Dr Carol Kaplanian Consultancy
SPECIALISED SERVICES RELATED TO HONOUR BASED VIOLENCE
ABOUT ME
Dr Carol Kaplanian has extensive experience across cultural family and domestic violence, specialising in honour-based violence. Through her academic studies and work with the WA Police, WA Department of Health, Department of Justice, the Non-Government sector and Middle Eastern refugee camps, she has an extensive research background, plus strong training, education and casework experience.
Carol has completed a PhD on ‘Honour-based Violence in Jordan’ and has a Bachelor’s Degree in social work and social policy, plus a Masters in social work. She specialises in clinical counselling and working with victims of torture and trauma, the latter of which involved spending an extensive amount of time working in Jordanian refugee camps offering counselling and education to refugees. Her clinical skills are extensive covering matters of family and domestic violence, sexual assault and sexual violence, child sexual abuse and honour based violence, including forced marriage, honour killings, dowry abuse and female genital cutting/mutilation.
Carol has consulted on high level cases relating to honour killings, forced marriage, dowry abuse and female genital cutting and mutilation. She has over a decade of experience in the area of family and domestic violence and has worked in policy, training and education, supervision, building counselling programs for survivors and perpetrators and has empowered countless women through her therapeutic approach.
Carol has also worked in the academic realm, teaching students, coordinating courses and supervising both Master and PhD level students. She has also clinically supervised professionals working in the area of domestic violence and victim engagement. She often advises on highly sensitive matters and is a Subject Matter Expert on Forced Marriage for the Australian Federal Police.
Her work has been recognised through winning human rights awards and most recently, she has been awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to understand the perspectives of migrant and refugee women who have experienced family violence. Her Fellowship has been endorsed and funded by the WA Department of Communities.
What is Honour Based Violence
Honour based violence is usually differentiated from other forms of domestic violence on the grounds that it (a) occurs within the framework of collective family structures, communities and societies; (b) involves a premeditated act, designed to restore a societal construction of honour as a value system, norm or tradition, and (c) is based on men’s putative right to control women’s sexual and social choices, with a concomitant perception of women as the property of men. (Gill 2011, p. 221).
In Australia and elsewhere, Domestic violence and abuse service are tailored within a "Western-Centric" context; thus policies, systems and services often do not fit nor cater to those types of violence that occur within refugee and migrant families. Such forms of violence may include an honour killing/attempted honour killing, Female Genital Cutting/Mutilation, Forced/Child Forced Marriage and Dowry Abuse.
All of the above forms of violence currently occur in Australia and are on the rise nationally and worldwide. As the only expert ion Australia, with highly specialised knowledge; I can offer unique services listed in the next page.