Policing Gender Violence in the Global South

• In Event: Gender, Crime and Justice Working Group Panel 12: Gender and Justice

Abstract

Gendered violence is ‘one of the most significant issues to be addressed in our time’ (United Nations 2015). Yet, there are huge gaps in the knowledge base as around 75% of research on gendered violence focuses largely on the Global North. Most models of policing gender violence are based on approaches developed in English speaking countries in the northern hemisphere (Carrington et al 2019). They are male dominated and insensitive to the needs of victims (Prenzler and Sinclair, 2013; Douglas and Fitzgerald, 2019). The unique challenges of policing gender violence in complex cultural settings of the Global South are poorly understood. Despite decades of policing reform, Pacific Island women have continued to report lifetime prevalence rates of violence between 60 per cent and 80 per cent (UNICEF 2017). Framed by southern criminology, this project addresses this knowledge gap by aiming to discover innovative approaches to policing gendered violence inspired by concepts, knowledge and practices based on new evidence collected from the Global South. Our research project investigates how to improve the policing of gender violence to take account of the cultural and practical complexity and ambiguity involved in policing gender violence in fragile nation states of the Global South within close proximity to Australia. This paper presents our initial findings based on original research in the Pacific Island of Fiji.

Authors

• Kerry Carrington, University of Sunshine Coast

• Melissa Jardine, University of the Sunshine Coast

• Helen Singh, University of the Sunshine Coast