Keeping women safe from violence fuelled by alcohol. Making the case for action

I am Mike Dünbjör and this is the Alcohol Issues Podcast, an original production from Muvendi International. It's a show about latest alcohol policy developments, brand new research, and stories that reveal the predatory practices of the alcohol industry. We bring you in-depth conversations with trailblazing alcohol policy makers, visionary community activists and leading scientists. We do it all to reshape how the world thinks about alcohol's impact on society and the benefits of alcohol policy action. In today's episode, we explore the role alcohol plays in fueling violence against women. Together with Katerina Georgi and Kristina Spelkova, we are telling the story of how we can keep women safe from violence fueled by alcohol. We learn from advocacy success stories and real progress in Australia and make the case for action. Stay tuned. By not talking about it, we're excusing the role of alcohol companies in driving violence. Katerina is the CEO of Fair, the foundation for alcohol research and education in Australia. Fair is a not-for-profit organization with a vision for an Australia-free from alcohol harms where communities are healthy and well and where laws, policies and programs are fair, equitable and just. In her role, a CEO of Fair, Katerina is partnering with affected communities and women with lived experience surviving men's violence fueled by alcohol. Together they've mounted an impactful and inspiring advocacy initiative to make alcohol policy a priority in the national response to the crisis of violence against women. Kristina is the international president of Muvendi International. And the international is the largest global social movement working to protect people from the harms caused by alcohol companies and to achieve development for all through advancing alcohol policy solutions so that everyone can live up to their fullest potential. In her role as president of Muvendi, Kristina has been leading the work to address alcohol harm as a feminist issue, exposing how the alcohol industry forms men's stereotypes, norms and behaviors that demonize, objectify and sexualize women and thus fuel gender-based violence. In today's show, I speak with Katerina and Kristina about their experiences of advocating for alcohol policy to be part of the solutions to the crisis of gender-based violence. We dive into the Australian story and learn about the advocacy success and we discuss the global picture of alcohol's role in men's violence against women and why they have little progress in problem recognition and policy development. We explore the factors of success in Australia and talk about other countries where similar coalitions are achieving progress. We also talk about the commercial drivers of men's violence against women, the importance of partnerships and of women with lived experience driving the conversation and we discuss the responsibility of governments to take action. Hi Katerina, hi Kristina, warm welcome to the Alcohol Issues podcast. I'm really happy that you are joining us today because we want to talk about keeping women safe from violence fueled by alcohol. We want to make the case for action and we have a really strong case for action in Australia. So Katerina, warm welcome to you. I'm happy to discuss this with you and Kristina. You are here to give us, I think, the bigger picture, the bigger context from the global perspective so warm welcome to you as well. Hello. I'm very excited to be here alongside Kristina, that's great, I can't wait for this conversation. Yeah, me too, I think to be able to have a conversation where you guys can speak with each other where I can pick your brains on this really important topic, that's a fantastic opportunity and maybe we can just get into the conversation, jump into it, head on, on September 6, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced, alcohol would be one of the areas that the federal, state and territory government, so I think all levels of government in Australia would act on to prevent gender-based violence. So Australia's premieres and chief ministers committed to reviewing their legal laws and sharing best practice and reforms, that's a news item on fairs website, Katerina, and it's awesome for us to see actually in so many ways, we could just unpack what I just read. But I wanted to ask you, what happened, I could see a timeline on fairs website starting in the end of April and then this statement by the Prime Minister in the beginning of September, congratulation to this achievement at the highest level of government, we have a commitment to alcohol policy addressing violence against women. So what does this announcement by the Prime Minister mean, Katerina? It's saying that it feels like it was so long ago, but I think it was even less than two weeks ago. I think it depends on how far back we want to go, but for us, for many, many years and certainly for the 15 years that I've been working in the space, people have been coming to us and sharing with us that alcohol has played a role in the violence that they've experienced and you know, one survivor advocate, Kim described alcohol as adding fuel to the fire as an accelerant to this violence. There were people who shared with us that as the sun goes down, more alcohol flows into the home and then the violence that they experienced had worsened. There were people who shared with us that the sound of the delivery truck because alcohol can be delivered in many places in Australia within 20 minutes to people's homes, that the sound of that truck was the comp to keep their kids safe. And there were lots of adults who shared with us that as children, they would hide from a parent who was intoxicated, a father who was intoxicated and they were just so scared the drunkard that that parent got. So we've heard about these experiences and I think that's a really important place to start because it's those experiences that really drove our advocacy in this space because these people were also sharing with us that that part of their story wasn't being heard and we see it as a really important part of our role as an organisation to elevate the voices of people and their experience and so that governments can understand them and take action. In Australia, what we're seeing is we're seeing really terrible levels of violence against women and we're seeing this rapid increase in homicides of women and it's just leading to this sense of fear and despair and anger because it feels as though governments and they should be, they should be doing all they can to try and stop this because people should be safest when they're at home, but that's not the case. And so our Prime Minister and First Ministers across every state and territory got together in May to discuss what could be done and ahead of this meeting we joined together with a range of organisations and community leaders and called on the Prime Minister to acknowledge the role of alcohol and in that meeting alcohol wasn't mentioned once and after that meeting I just remembered feeling so sad and sad because I felt like we had let down these survivor advocates who've been reaching out to us calling for change and so the Prime Minister committed to another meeting of national cabinet to talk about what happens next in 3 months. a rapid review on prevention approaches and so we wanted to make sure that we were doing all we can to make sure that this conversation about alcohol was in that rapid review and was in the Prime Minister's announcement for months down the track and that's the announcement that you just mentioned then. And in this in this explanation there are things that we can unpack then I think this kind of emotional community centered approach because it's emotional I think when you are saying that people should be safest when they are at home and alcohol contributes to people women and children being very unsafe I think that's important to unpack more but also what happened between then May and September it's very familiar to all of us that there are massive alcohol problems in our communities and our governments they manage to see past it and they are also lobbied by alcohol companies to see past this kind of harm and so this is remarkable that between then May and September something changed and so I will would like to get back to this but I wanted to ask you a little bit more you mentioned the homicides against women and gender-based violence, men's violence against women overall in Australia. How big is the problem you don't need to overwhelm us with the facts I know you have many I've seen it on the fair website as well but can you just give us a sense of how big the problem is in addition to what the survivors experience what the community experiences? Yeah I you know we know that when we speak to people who are police who are working in emergency services that they talk about the role that alcohol plays and the data really shows that in Australia so depending on the state that people live in alcohol is involved in between 23 and 65% of family violence incidents reported to police we know that when it comes to sexual assault that almost half of women have reported that substance so alcohol or another substance contributed to their most recent incidents of assault and the other thing that we know is that one in five homicide offenders have used alcohol in the most recent year of data that we have so in self-reported surveys women and children are telling us that alcohol features a lot in the violence that they're experiencing in the frontline and service data we're seeing that reflected as well and so it just it makes sense that we then look at all the levers possible to try and prevent violence and one of these levers is absolutely looking at alcohol because we've just got such good data on what happens when you do reduce alcohol so for example in Australia in one state in New South Wales they extended trading for takeaway alcohol and delivery from 10pm to 11pm and over the next three years there was a statistically significant increase in reported family violence incidents to police involving alcohol and over that three years that equated to 1200 additional incidents and I just like just a pause there for a second to have government standing up and saying and leaders and saying we're going to do all we can to try and stop this and then to be taking actions that are actually fueling that violence you know we have to really focus on responsibility and one of the things that we were really keen to to communicate is that governments have a responsibility to keep people safe and also obviously this is a commercial driver of violence alcohol and we know that companies are doing things to try and get people who drink at the highest levels to drink even more and so where is the responsibility on them to be making sure that their actions aren't driving harm and so they were some of the key questions that we were asking over that four month period but you know in relation to what we did it was we held expert round tables we engaged with media there was a paper that was written here by two advocates Jess Hill and Michael Solta and it was called rethinking prevention so it said look are we actually looking at all of the levers we can pull around preventing violence so you know we worked with Jess and Michael to communicate what they have found and their questions around the approach to prevention and whether we needed to expand it out more we engaged in in lots of media and supported and elevated the voices of people with legit experience and people who worked in research in the space of clinicians over that period of time as well and it because people in Australia were so open to the conversation because of that raw feeling of really needing to be doing all we can things that we have been saying for 15 years they're received in a different way at a point of crisis where people are really looking for their answers and it's really interesting because when you talk about alcohol and its role in violence the message we get from the general community is of course of course this is the case and so the question only comes when the conversation is very academic and we're talking about theoretical frameworks not about people's experiences or the question comes when we're talking about the fact that governments aren't willing to act in this space because of the strength of these commercial lobbyists you know we've been advocating for changes to laws around alcohol delivery and spoken about the link to violence for at least the last five years and I have watched alcohol lobbyists go around the country and try and stop those law changes and I have seen them they successful and that is on governments because governments are giving them far too much power and that is on these companies because these companies are saying that their profits are far more important than the safety of women and children. The different elements of this change this advocacy but also the problem and the burden on people and communities that Katerina is talking about Christina that must sound very familiar to you I think you have been working in moving the international with this topic trying to build this kind of coalition to address this problem at the global level and in other parts of the world. What is your reaction to these remarkable developments but maybe also to some of these points that Katerina is raising about the industry about reasons why this is not addressed about the problem as such and where is your mind right now hearing the Australian story? Yeah my mind is actually everywhere it travels from personal not experience but from the closest circles in my family and understanding the problem there where generations above me have experienced this problem that Katerina has described so and of course I understand it from visiting and talking to people from communities from many parts of the world then and then to the policy and understanding or hearing the silence like it's a roaring silence of not replying to these issues so I would say it's really everywhere and I will try to structure my thoughts so the problem that you have described in the beginning Katerina with these concrete examples I have heard it from my mom I have heard it from my friends and what I really what makes me in a way happy now and I hear what you have been saying is that I think that Australia is lucky that they have fair and that you work with communities and you elevate these voices because what is happening in other parts of the world is that these voices don't even think they need to be elevated so there is not even that kind of thought that but I experience is no one hears me they completely accept it it's a it's such a normal things older generations even some older generations even think that this is a part of life like they don't even need to question something like this and now it's so amazing that this is coming up that people are actually starting talking about it and make the problem then I am thinking of the pandemic of course which like we've been closed at homes but the problem then got even stronger and the problem came out we we could hear it then we could we could see different studies and statistics the the violence in homes for some kind of amplified but again we didn't hear any reaction to it for many. places, like women's rights movements and the organizations that are addressing violence against women, they care so much about this women and they provide health, they provide treatment, they provide safe houses, that's the alcohol issue is somehow that deep somewhere and it's not being talked about. So that's what I'm like asking myself what is putting the lock on this issue and what can be done. Yeah and thanks for sharing also your personal experience, the family, I think the generational dimensions of men's violence against women that is very often fueled by alcohol. I think these community experiences but also frontline workers experience is that Katerina talked about that you also now mentioned Christina that's something that I would like to get back to but I asked Katerina about some facts in Australia, how does the global picture look like Christina? What do we know about the magnitude of the problem when it comes to alcohol-feuding violence against women? What we understand in the interpersonal violence is or alcohol is present in interpersonal violence from 47 to 87% cases it varies and we hear it from low income countries and high income countries from different people representing different economic social economic status so it's not a problem of one group of one country or one income category and like violence in general is around 50% but the intimate partner violence is up to 87% which is huge. You hear I think all of us we are doing a good job of using the correct language it's very important how we talk about alcohol's role in violence against women Christina and Katerina you also talk a little bit about women's rights movement like this wider community of survivors and this overall approach also in a patriarchal society that we live in not to let men off the hook right so I wanted to ask you we could start with you Katerina how can we how can we understand alcohol's role in this epidemic of violence against women that you see in Australia and Christina then that you see at the global level yeah I was just thinking about Christina how you were talking about how that silence was deafening and in Australia we have a term it's called being ghastly it so it's where you know something is true and this is used in the examples of relationships you know something is true you know you're being treated badly but you're being told that it's a norm and this is you know when you when the role of alcohol is being ignored despite so many people saying it's part of their stories despite it coming up so much in statistics despite so many people telling us they're seeing people in their workplaces with it it's like this collective gaslighting of people's experiences and I think that you know of course gender inequality is a huge issue across the globe and we absolutely need to be doing all we can to address that and there I you know everyone who is working to try and prevent violence believes that that's the case and I think that well in Australia believes that that's the case I think that what's happening conversations is there's been this discussion about a hierarchy of how we talk about different things and inadvertently that has meant that other things have been called other factors and they've been relegated to not being talked about being disregarded or even people have been saying we can't possibly talk about that because then it excuses the role of men and there's a couple of things around that so one is by not talking about it we're excusing the role of alcohol companies in driving violence and that's not okay and the second thing is yes violence is absolutely gendered and so is alcohol use so two-thirds of alcohol in the world is used by men when violence is perpetrated in a household it's a man it's usually a man towards a woman with children men are more likely to use alcohol at higher risk levels alcohol companies know it's extremely gendered and that's why their marketing is extremely gendered that's why their approach is extremely gendered so I don't think we should be having these conversations separately I think that these are interconnecting causal factors that we need to look at together because people's experiences don't fit neatly on a framework people's experiences fit within a world where things are messy and where factors on top of factors on top of factors on top of factors just make the likelihood of them experiencing something even greater and so Kim Valentine who's lived experience advocate here she spoke at an event earlier this week and she said there are many levers that governments can be pulling to prevent violence and she just made the plea that if there are governments standing next to a lever and it's in reach then please pull on it and one of the levers is alcohol so you can't look at these statistics you can't hear these people's experiences you can't look at the data that showed that when you extended trading hours violence went up and then ignore that and then not pull on the lever that would help to prevent that and I think that's the conversation we need to be having it's a nuanced conversation it's a conversation that's respectful and it acknowledges that we're all trying to work towards the cycle. Katharina you talk now about we as a society or as societies plural because most societies face this problem that you have talked about we cannot excuse the role of alcohol companies in driving violence and we should not focus too much on this not allowing alcohol to be an excuse for men's violence against women I think this point that the conversation needs to reflect what people experience and I think Christina that's what you also reference this when you talk with women in villages in Rwanda they talk about this and then they feel this is not a valid problem but when you bring it up there is so much there and then Katharina you also talked about that actually the different conversations to improve or achieve gender equality they need to be integrated with each other and alcohol policy has a place here Christina these things listening to Katharina what would you pick up or what would you like to add in this conversation what alcohols roles in the epidemic of violence against women yeah I think that the the gender norms and alcohol norm they strengthen each other and alcohol industry is very good at exploiting this they are they that's the very usual behavior of alcohol industry they hijack anything that is going in society like if there is if there are strong gender norms they will be riding on that if there is some kind of way to equality and if it's already established when in society they will be riding on that one so they are using the trends and the developments and not only using but exploiting them and that's what I think where the problem really lays and where it has to be solved because it's now like with all the the commercialized society it's that that's where our ideas are really strengthened and are some kind of confirmed so whatever was also happening in the history and was maybe traditional now it's really more in a way modernized put into a nice package and in that way really strengthened so it looks very innocent with great images and great thoughts behind it but the the basic idea of the strong norms for example inferiority of women is then being some kind of cemented in a nicer way so we don't even notice it that it's happening but then it stays and then it allows everything that is then happening around the violence against women fueled by alcohol but also in general and all the power relations would be already mentioned are also strengthened by this kind of behavior yeah to me it's go ahead Katerina I was just gonna say that it makes me think of a particular example here in Australia. There's a particular football game that's played and around that football game and I've seen data around this in other countries as well like the UK. Violence increases, violence reported to police, involving alcohol increases by 40% on that night, 40% and that happens around these big sporting events and what happened around that sporting event was there was a particular global alcohol company who was producing their products branded with the team's logos on it. There was another alcohol delivery company that put out a media statement boasting about how much their sales went up on that night. These are commercial entities that know that their product is associated with more violence towards women and children on these particular nights and so what do they do on those nights? They use it as a marketing opportunity. We should be looking at that behaviour and we should be calling it out for what it is and it's commercial companies doing all they can to fuel harm so that they can maximise profits and that's what it looks like when the rubber hits the road. They're the examples that we see here and something that's happened in Australia that hadn't happened prior to this period where people have become so concerned about what's going on is that people have started going, this is not okay. Like how are we not talking about this? Why is this not getting more attention? So again, it was something that was happening but just seen as, we're just happening in the background and now it's been brought to people's attention and you can't unsee it. Yeah, this is the point that Christina made earlier. Christina, go ahead. What comes back, what we have actually mentioned, Catherine, already is also the responsibility of our governments that really there is no other way that people should defend themselves and the governments are really obliged to protect our health to, for example, make sure there is no discrimination. So there are international documents, there are conventions, there are also national documents that really demand it from the governments. We know that some policies really work well, we know that when the increased taxes violence goes down, we know that when we when we limit the number of hours opening hours or like shortly then also violence goes down. So like we can see all these measures, we know how to implement them, like everything is there, the plan is there, it's just a wheel and the conscious decision of our governments to do it. I would like to talk about this, the kind of solutions, I think it's interesting than to hear from Catherine in Australia, the Prime Minister has made this amazing commitment now. The community is really paying attention now. So I would like to come back to what you're both raising the kind of policy response that works at the global level in other countries and in Australia, but I wanted to say one more thing and maybe try to understand the Australian situation, this kind of journey from end of April to September a little bit more. One reflection I have when I listen to both of you is we look now at a half a century decades of alcohol marketing that has sexualized, dehumanized, objectified women, and I mean when I show these marketing examples in our community workshops, I always apologize beforehand and I even don't want to show these pictures for too long because this is shocking portrayal of men's power over women, these kinds of things that you have now talked about. Every time I deal with this I cannot understand why then women's rights movements have not picked this up earlier and I think your point, Catherine, not to overly make these conversations academic scientific but to actually make sure like you're also saying Christina that we respond to what people experience. I think that is important and that is to me what you have managed to do now in Australia right Christina that is something where we are still working on for some reason the voices of the Indian women, the Ugandan women, they are not heard yet at the global level where we also want this response so I wanted to unpack this a little bit more with the Australian experience we have heard about Kim like a lived experience a survivor advocate and Catherine you have given us a sense of there is a crisis situation actually over years in in Australia and the government issued this statement on May 1st and they did what governments so far always do they managed to avoid seeing what we experience in our communities as you are saying then you did advocacy you talked about it a little bit so from April when you made a statement calling for immediate action to May when this was not taken up I think there was even a revelation later maybe a month later where journalists investigated and revealed that evidence was actually removed from a government report a some years back and then the community really rallying to generating this kind of response can you talk a little bit more about this remarkable change what happened in this period especially from May 1st to September but also this bigger picture how did the government now actually look at alcohol when it's been there before and when you have worked on this before what's the difference this time around firstly there's the the broader context and it's that there are points of time here where there are particular issues and it's it's always spurred on by crisis and it sucks because as Christina said these aren't problems without solutions we know the types of things that need to be action but unfortunately governments will not act unless things are really bad and so here things are really bad and that has has created this environment where it means that media run more stories on this it means that governments look at this more it means that the community engages more in the conversation so there's this broader environment and conversation around violence prevention there are a couple of things there was the the release of that paper which got lots of media attention the rethinking primary prevention and it it said you have to look at the commercial drivers of violence which include alcohol gambling and pornography and then when national cabinet had their meeting you know they announced that they were that they were going to be crisis talks and so at this point we we were like well we want to be part of these crisis talks so throughout this period we reached out to everyone who was holding any sort of discussion about this and asked to be in the room and that hadn't always been the case in the past you know in fact alcohol being excluded from the room I had been in spaces standing alongside people with lived experience where those people with lived experience were told that this part of their story wasn't how they remembered it and I found that astonishing like I was just seeing they're going and I think that it's I think it's just everyone is trying so hard to create change and and I think that we just have to make sure that that change goes beyond ideology and looks at all of the possible things we can be doing and when the government announced that there would be this rapid review we engaged in that process you know we we reached out to people we we asked if we could provide information or evidence we held forums alongside international conferences where we would have discussions about these types of themes and the possible solutions we've reached out to researchers and said do you have any research because these type of research comes out all the time showing the link and we helped to amplify that work we partnered with parliamentarians at parliament housing canberra and stood alongside a range of organizations across the women and community sector saying that we needed to be doing all of the things we spoke about this around you know that that big sporting that I spoke to you about that happened twice during this campaign we made sure all eyes were on the fact that violence would go up on those nights and to talk about that And then there were, because all of this was happening, people were feeling comfortable having a conversation that they hadn't felt comfortable having before. And that's the story about this research being suppressed. Many of us knew that that was the case. Many of us knew that research had been drafted to inform the national strategy on the prevention of violence against women here in Australia. And that the researcher, Professor Michael Salter, he produced a paper and was told that he needed to remove parts of that paper. And one of those parts of the paper was around alcohol. And I think it takes a lot of courage to come out and be saying these things at a time when these types of conversations aren't necessarily welcome. So a lot of people were coming out and saying these things. And when the journalist reached out to me about that story, she said to me that she had reached out to others who said that they didn't want to speak. Because they were so worried about-- I've spoken on these issues in the past, and I've just received so much criticism around it. I'm just not going to put myself out there like that. And so it's-- there's thinking about what it means to be engaged in these conversations at these points. We've got a commissioner for the prevention of alpha domestic family and sexual violence. When she was holding events, we were there. We were in the room. And just being in the room was critically important during this time to remind people. And to be honest, there had been times when I hadn't been in the room in the past because I just thought, I can't go in that room and be yelled out today. Or that during this period, it just felt like it was our responsibility to do that because we weren't doing it than who was. So then the rapid review came out and made this recommendation. And we've reached out to the premiers again and said, this has to be part of this. We've reached out to national cabinet again and said, this has to be part of it. So the decision is that states and territories review their alcohol laws. And in Australia, the states and territories control laws that focus on mainly the availability of alcohol, licensing, and a little bit of marketing as well. Those laws in Australia are conflicted. They have one object around harmonisation or some objects around harmonisation and some of them around expanding the industry. And so we have this scenario where these laws are not as effective as they can be and often they're used as tools by our public companies to expand availability. And so our main ask was that governments review these laws with the primary aim of making sure that those laws are framed in a way where the prevention of violence against women and children is a priority. And the reason why that was the ask was because if you're looking at it through that lens, you can't ignore the evidence that Christine was speaking about. You have to consider the fact that availability plays a role that pricing plays a role, that marketing plays a role, that of course, rapid delivery makes it impossible for people to escape. So that's what's happening now. And now is the task of us holding governments accountable around that, you know, reaching out to each of these states and territories and saying, what are you going to do? What is the accountable and transparent process that you're going to go through? And most critically, you know, as Christina has said as well, we're asking the question, how are you going to make sure that the voices of people with lived experience are prioritised in these conversations? Because it is an easy out for them to turn around and say, we checked. It's fine. And we checked in with some of our alcohol company mates and they said it's fine as well. But what about the voices you're not hearing from? And they're the voices we need to elevate the most. What you talk about now, Catherine, this kind of making all humanly possible efforts to be in the room, even if it's sometimes emotionally draining, it feels risky for people, especially those with lived experience or those who have advocated for this or researched this over years and have received pushback and blowback and so on. So being in the room, I think is a really important point here because to my mind listening to you, this is a broader conversation. There is a crisis in Australia about violence against women, men's violence against women. And alcohol is a big part of it, but it's one part of it. Like you guys were saying earlier, it's not the only part. And so as alcohol policy advocates, you have gone to another community's space, so to say, like the violence against women community or this is what we, I think earlier today, call the women's rights movement, so to say. And I think this is really important to engage in those spaces and use the community voices and the evidence. Christina, you have been in such spaces as well. The commission on the status of women, right? I think for more than a decade now in New York, when Katharina talks about how people feel in Australia about this, what is your experience at the global level with these kinds of conversations? I think sometimes there are presentations where the World Health Organization talks about the role of alcohol and then alcohol policy. What is the response? How are people talking to you? Maybe after you have raised it in such an event, what is happening at these levels? Let's start with this. WHO is very clear on elimination of violence against women and like what measures can be taken. And alcohol policy is even one part of the five recommended points. And then in the space of commission of status on women, that's many people coming. It's always in March, it's in New York. It's one of the most attended events in New York in the United Nations. And lots of sessions, regardless, what's the topic, is about violence against women. So it can be the main topic at the environment and then we come and then there are lots of sessions on violence against women. There can be education and gain there is violence against women, as it's a huge, also an obstacle to success in the other topics that have been raised. So I have lots of opportunities then to talk about the WHO recommendations. And what I have noticed is that the leadership or the top representation of more international organizations or bigger organizations that are fighting for women's rights, there I usually get a negative reply. It's like, yeah, yeah, that's happening, but it's a minor thing. We need to address much bigger problem. It's a systemic problem. It's power relations that we need to deal with. But when I have the statements in the rooms and I get this official answer during the event, after the event, there are people from communities who are coming to me and saying, thank you for saying this. Like, we experience this every day. We have not even realized that this is something that we should talk about. And it's a little bit similar to what I've been talking about in the beginning. And then when Katarina was talking now, I felt like, yeah, talking is actually revolutionary. And it's like talking about this problem, even though it can sound so simple or like it's a normal thing we have to talk about it. But it really makes difference. Because as soon as we start talking about it, there are so many people who are sharing this experience that they will find themselves in this, they will relate to it. And some will feel empowered to come and talk about it as well. And then in that way, the movement and also the demand to do something about it will be growing. I want to wrap this conversation up with the levers that you have talked about. I think we have addressed the alcohol industry as a driver of men's violence against women. I talked a little bit about their unethical harmful practices driven by greed. We have really talked about the community need, the community experiences. And I think you're both making this very powerful point that in talking about it, we legitimize the issue and we give people space. We hold space for people to talk about something that they really experience. And that we cannot afford anymore, not to actually hear and I think bear this kind of severity and the magnitude of the problem. So you talked about the levers. We have heard, Katerina, you talked a little bit about delivery already. Can we just wrap this conversation up? Christina, you mentioned, WHO has these, I think five interventions. Alcohol is one of them. If we start with Katerina, what are the solutions that you advocate for, that you want to see at all the different levels? So happy to talk to you about solutions. I just want to say something really briefly because I want to get this in before this podcast ends. I just-- I just want to acknowledge the role of you and Christina of being in the room. I don't for a second, Christina, when you think about being in these meetings for 10 years, I don't for a second underestimate how challenging that is. And it's because it's alcohol and alcohol holds the sacred cow status that we need to keep fasting through, because when you said the thing that really resonates with you is the fact that when you went after the conversation, after the official proceedings, everyone comes up to you and shares a story, that's what we have every day. All of these people who were just saying, "This is happening!" And so we just need to listen to them. So I just want to acknowledge the amazing role that Mavendi plays in being in the room and holding the space and to thank you for that. And in terms of levers, availability is a big one. The availability and accessibility of alcohol has absolutely exploded and is now available within 20 minutes into people's homes. That is driving harms. So we need to look at trading hours, we need to look at density of outlets, we need to look at the delivery of alcohol, and we need to introduce guardrails to wind this all back to make sure that we're prioritising community health and safety. You know, minimum unit pricing, the fact that you can get so much alcohol for so cheap, that drives harm and we need to look at that and we need to address that. We need to make sure that marketing is addressed. And at the moment, we have this scenario where there is data driven marketing. So in Australia, even data on whether you have access to help around alcohol can be used to market to you. That is appalling. So there needs to be proper privacy controls around data because that's not the future of marketing now. That is here. And companies have spent millions of dollars on working out how they better target people who are most at risk. And we need to address that. Also, we need to properly fund alcohol and other drug services because alcohol and other drug services, they see people who come to them and say, I'm using violence. Or they see people who come to them, women who come to them and say, I'm drinking because I'm, I'm, I'm, have someone home who's being violent towards me. And now those services need to be equipped to be able to provide whatever support is needed to people at those points in time to help out. And on that note, every single health professional, every single person that someone could be interacting with who could experience violence, they need to be looking at things like, how can we best support this person? And just more globally, prevention approaches are comprehensive. That's how they work. And so we just need alcohol to be part of a comprehensive approach to the prevention of violence against women. And if our aim is the prevention of violence against women, then harm minimization has to be prioritized. You can't possibly sit there and say the profits of a company are more important than the health and safety of women and children across the world. So this is a very inspiring list of things that our governments can do. When you said this earlier, Kristina, our governments at all levels have a human rights obligation. And this is what you ended on now, Katerina, this is a first order of business to actually avoid the harm when we can prevent it. And in many countries like in Australia, this is a crisis situation. So Kristina, from, from your experience, what are, I really like what Kim is saying when we are close to a lever, please pull it. So what are the levers? Can you talk about these five things that WHO talks about where one of them is alcohol? For example, because I think this is also very important, I think creating the context around the solutions that Katerina talked about now. Of course. So there are five, one of them is alcohol policy and the other ones. I really like to say that they are also very much connected to alcohol use, because one is changing social norm around gender and violence. And as we were talking also in the beginning, like gender norms and alcohol norms, like they fuel each other. So if we manage to change one, we will contribute to the change of the other one, which will then contribute to prevention or reduction of violence. The other one is women's economic, economic and social empowerment. And then again, like we very often try to empower women in different communities. And then alcohol is an obstacle to it again, like either that, for example, the, some money is spent on alcohol that could be spent on something else or there are expenses on the harm in the family. So they are empowered. And at the same time, they are, they are losing the money again. So then another one is addressing childhood exposure to violence. And that's, oh, again, everyone who also works with people who have alcohol problems needs to register that they, if they have children, the children also need to be addressed, like they, someone needs to work with them as well. And then of course, remove violence from home so children are not exposed to it. So again, it's really connected. And then also legal and justice system intervention. So very often women do not, do not even get the, to practice their, their right to be defended, protected. And again, alcohol is very often used as mitigating circumstance still. So all these parts like this for and then of course, alcohol policy, as such, are connected with alcohol. And I think these four points plus actually, alcohol policy, like Katerina was saying, alcohol policy addressing the price, the availability and the marketing. These five solutions, but the four ones that you explained a little bit, I think they really underline your point, Katerina, that in this response to the crisis of men's violence against women, these conversations need to happen. We need to come together to have these conversations to then actually have these local examples and the evidence for the points that Kristina made now. I think this sounds a little bit like a roadmap to underpin how we can, I think, then mobilize the entire movement that wants to prevent and reduce violence against women. So for word class, alcohol policy and alcohol legislation and with this, I wish you all the best. This was a massive success, tremendous progress in Australia. Like we always say, and we had previous podcasts with you, Katerina, on pregnancy morning labels, you have one success and now the real work starts, right? This is very impressive work. And now you have to make sure with the community and all the champions that the government is actually following through on this that the alcohol industry cannot derail any of these efforts. So I want to wish you all the best. Let us know if we can support in any way and Kristina, the same for you, you are going to New York trying to raise these issues when it's not all the time, most welcome. And so also all the best to you and thank you very much for the work that both of you are doing. And thank you for joining this podcast conversation today. It was really insightful for me. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. And thank you, Katerina, also for everything that we are doing. It's an amazing inspiration. Thank you. I feel the same way about you, Kristina. Thank you, babe. And thank you in those rooms everywhere. Thank you so much to our guests, Katerina Georgi and Kristina Sperkovar. That's all for today's episode of the Alcohol Issues podcast. We hope you found our conversation about keeping women safe from violence fueled by alcohol and making the case for action, inspiring and insightful. Please make sure to rate our show, subscribe, and spread the word about this episode. You are most welcome to share your feedback and your ideas for topics and guests. We'll be back next week with a special conversation with Latvia's Minister of Health about the Alcohol Policy developments in Latvia. In the meantime, please feel welcome to engage with us on our website, our social media channels, and newsletter for more content about latest alcohol policy and research developments that are changing the world. Thank you for listening and talk to you soon. (soft music)