Roger Bosmans of Samaritans Taree is wielding it in his fight to educate more than 750 Samaritans staff in NSW about domestic violence as the organisation embraces ‘White Ribbon’, Australia’s campaign to prevent men’s violence against women.

Samaritans is intimately involved in supporting women and children in the Manning Valley who are victims of domestic violence. It operates the women’s refuge in Taree and its staff know the fear, danger, chaos and damage caused by domestic violence. The refuge is always full, says Roger, and as a family moves out another will move in. There is never an empty bed.

It is an unrelenting stream of victims and Roger says cultural change is the only solution but that takes time and is generational. He says that is why the White Ribbon campaign is important and that is why the gavel is used as a prop in his White Ribbon presentations.

“You bring that type of thing into your home and have it laying around the house and a seven-year-old boy or girl thinks, ‘Maybe mum might need taming’. It’s setting a culture where it is OK to disrespect women. One of the most difficult things to do is to change a culture or the way people think but we have to start somewhere.

“Domestic violence sits on a continuum with women dying at the very nasty end to the sexist joke. Change is needed as one in four women experience some form of domestic violence from their partner or ex-partner which includes the gamut of abuse - economic abuse, spiritual abuse, physical and psychological abuse.”

Roger looks to the whiteboard on his wall and says he will be taking his message to staff in Raymond Terrace, Merrylands and Mudgee this month. He is proud of his work to assist the organisation to earn White Ribbon accreditation and it is a process that can take between 18 months to three years to secure.

“Our organisation employs 600 women and 150 men. We feel strongly about protecting women and with the one in four statistic, well it means that some of our staff are possibly dealing with domestic violence.

“Every two minutes there is a domestic violence response by police, it’s the leading cause of death and disability in women aged 15 to 44 and domestic violence played a part in about 20 to 25 per cent of every female that moved in Australia last year – the stats are shocking.”

Roger says “there are a lot of good blokes out there.”

“We want blokes to take some stand or some responsibility – doing something about it when you hear it and reporting it to police could save a life. 

“I want blokes to see this information and to think, well if I do hear something or see something that I can safely do something about, whether I speak up in a public place or call the police, then I should act. It’s time to stop saying ‘it’s nothing to do with me’.”