Marie Stopes Australia Announces Paid Family Violence Leave

Media Release
EMBARGOED FOR SUNDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2018

Marie Stopes Australia Announces 10 Days Paid Family Violence Leave
On International Day to End Violence Against Women, Marie Stopes Australia has announced it will provide staff with ten days paid family violence leave each year.

The new policy is part of the organisation’s commitment to ensuring a safer and more supportive work environment.

“We work with clients who are experiencing family violence, and we have a predominantly female workforce so providing support to our staff if and when they need it is important,” Marie Stopes Australia CEO, Michelle Thompson said.

The announcement is part of a range of commitments that Marie Stopes Australia has made in a White Paper on Reproductive Coercion also released today.

Reproductive Coercion is behaviour that deliberately prevents a person from making decisions about their reproductive health including contraceptive sabotage (such as ‘stealthing’), forcing someone into continuing or terminating a pregnancy, or forced sterilisation.
Reproductive Coercion is intrinsically linked to Family Violence, Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence.

The Policy White Paper contains the definition, existing research and data on Reproductive Coercion, its links with Family Violence, Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence. It also contains recommendations and proposals for how to address the issue as well as commitments that Marie Stopes Australia will undertake in order to combat the issue. These commitments include their new policy of providing all staff with 10 days of paid Family Violence leave each year.

“If we are truly to help Australians take control of their sexual and reproductive health and rights, we need to intimately understand the forces that can interfere with autonomy and rights. We need to do our best to make sure we know how to remove barriers and support people so the decisions they make are theirs and theirs alone. This is the heart of our advocacy work.”

The White Paper can be downloaded at https://loom.ly/euB9uFM

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Marie Stopes Australia is a national not-for-profit provider of sexual and reproductive health services including permanent and long-acting reversible contraception and abortion care.