A MOMENT IN HISTORY.
The image we've chosen is a flash point in Australian feminist history, taken on International Women's Day, 1974, at Bidura Girls Shelter. It is recorded in the 'Handbook for Rape Crisis Centres', that this day included a forum discussion which conceptualised a space to help women in crisis, impacted by sexual violence. This led to the opening of the first Rape Crisis Centre in Australia just 7 months later which today, 50 years on, is known as Full Stop Australia.
As each woman spoke, others realised that the shame which they had held for months or years was not theirs alone but shared by their sisters – out of the forum a discussion group on rape was born.
- Handbook for Rape Crisis Centres
.png "Symposium Social (1)")
Published in June 1975 by the Sydney Rape Crisis Collective, the introduction to this resource states 'the purpose of this handbook is to summarise the experience of the Sydney Rape Crisis Collective after 15 months of full-time operation...'
The clip below is a snippet from ABC's Four Corners, Rape: The Unspeakable Crime which aired in 1975. At this time Sydney Rape Crisis Centre was located within Sydney Women's Liberation House on Alberta St, Sydney.
SUPPORT.
ADVOCATE.
EDUCATE.
Our three focus areas have remained since our beginnings in 1974. Support for victim-survivors impacted by violence and abuse. Advocacy to reform laws and systems to better work in the interest of victim-survivors and holds perpetrators to account. Education that equips businesses and individuals to create safe and respectful communities. At Full Stop Australia we know that a life free from violence is possible.