says, because they are more likely to follow procedures and best practice.
As part of its recommendations, the commission called on the Victorian government to ensure Koori family violence police protocols be implemented more widely. In areas where the protocols are adopted, police attend Koori awareness training developed by local Aboriginal people and are more aware of the support services available to Aboriginal victims and perpetrators of family violence.
Wilson also told the commission that work with perpetrators was vital to preventing family violence. Mainstream men’s behavioural change programs did not work for Aboriginal men, she said.
She called for funding for family reunification services to bring Aboriginal families together after they had separated so they could be worked with intensively for up to three months and taught to live together without family violence. Because the reality is, she says, many victims and perpetrators, especially in small communities, continue to see each other.
During her time in the sector, Wilson has also worked as an intake and community development engagement worker at Meminar Ngangg Gimba, a secure facility in Mildura which has six self-contained units and an on-site support unit for women and children fleeing family violence.
The name Meminar Ngangg Gimba means “a group of women dwell here”. It is one of just three Aboriginal-specific women’s refuges in Victoria, and during her evidence before the commission, Wilson described how it was often “overflowing” with women.
Wilson tells Guardian Australia she often finds herself providing accommodation to vulnerable women and their children when existing services cannot meet the demand.
“When you work in small communities, if they see you in the street or at the supermarket, they’ll pull you up and ask for help and assistance,” she says.
“I even said to police, ‘If anyone you attend to needs help, just come and see me.’ I’ve had police come to me a few times after they have put women in a secure place for clothes, toiletries and cigarettes for the women.
“Whatever they need, I’ll get for them. I say to police, ‘Any time, my door is always open to help a woman and her kids.’ I don’t judge them, I don’t look down upon them because it takes a lot to ask for help.”
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