AUSTRALIA’S Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins says the AFL and its players can play an important role in reducing family violence and violence against women.

On Tuesday, former North Melbourne player Shannon Grant had a six-month jail sentence for assaulting his former partner overturned on appeal.

Meanwhile, a campaign in the United Kingdom called ‘If England gets beaten, so will she’ during the football World Cup highlighted the link between England match days and domestic violence incidents.

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Jenkins said this was a pattern that also emerged in Australia, with the 1800 RESPECT phone line experiencing a spike in calls on the days of the NRL and AFL grand finals.

“This brings us back to that conversation about family violence and violence in the home. We had just in the last week, Medibank runs the phone line 1800 RESPECT, and they released their stats on how calls to that number are going,” Jenkins said on Fox Footy’s On the Mark.

“And they said that there are two times when they noticed real spikes. One was where there was reporting, like of the Harvey Weinstein or the Eurydice Dixon murder, where something in the media had prompted a conversation about violence against women.

“But the others was when there were major sporting events. So they particularly named the NRL Grand Final and the AFL Grand Final as spike(s).”

Jenkins said while the statistic linking major sports events to family violence was “concerning”, it was important to draw attention to the issue to help with changing behaviours and teaching people about respectful relationships.

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Jenkins said there is a spike in calls to 1800 RESPECT on AFL Grand Final day. Source: AAP

“It is concerning and this is not to say AFL is causing this but it is to say that family violence is a real problem in homes, people are at home, emotions are running high, they might be drinking, gambling, whatever they might be doing and they’re in close proximity.

“(It) comes back to that stat — women, we talk about stranger danger, but women are at most risk of violence from a man they know in their own home.

“And that’s something that we hate to think but I think it’s good that we have this drawn to our attention so as a community we can start both changing behaviours, teaching our kids on what respectful relationships are, but also speaking out when you see it somewhere else and you think ‘I’m not sure that that’s quite right.’”

Jenkins, who was previously on Carlton’s board, said the introduction of the AFLW had been crucial in regards to “empowering” women.

She said introducing initiatives like the Blues’ “Carlton Respects” campaign allowed AFL men’s players to play a key role in driving the prevention of family violence.

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Carlton celebrate a win over Collingwood in the first game of AFLW. Photo: George Salpigtidis Source: News Corp Australia

“A lot of my work is around what are the key issues that we have for equality in Australia? And violence against women is one of them,” Jenkins said.

“AFL has a great role, both in a positive and responsive way. So again, I come back to the AFLW, really a lot of that messaging was about empowering women, expecting women can do things, breaking stereotypes about what women are and what they can do and that’s been amazing.

“At the same time — and I guess I go to Carlton — in particular r, they’ve done a whole campaign called ‘Carlton Respects.’

“And that was driven out of a conversation by Kristy McKellar who came to the club and talked about her experience of family violence. And she said ‘you know what, if footballers are saying this is not okay, this is a really powerful message to our community.’”

Jenkins said the impact of AFL players speaking up about domestic violence had the ability to reach and genuinely influence a different audience.

“So we know that particularly sportsmen are amazing in terms of their influence and power, so when they speak up about things that are just plain right, it makes a massive difference.

“Now, we think when we speak up it should make a massive difference, but I’m not sure that it always does.

“But if a hero sportsperson like Jimmy Bartel says ‘actually this happened to me and it’s not okay’ — you know, that reaches a different audience that’s an important audience.”

In looking at violence in more general terms, Jenkins also discussed the recent on-field incident between Andrew Gaff and Andrew Brayshaw, where Gaff was suspended for eight weeks for a punch that broke Brayshaw’s jaw and left him with three displaced teeth.

She said there was an issue in regards to how certain language used minimalised or excused violent behaviour.

“The conversations and the words I’ve heard reflect some of the concerns that we have about violence-supportive attitudes, they’re called, attitudes that minimise, justify, trivialise or excuse violent behaviour, or blame others,” Jenkins said.

West Coast Eagles player Andrew Gaff fronts the AFL tribunal. Photo: Jason Edwards Source: News Corp Australia

“Particularly the things that I’ve been hearing that have been really concerning, one I’ve heard language about ‘retaliatory punch.’ So that suggests that there’s an idea that the punch was in retaliation for something, there was some reason.

“There’s also been conversations about a good person doing a bad thing, and when I’m watching the footage I don’t want my 12-year-old son to be looking at that and hearing that ‘this is a good man’ and it seems an odd time for us to be talking about ‘good men’ when we’re really talking about behaviour that we don’t like.

“And the other conversations have been about brain fades. So we know for violence there is often a justification saying men can’t control their anger in some situations.

“So I think the narrative and the conversation’s really good, the broader I guess education I say is I hope we all realise this was one incident but as a community we have a cultural issue about violence and it’s really worth talking about what are the conditions that can encourage that sometimes and how can we understand that nuance and say ‘we all love this game but it’s a game that can be played in a different way.”

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