You need to have more community support groups, counsellors, and community-based agencies sharing the information about the services that are available. The information should be available in the local languages. You should have counsellors who understand the perspective of their community. We need people who can really engage with them, people in a position of trust. Faith leaders play a very important role. Places of worship are another thing. You have to engage all the sectors in the society.
Yes, it's an issue. This legislation is very important, but if you do not provide adequate community support and resources, it will not make a difference. Even for those people who don't have a language barrier, it's an issue: how will they access the justice system?
There's a long way to go, and there's a whole step in behaviour change before people feel confident enough to go and access their rights. This is what we've been doing through our Impact of Family Violence conference. The next conference is in 2013. We bring all the sectors together, which includes the police, the school systems, the community-based organizations, mainstream organizations, and the justice system. We bring them all together and have a dialogue to see what the steps are moving forward.
Of course policy-makers are a huge piece. We have to have that and raise awareness, and then have community programs that address the needs of those seniors. We need public awareness campaigns.