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DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 370 449 FL 800 767

AUTHOR McRobbie, Andrea; Jupp, JamesTITLE How Can We Tell You...How Will We Know? Women and

Language Services.INSTITUTION Australian Commonwealth/State Council on

Non-English-Speaking Background Women's Issues.REPORT NO ISBN-0-642-18074-1PUB DATE Oct 92NOTE 127p.

PUB TYPE Reports Evaluative/Feasibility (142) Viewpoints(Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC06 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Community Services; Counselor Client Relationship;

*English (Second Language); *Females; ForeignCountries; Health Services; Immigrants;*Interpreters; *Language Role; Limited EnglishSpeaking; Literature Reviews; Needs Assessment; OlderAdults; Program Administration; Public Policy;Refugees; Resource Allocation; *SocioculturalPatterns; Standards; Translation

IDENTIFIERS Australia

ABSTRACTA report on the language services and Janguage

education needs of women in Australia, particularly those whosenative language is other than English, is presented. First, itreviews the need for language services such as translation andinterpreting in the large, diverse, and growing population of womenof non-English-speaking backgrounds. Priority groups in thispopulation are then discussed. These include recent arrivals, theelderly and aging, industrial workers, refugees and humanitariansimmigrants, and culturally distinctive migrants such as those inwhose culture women have a very traditional role. Specialconsiderations in assessing and serving the needs of women clientsare also examined, including costs, cultural factors, and special

areas of need such as health care and family-related services.Administrative and ethical issues in the provision of languageservices are outlined, and professional and funding issues are alsonoted. The report concludes with a review of relevant literature,both general surveys and information relating specifically to healthissues and legal interpreting. Recommendations for both policy andaction are made throughout the report. A substantial bibliography,demographic data, reports of consultations held in the process ofresearching the report, and objectives of the project are appended.(MSE) (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education)

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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made* from the original document.***********************************************************************

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BEST COPY AVAILABLE

Commonwealth-StateCouncil on Non-English-Speaking Background

Women's Issues2

The Commonwealth/State Councilon Non-English-Speaking Background

Women's Issues

How Can We Tell You......How Will We Know?

Women and Language Services

Andrea Mc Robbie and James Jupp

October 1992

Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra

3

0 Commonwealth of Australia 1992

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without the written permissionfrom the Office of the Status of Women, Department of the Prime Minister andCabinet, 3-5 National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600.

ISBN 0 642 18074 1

Published for the Office of the Status of Women, Department of thePrime Minister and Cabinet, by the Australian Government Publishing Service.

Printed in Australia by R. M. LANsi)owNF, Commonwealth Government Printer. Canberra

ii

4

ContentsCommonwealth-State Council on

Non-English-Speaking Background Women's Issues ivMembership of the steering committee

for the consultancy project vAuthors and Acknowledgements viAbstract 1Abbreviations and glossary 3Summary of recommendations 7

Chapter 1 The language needs of womenof non-English-speaking background 12

Introduction 12Background 13Early official reports on language needs 16The last decade 22Summary: the development of thinking

on the communication and informationneeds of immigrant women 28

Chapter 2 Women and priority groups 35Priority groups 35Women as clients 38Women as providers of interpreting and

translating services 53

Chapter 3 Provision of language services 58Consultations for this report 58Adequacy of services 62Access to information about services 69After-hours service 70Cost recovery in principle and practice 71

Chapter 4 Professional and funding issues 75Professional issues 75Consistent statistics 83Resource allocation 84Organisation of existing services 87Client consultation 89Education of professionals 91

Chapter 5 Literature survey 94General surveys of NESB women 94Health issues 95iegal interpreting 96Conclusion 96

Bibliography 99Appendix 1 Demographic data 105Appendix 2 - Reports of discussions 107Appendix 3 - Terms of reference 118

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Language Services Report

Commonwealih-State Council on Non-English-Speaking Background Women's Issues

The Commonwealth-State Council onNon-English-SpeakIng BackgroundWomen's Issues was established inJuly 1989. as the result of an initiativefunded under the National Agenda fora Multicultural Australia. It first meton 8 December 1989, with an initialterm of two years.

The first 19-member Council includedeight NESB community representa-tives, eight State and Territory govern-ment representatives and three Com-monwealth representatives. The mem-bers are listed below. The Council wasinitially established to replace a minis-terial advisory body, and to provide amechanism for community consulta-tion as part of its policy co-ordinationand development role. The terms ofreference of the Council are listed inAppendix 3.

Four areas were identified as priorityissues to be considered by the firstCouncil. These were health, employ-ment, language services andmulticulturalism and the law. Thisreport is the result of a consultancycommissioned by the Council to re-search the language needs of NESBwomen.

On 8 March 1992, the then PrimeMinister Hawke announced that theCouncil's term would be extended foranother two years. until mid 1994. Asecond Council was elected and heldits inaugural meeting on 30 July 1992.

iv

Membership of the FirstCouncil

Community RepresentativesDraga Port, Tas.Vanda Podravac, ACTDebbie Georgopoulos, NSWCristina Ross, WARaquel Aldunate, QldMargaret Orwin, NTGabrielle Robb, Vic.Irene Pnevmatikos, SA

State-Territory GovernmentRepresentativesRosa Droescher / Jane Woodruff, NSWRos Hunt / Li liana D'Ambrosia / AnnaFratta, Vic.Jenny MedwelLKaren Dennien / Cora Gatbonton, QldLiz Kentwell / Patti Kendal, ACTDr Peta Colebatch, Tas.Susan Brunner / Crista Christaki, SAEdwina Spence. WA

Commonwealth RepresentativesHelen L'Orange. Office of the Status ofWomen (Chair)Dr June Verner, Office of MulticulturalAffairsSue Ingram / Ann Smith, Departmentof Immigration, Local Government andEthnic Affairs.

SecretariatMarina Farnan / Robyn Lloyd / Eliza-beth James. Office of the Status ofWomen

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Art Issue of Gender

Membership of Steering Committee for theConsultancy Project

In 1991, the Council established theLanguage Services Steering Committeeto examine and report upon the impacton women of the provision of Common-wealth, State and Territory interpretingservices.

The Steering Committee employed MsAndrea Mc Robbie and Dr James Juppof the Centre for Immigration andMulticultural Studies at the AustralianNational University to undertakeresearch on these issues.

At various times the Steering Commit-tees membership consisted of:

Department of Immigration, LocalGovernment and Ethnic Affairs (Chair):

Ms Ann Smithassisted by Ms Joanna Boileau.

Office of Multicultural Affairs:Dr June VerrierMs Megan CookMs Margaret Pender

Community Member:Ms Draga Port (Tasmania)Ms Vanda Podravac (Aar)

Victorian Government:Ms Anna FrattaMs Roslyn Johnson

Secretariat:Ms Elizabeth JamesMs Eve line Goy.

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Language Services Report

The Authors

Andrea Mc Robbie works at the Centrefor Immigration and MulticulturalStudies at the Australian NationalUniversity. She has been involved inresearch on immigrant settlementissues since 1985. She has previouslyworked in the area of communityinformation and welfare in Melbourneand Canberra.

James Jupp is Director of the Centrefor Immigration and MulticulturalStudies and chaired the Review ofMigrant and Multicultural Programsand Services in 1986. He was editor ofthe bicentennial encyclopedia, TheAustralian People, and has writtenextensively on immigration and relatedtopics.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was developed with thevaluable assistance of members of theCommonwealth/State Council onNESB Women's Issues, and in particu-lar the members of the Steering Groupon Language Services. The assistanceof staff of the Office of the Status ofWomen in arranging consultations anddevelopment of draft material is alsomuch appreciated.

The consultants would like to stresstheir gratitude to all those consultedduring the project, including Statewomen's advisers, State ethnic affairsbodies and the many non-governmentgroups involved. Further significantcontributions were made by JeanShannon, Mire la Uljar, BehnazNeswadarani, Nada Roude, SisomarSrey, Su le Of, Hasan Osman, BiancaBaldassi, Norma Huerta, Blia Ly, AnnScott, Aurora Foster, Demi Robinsonand stair of the Townsville MigrantResource Centre. The consultants alsowish to thank Jo Baker for her assist-ance in typing and editing the manu-script.


AbstractCommonwealth, State and Territorygovernments are committed to remov-ing barriers to equitable access toservices caused by lack of proficiencyin English. All services in the pastwere developed within a monolingualEnglish context, which was not offi-cially modified until some years aftermany hundreds of thousands of non-English speaking immigrants hadsettled in Australia. Educationalservices for adults and children havebeen developed to teach English, butthese have not effectively created apublic which is fully fluent in Englishfor all purposes. Available statisticssuggest that women are likely to beless fluent than men in English and tobe less formally educated. This isparticularly true of the large numbersarriving in the 1950s and 1960s whoare now becoming elderly and thuslikely to need some public servicesmore than in the past. Altogether,more than 250 000 women are likelyto need interpreting or translatingservices, particularly in specialisedareas such as medicine and the law.About 100 000 of these will pass theage of 65 during the current decade.

According to the main deliverer ofsuch services, the CommonwealthDepartment of Immigration, LocalGovernment and Ethnic Affairs(DILGEA), most users of interpretingservices are women. Therefore, in theview of the Commonwealth-StateCouncil on Non-English SpeakingWomen's Issues, language servicesshould reflect the particular needs ofwomen. Translating needs are distrib-uted equally between men andwomen. Most language groups in

Australia are gender balanced, al-though some East European groupshave a male majority and some fromSoutheast Asia have a female prepon-derance. However, another relevantfactor is that most cultures imposetaboos and inhibitions on the discus-sion of some subjects between stran-gers of the opposite sex and this makesit imperative that women interpretersshould be readily available. Figures forqualified interpreters and translatorsderived from the National AccreditationAuthority for Translators and Inter-preters (NAATI) suggest that a majorityare female. However, there are genderimbalances in some important lan-guages, such as Arabic, Turkish andVietnamese. Many women are lessqualified than men in the minor lan-guages, whereas women dominate atthe higher levels in French and Ger-man, suggesting that they are notcentrally engaged in community lan-guage services as these two languagesare not widely used for interpreting.

At present, at least nine differentlanguage services structures exist inAustralia. In 1990, the CommonwealthGovernment proposed the establish-ment of a national language servicesorganisation to rationalise this situa-tion, and a Commonwealth/StateSteering Group was set up to exploreoptions for the structure, administra-tion and composition of the proposedBureau. However, the Bureau has notbeen established because of insuffi-cient State and Community support.Specialist services in legal and medicalareas exist in New South Wales andVictoria, where about 80% of the likelyclientele for language services live. Themost fully developed services areprovided through DILGEA and theDepartment of Social Security (DSS),

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which both use telephone interpreters,and State services. In some States,there are virtually no locally providedservices, with consequent reliance onthe Commonwealth. The Common-wealth has introduced cost recovery inthe form of the 'agency user pays'principle which is partly designed tosecure recompense from State andCommonwealth users. Charges arealso imposed on State services and ontranslations not directly relevant toimmigrant settlement. There is consid-erable concern that charges might beextended to individuals and that NESBwomen will then be unduly disadvan-taged. In the view of DILGEA, costrecovery is aimed at government de-partments and authorities to ensurethat they share the costs of providingthe services and it is not intended thatcharges be passed on to individuals.However, one State feels that thequestion of Commonwealth and Stateresponsibility in this area has not beenresolved.

Discussions with various languagegroups revealed that the need forwomen ir.terpreters is greatest in thehealth field, especially as regardsreproductive issues. Most frequentcomplaints were about lack of confi-denuality, poor translations of officialdocuments, delays in securing servicesand the need to use amateur transla-tors. Some professionals were reluc-tant to secure language services,although the public hospital systemswere usually more sympathetic. Thoseusing newer or minor languages hadconsiderable difficulties, while thoseusing long-established languages, suchas Italian, had fewer complaints. Themain problem in remote areas (forexample, in North Queensland) wasthe lack of knowledge of services

2

among service providers and clients.There were problems in securingservice outside normal working hours,which was particularly serious in casesof domestic violence. Women were notanxious to train for language servicesdespite acknowledging their impor-tance and the need for more womeninterpreters. Lack of education, ofconfidence or of financial incentiveswere the major reasons for this reluc-tance. Many women still use familyand friends as interpreters, and somepreferred this as they trusted suchpeople despite their lack of profes-sional qualifications. They did not,however, favour using children, espe-cially in medical cases.

Women need language services inareas such as health, child care,domestic violence, sexual assault,family law, pregnancy, contraceptiveand abortion counselling, and ageing.As the gap between life expectancy formen and women is six years in Aus-tralia, the ageing of migrantpopulations will increase the numbersof women requiring age-related serv-ices. Many of these, especially fromSouthern and Eastern Europe havenever acquired English proficiency. Inrecent years, more people are usingAsian languages and these are likely tobecome more relevant to reproductiveand child-related problems and familylaw, while European languages willremain important in the health area.While the great majority of Non-Eng-lish-Speaking Background (NESS)women are concentrated in the rela-tively well-serviced areas of Sydneyand Melbourne, there are communitiesscattered around Australia which arecurrently only serviced through thetelephone service of the Translatingand Interpreting Service (TIS).

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Currently about $30m per annum is CESspent on language services, althoughsome of that is recoverable throughcharges. DILGEA is keen to see greaterco-operation between language serviceagencies to achieve more efficient,readily accessible services at reason-able cost to users. Recruitment andtraining policy should aim to create amore professional approach to careersin language services. Professionalsneed training in the use of interpretersand it is suggested that this is moreimportant than the now traditionalemphasis on second-language acquisi-tion or cultural sensitisation. Detterincentives are needed to attractwomen.

Abbreviationsand glossaryABS Australian Bureau of

Statistics

CMP

CommonwealthEmployment Service

Child Migrant (English as aSecond Language) Program

DEET Department ofEmployment, Educationand Training

DHHCS Department of Health,Housing and CommunityServices

DIEA Department of Immigrationand Ethnic Affairs

DILGEA Department ofImmigration, LocalGovernment and EthnicAffairs (formerly DIEA)

DSS Department of SocialSecurity

EACs Ethnic Affairs Commissions

ECCs Ethnic Communities'Councils

ACTU Australian Council of TradeUnions EEO

AIMA Australian Institute ofMulticultural Affairs

AMEP Adult Migrant English(previously Education)Program

ANESBWA Association of Non-EnglishSpeaking BackgroundWomen of Australia

ATSIC Aboriginal andTorres Strait IslanderCommission

AUSIT Australian Institute forInterpreters andTranslators

Equal EmploymentOpportunity

EMC Ecumenical MigrationCentre

ESL English as a SecondLanguage

FECCA Federation of EthnicCommunities' Councils ofAustralia

LSTF Language Services TaskForce

MRC Migrant Resource Centre

NAATI National AccreditationAuthority for Translatorsand Interpreters

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Women and Language Seruices

NES Non-English-speaking

NESB Non-English-speakingBackground

NLLIA National Languages andLiteracy Institute ofAustralia (a publiccompany established todevelop the study oflanguages, literacy andlanguage services. Formerlythe National LanguagesInstitute of Australia.)

NPL National Policy onLanguages

NOOSR National Office of OverseasSkills Recognition (anagency established toimprove and supervise therecognition of qualificationsgained outside Australia. Itreplaces the Council onOverseas ProfessionalQualifications)

NT1S Northern TerritoryInterpreting andTranslation Service

NWHP National Wornen's HealthPolicy produced by theDepartment of CommunityServices and Health in1989.

OMA Office of MulticulturalAffairs

OSW Office of the Status ofWomen

OWA Office of Women's Affairs

ROMAMPASReview of Migrant andMulticultural Programs andServices

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TAFE

TIS

UNSW

VEAC

Technical and FurtherEducation

Translating andInterpreting Service(formerly TelephoneInterpreter Service)

University of New SouthWales

Victorian Ethnic AffairsCommission

Agency user paysthe practice of chargingfees for services arrangedby an agency withoutpassing those fees on to thefinal client

Bilingual workerspersons employed becauseof ability to communicatein one or more languagesother than English

Cost recoverybalancing the cost ofdelivery of a service bycharges to the user

English proficiencyself-assessed in theAustralian Census forthose using anotherlanguage as speakingEnglish: Very Well; Well:Not Well; Not at All

Interpretera person qualified andaccredited as competent tointerpret between two ormore parties speakingdifferent languages

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Language aidespersons employed to assistwith groups unable tospeak English (for example,in schools)

National Language Policya Commonwealth policydeveloped to improveAustralian understandingand knowledge oflanguages

NESB Women's Health Strategyproduced by theCommonwealth-StateCouncil on Non-English-Speaking BackgroundWomen's Issues in 1991

Professionalspeople qualified andengaged in occupationsrequiring post-secondarylevel study

Translatora person qualified andaccredited to translatewritten material from onelanguage into another

User paysthe practice of chargingfees to the user of a service(See 'Agency user pays')

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Summary ofrecommendations

Basic requirements forlanguage services

With the objectives of ensuring aminimal level of language serviceprovision to NESB women and ofdeveloping a range of flexible andaccessible language services which willcater effectively to the areas of mostimportance to NESB women:

1. Council recommends that interpret-ing policy should reflect the particularneeds of NESB women, given that theyare recognised as the main users ofinterpreting services (p. 29);

2. Council recommends that womenwho are clients of government servicesshould be offered the choice of a fe-male interpreter (p. 43);'

3. Council recommends that in anyrestructuring of language services,community consultative committeesand processes should primarily ad-dress women's needs, preferablythrough ensuring that at least half themembers of any such committee arewomen (p. 90); 2

4, Council considers that the provisionof all languages Australia-wide throughTIS 24 hours a day on 008 numbers isa bare minimum standard of service tobe achieved and that the principle thatno charge to individual callers from the

public should be made for TIS otherthan a local charge should be main-tained (p. 64);

5. Council recommends that no inter-preting or translating service should bewithheld or differentially charged foron the basis that the client has beenresident in Australia for any particularperiod of time, provided the call is notof a commercial nature (p. 86);

6. Council recommends that, wherethe Government arranges for transla-tion of information of general or spe-cific interest to women, it should beheld responsible for ensuring that boththe English language and other lan-guage versions have a clear meaningand are readily understandable by thetarget group. All written materialsshould, wherever possible, be tested onclients of average literacy to ensurethat the level of language used isappropriate (p. 44);

7. Council recommends that the Attor-neys-General should amend currentlegislation to include the services of acompetent, preferably female andaccredited, interpreter for women incases of domestic violence, sexualassault and family breakdown in allAustralian court systems as a matterof urgency (p. 45);

8. Council recommends that all provid-ers of interpreting and translatingservices should keep statistical recordsof the gender and language or birth-place of clients and interpreter staff,while respecting the Privacy Act (p. 39);

'OMA does not believe that it will be possible to implement this recommendation to an absolutedegree, but supports the underlying principle and its fulfilment as far as possible.2 As above.

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9. Council recommends that the guide-lines of funding programs which caterfor women's services should requirethat agencies submitting for fundingdevelop a stratev for delivering lan-guage services. The cost of languageservices should be built into all pro-gram budgets and include the cost ofinterpreting and of keeping statisticalrecords, based on gender and lan-guage, of their client group as anintegral component of program costs(p. 86);

10. Council recommends that D1LGEAand other State agencies which levycharges should evaluate whethercharging agencies for interpreting andtranslating services reduces or distortsdemand (p. 74).

Pro;essional standing andtraining for interpretersand translators

With the objective of raising the level ofproficiency of interpreters and transla-tors and the availability of courses inminor languages:

11. Council recommends that alltertiary institutions and funding bodiesresponsible for language servicesshould be aware of the gender imbal-ance in the numbers of NAATI-regis-tered interpreters and consequentlyadopt recruitment and training strate-gies to train sufficient numbers ofwomen interpreters (p. 55);

12. Council recommends that DEETshould take the initiative in providingspecific funds to the tertiary and TAFEsystem to support courses in minorlanguages and redress gender imbal-ance in course enrolments (p. 75);

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13. Council recommends that TAFEshould offer training programs toupgrade the skills of bilingual workers(p. 76);

14. Council recommends that part ofthe training of interpreters and trans-lators should address the issue ofbalancing community or family obliga-tions and the need to ensure neutralityand confidentiality (p. 43);

15. Council recommends that alltranslators, interpreters and ethnicservice deliverers receive training incross-cultural awareness as a basicrequirement (p. 45);

16. Council recommends that everyinterpreting course should include asegment dealing with sensitive areassuch as birth control counselling,domestic violence and family law,covering relevant issues andterminology (p. 48);

17. Council recommends that thereshould be women-only classes ininterpreting and translating for womenfluent in Arabic, Turkish and Vietnam-ese, to redress the deficit of womeninterpreters and translators in theselanguages (p. 55);

18. Council recommends that Minis-ters for Ethnic Affairs agree to a na-tional uniform code of ethics for inter-preters and translators (p. 60);

19. Council considers that all inter-preters and translators should beregistered members of a nationalprofessional body which subscribes tothe national code of ethics (p. 60);

20. Council considers that somemechanism of complaint should beestablished such that interpreters andtranslators who are consistently in

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breach of the national code of ethicscan be deprived of their contracts afterdue process (p. 79):

21. Council recommends that thereshould be greater recognition in ethicalcodes that some areas are particularlysensitive for women and that relation-ships between a male interpreter andfemale client will vary from one cultureto another (p. 79);

22. Council recommends that scholar-ships be made available for women totrain as interpreters and translators,particularly in languages where thereis a shortage of female interpreterssuch as Arabic, Turkish and Vietnam-ese (p. 81);

23. Council recommends that fundingsystems for language teaching shouldnot discourage or restrict professionallanguage service training in languageswidely used in Australia in favour oflanguages used in international com-merce (p. 82);

24. Council recommends that NAATIreport in its Annual Report on thenumbers of interpreters and transla-tors accredited at each level, theirgender and language groups, and onspecialist accreditation in areas ofcentral concern such as law andhealth (p. 53);

25. Council considers that Governmentshould support the concept of perma-nent employment for interpreters andtranslators incorporating well-devel-oped career structures and equalemployment opportunities (p. 82);

26. Council considers that Governmentshould consult with the relevant pro-fessional body to develop a national

uniform award for interpreters andtranslators taking into account levelsof proficiency, expertise and trainingand the need to work outside normalhours (p. 71);

27. Council recommends that theDepartments of Health, Housing andCommunity Services and Attorney-General's produce and distributeglossaries of special health and legalterminology in a variety of languagesfor use by interpreters and translators,in consultation with the Office ofMulticultural Affairs (OMA) (p. 48).

Special needs for specialgroups

With the objective of promoting therecognition that certain groups havespecial needs in relation to languageservices:

28. Council recommends that Stateand Territory Education Authoritiesshould ensure that parents are advisedof the availability of interpreting andother support services for parent-teacher consultations through theschool system (p. 45).

29. Council recommends that theprovision of special training to womeninterpreters to work with torture andtrauma centres and women's refugesshould be a high priority for all Gov-ernments (p. 37);

30. Council recommends that familiar-ity with TIS should be built into remotearea services provided by Governmentsand the rate of remote area usageshould be monitored centrally on aregional and gender basis by TIS(p. 52);

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31. Council recommends that allservices for the elderly, whether resi-dential or home-based, should developlanguage service strategies (p. 48).

Specialist interpretingservices

With the objective of promoting in-creased use of specialist interpreters:

32. Council considers that Govern-ments should support the recruitmentand training of specialist health andlegal interpreters and translators in allStates and Territories. Key areas arereproductive issues, care of childrenand the elderly, and family law (p. 46);

33. Council supports the recommenda-tions of the National NESB Women'sHealth Strategy relating to the provi-sion of specialist health care inter-preter services for women, and thepublicising of such services (p. 27);

34. Council considers that both initialtraining courses and refresher coursesfor professionals providing services toNESB clients should include compul-sory units in how to work with inter-preters and translators (p. 62);

35. Council recommends that allhealth professionals should be trainedto recognise that NESB women havethe right to expect an interpreter andto be advised of the availability of thisservice (p. 47);

36. Council considers that the Acts inVictoria and Tasmania requiring policeto use interpreters, especially in casesinvolving domestic violence, set anexample which should be adopted inall States and Territories (p. 62);

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37. Council considers that the use ofhealth interpreter services should beeligible for the Medicare rebate, aspreviously recommended in the Wom-en's Health Strategy (p. 45);

38. Council recommends that all tradeunions should be encouraged, inconsultation with the ACTU, to includethe provision of interpreting and trans-lating services within awards whereappropriate and to use such servicesthemselves in communication withtheir members (p. 37).

Monitoring andevaluation

With the objective of encouragingproper monitoring and evaluation oflanguage services:

39. Council recommends that Govern-ment departments should develop andreport on a language services strategywithin their mainstream reportingmechanisms through their AnnualReports and the Wornen's BudgetStatement (p. 84);

40. Council considers that the Austral-ian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) deci-sions about which language groups toinclude in its census data collectionshould be made as late as possible inthe process so that information col-lected is an accurate reflection of thecurrent status of use of languagegroups within the community (p. 83);

41. Council recognises that the needfor language services is not necessarilyhomogeneous throughout the NESBcommunity and considers that there isan urgent requirement for research todifferentiate needs within differentcategories (p. 34);

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42. Council recommends that the useof translated leaflets to communicateinformation on Government services,rights and responsibilities should beevaluated, including the range oflanguages used (p. 70);

43. Council recommends that agenciesproviding extensive interpreting andtranslating services should use com-munity-based radio programs to in-form the public about the availabilityof these services, and should considermaking a small payment to programorganisers for doing so (p. 70);

44. Council recommends that furtherresearch should be carried out focus-ing on current community attitudestowards women in ethnic communities,and the interpreting and translatingneeds of these women (p. 94);

45. Council recommends that by theyear 2000 qualified translators andinterpreters should be registered, andonly the services of these professionalsshould be used (p. 92);

46. Council recommends that thesecond Commonwealth-State Councilon Non-English Speaking BackgroundWomen's Issues monitor and reviewthe actions and performance of alldepartments and agencies affected bythe above recommendations at the endof the first twelve months of its term ofappointment.

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Chapter 1The language needs of women ofnon-English-speaking background

IntroductionThe 1991 National Agenda for Women.Implementation Report describes a keyobjective as 'the promotion of an envi-ronment in which Non-English-Speak-ing Background (NESB) women canenjoy the same status in Australiansociety as other Australian women,including an equiiable share in com-munity resources and equal access toprograms and services' (0SW,1991b:75). While noting that 'proff-ciency in English can be a barrier ascan different cultural roles and expec-tations', the Report makes only apassing reference to interpreting andnone to translating. It promises for theTelephone Interpreter Service that 'in1991-92, appropriate numbers offemale interpreters will be employed toensure that female callers who needaccess to a female interpreter canobtain this service' (op.cit.:78). Thispromise reiterates one made by theDepartment of Immigration, LocalGovernment and Ethnic Affairs(DILGEA) in its contribution to theWomen's Budget Statement for1991-92 (0SW, 1991a: 239).

The DILGEA contribution to the Wom-en's Budget Statement also drawsattention to the heavy use of interpret-ing services by women. The basicassumption of the following analysis isthat women are at the core of providinginterpreting services and participateequally with men in the demand for

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translation. This argument is based onthe DILGEA contribution in which 'it isestimated that women account for overhalf of the approximately 300 000users of the Telephone InterpreterService and up to 50 per cent of alltranslations of personal documents.About 60 per cent of the service "pro-viders", Le staff and contract inter-preters and translators, are women'(p. 238). DILGEA goes on to refer tocontinuing negotiations with the Statesfor a national languages service organi-sation which 'should result in betteruse of existing resources and wouldalso benefit users, including NESBwomen, by extending services, fillingservice gaps and improving services inspecialised areas such as health andthe law'. The only other department tomake a significant reference to lan-guage services for women in theBudget Statement was the Departmentof Social Security (DSS) which submit-ted that 'through measures such asthe Multilingual Telephone InformationProgram and the Migrant LiaisonOfficer Program, the Department seeksto ensure that clients are not disad-vantaged in their access to socialsecurity information and entitlements'(p. 301).

So, it is official policy at the Common-wealth level to facilitate NESB women'saccess to services by providing inter-preting and translating. It is the per-ception of the major provider of suchlanguage services, DILGEA, that cli-ents and providers are more likely tobe female than male.


This report addresses the languageservice needs of women from a non-English-speaking background whohave migrated to Australia in recentdecades, or who are descended frommigrant families.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanderwomen, while sharing a non-English-speaking background with manymigrants, have quite separate anddistinct needs for language services.The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Is-lander Commission (ATSIC) addressesthese needs and the Commonwealth-State Council on Non-English-Speak-ing Background Women's Issuessupports the initiatives of ATSIC inthis regard.

Background

For over 150 years, Australian societywas offiéially conceived of as monolin-gual in English. All laws and regula-tions were promulgated in English andall parliamentary debate was con-ducted in English. This required thatall holders of elected or appointedoffice be fluent in English. Conse-quently, the education system (whichtrained people for public office, amongother functions) had the prime objec-tive of teaching literacy in English.Major exceptions were provided by theLutheran school systems of SouthAustralia. However, they were prohib-ited from teaching in German duringthe First World War and never effec-tively reverted to that language as aprincipal medium of instruction. Theconsequence of this public approach tolanguage was to eliminate half theAboriginal languages which had beenspoken in 1788 and cause the disap-pearance of mony other languages inquite wide use, such as Irish, German,

Chinese, Welsh and Melanesian Pidgin(which developed in Queenslandamong Pacific Islander labourers whohad no common tongue) (Clyne, 1991).

Eliminating languages other thanEnglish was seen as a necessary partof nation building, making the knowl-edge of the English-speaking worldaccessible to Australians but cuttingthem off from other intellectual orlinguistic resources. Educationalsystems followed British precedent inteaching French and Latin, althoughthere were few native speakers ofFrench in Australia. German learningwas seriously inhibited by the restric-tions already mentioned. The assump-tion was created that everyone wouldeventually use English and that allservices would be delivered by English-speakers to those who understoodthem. Some pragmatic concessionswere made, including the use of Chi-nese interpreters in Victorian courtsfollowing the gold rushes of the 1850s.The measure of assimilation intoAustralian life was seen as a masteryof English and an abandoning of anyother medium of communication.Because of these attitudes, the knowl-edge and use of other languages wasnot effectively measured in the Austral-ian Census until 1976, although aquestion on English proficiency wasasked in 1933 in response to theobservation that significant numbers ofSouthern Europeans had been settlingin Queensland over the previous 20years.

By 1976 the use of languages otherthan English was quite widespread,resulting from mass European immi-gration since 1947. The Censusshowed that 12.3% of those over fiveyears old claimed that they 'regularly

13


used a non-English language. Thiswas not the same question which wasasked in 1986 and 1991, which re-quired an indication of the language'used in the home'. In 1986, some2 158 518 (or 15.5% of those over fiveyears) provided an answer. Such ananswer assumed only one languagewas being used, which is not necessar-ily the case. It did not effectively ac-count for the possibility that manychildren used English outside thehome in preference to their parents'language. A further question wasasked on English proficiency: a ques-tion which had also been asked in1933. In no recent Australian Censushas there been a question on literacy,although such information was regu-larly provided for assisted immigrantsuntil late in the last century. It hasbeen assumed that 'all' Australians areliterate, although this does not meanliterate in English. As recent researchhas shown, this is not true.

Against this background of assump-tions of monolingual literacy, providinginformation to Australians has becomeincreasingly problematic. It is oftenasserted that citizens should be in-formed about their rights and duties,although in contrast to many othersocieties, there is no requirement thatvoters should be literate. In grantingAustralian citizenship, it has alwaysbeen assumed that candidates had aworking knowledge of English, al-though this has now been relaxed,especially for the elderly. It cannot bepresupposed that all those grantedcitizenship are fluent in English, evenif official naturalisation policy certainlyassumed that was the case until littlemore than ten years ago. The model ofa participatory democracy is flawed inpractice if citizens cannot access

1 4

information to which they are entitled.The model of a service delivery societyis also flawed if such access is inhib-ited by monolingual information deliv-ery. Consequently, the largest item insettlement expenditures for manyyears has been teaching English,mainly under the Adult Migrant Eng-lish (previously Education) Program(AMEP) and the Child Migrant (Englishas a Second Language) Program (CMP),which are administered by DILGEAand the Department of Employment,Education and Training (DEET) respec-tively.

Teaching English to immigrants (otherthan through the normal school sys-tems) began in Australia in 1947.Greater resources were allocated afterthe Galbally Report of 1978 whichstressed that many new settlers werestill unable to speak, read or write inEnglish. Galbally also recognised thatinformation would need to be deliveredin languages other than English, evenif English language teaching resourceswere greatly increased. As a conse-quence of the 1978 report, a full scaleinquiry into the information needs ofmigrants was prepared in 1980 (WDScott, 1980).

Prior to the 1980s, it would be fair tocharacterise language policy as prag-matic and expedient, with short-termperspectives. The first experience ofAustralian authorities had been withthe Displaced Persons intake of 1947to 1952. As few spoke languages whichhad any previous Australian presence,the linguafranca in the settlementcamps was German. This had alsobeen the language used for communi-cating with Jewish refugees arriving in1938 and 1939. Users of other lan-guages were gradually recruited as

21


interpreters and translators, eventuallycreating the system of bilingual infor-mation officers used by the Depart-ment of Immigration for new arrivals,especially those passing through thesettlement centres. Some of thesecentres remained open through the1980s for refugees.

Public policy was, however, reluctantto acknowledge that such bilingualcommunication was anything but atemporary expedient. Strong moralpressure was exerted on migrants tolearn English. Citizenship was deniedto them until they had done so. Settle-ment information was usually pre-sented in English and there wererestrictions on the amount of 'foreignlanguages' which could be used inprint or radio media. Private agencies,especially the banks and some com-mercial radio stations, were alreadyusing the major languages by the early1950s, in contrast to public agencieswho refused to do so as a matter ofpolicy. Print media in European lan-guages became effective at the sametime, but this was also commercial inits financial basis.

By 1976, some 1 432 832 Australianshad been born overseas in a non-English-speaking country. While manywere fluent in English, it is probablethat the majority were not, especiallyas recruitment policy in the previoustwo decades had aimed at bringing inindustrial workers from SouthernEurope. While some NESB ethnicgroups had a male majority (as hadnormally been the case before 1945),public policy aimed at gender balance.The object of migrant recruitment wasto increase the population as well as tocreate a larger workforce. It is normalin less developed societies for female

education to lag behind that for males.This tendency is well borne out infigures for English proficiency andschool leaving age for arrivals fromSouthern and Eastern Europe. Theeducation of many had been disruptedduring the war and this had probablyaffected women more than men, as thelatter often acquired some literacy inthe armed forces. By the 1976 Census,it was auepted that female migrantswere less likely to be proficient inEnglish and were less educated. It wasassumed that they were more likely tobe illiterate than men. A high propor-tion were employed in manufacturingjobs which did not require Englishproficiency as a condition of employ-ment, in contrast to the concentrationof Australian-born and English-speak-ing women in clerical positions.

Official attitudes towards Englishproficiency were counter-productive forthe first 30 years after the post-Warmigration programs began. LearningEnglish was seen as a moral obligationfor the migrant. Frequently, argumentswere put forward in public discussionwhich favoured banning non-Englishuse in public or making the learning ofEnglish compulsory before arrival.Gradually such attitudes were aban-doned. Political parties began usingmajor languages in electoral propa-ganda by the mid-1950s and one of themain functions of their 'New Austral-ian' ancillaries was the translation anddistribution of such material. Sometrade unions began to follow suit bythe mid-1960s. Most importantly, theprint and radio media continued toexpand on a commercial basis, withrestrictions on the use of other lan-guages being lifted by the late 1950s.Educational systems began developingEnglish as a Second Language (ESL)

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15


techniques. although few were commit-ted to *community' languages until themid-1970s. This slow and reluctantmovement towards multilingual com-munication must be underlined. It wasnot simply a lack of resources whichinhibited non-English information,although that was true in the 1940sand 1950s. There was a deliberate andconscious belief that migrants shouldand must acquire English proficiencyand that the responsibility to do sowas largely with them despite thelimited provision of English languagecourses and tutors (many of whomwere monolingual under the 'directmethod' of teaching favoured by theprofession).

By 1976. these attitudes were chang-ing, especially in South Australia andVictoria. The official endorsement ofmulticulturalism by Labor and Liberalgovernments reduced the widespreadhostility toward other languages whichhad characterised Australians in thepast. The political parties acceptedthat many Australian citizens stillpreferred to communicate in theirmother tongues. Official media policyrecognised the desirability of non-English programs on radio and (after1980) on television. While these wereusually justified in terms of communi-cating official information useful forsettlers, it was also increasingly ac-knowledged that other cultures hadvalidity and were best expressed in'ther languages. The major shift inattitudes took place between 1973 and1980, although it was slower in thoseStates which had few NESB immi-grants, such as Tasmania or Queens-land. At the same time, there was ashift in the sources of immigrants fromEurope toward Asia. This recreatedsome but not all of the problems of the

16

1940s and 1950s in bringing intoAustralia large numbers of languagesnot already established by previousimmigrants. As previously with Euro-peans, many recent immigrants camefrom societies where education formales was given more priority than forfemales. Most refugees suffered fromsimilar educational disruption to manyof their Displaced Person Europeanpredecessors, although the educationallevel of non-refugee Asians was oftenhigher than that of their SouthernEuropean antecedents.

Early official reports onlanguage needs

Two major problems inhibited thedevelopment of interpreting and trans-lating programs for women. One wasthe ingrained attitudes outlined abovewhich put the prime responsibility forcommunicating upon the immigrant,who was expected to learn Englishusing the limited facilities availablethrough ANIEP and ESL services. Theother was a reluctance to acknowledgethat women might have differing needsfrom men. Thus to advocate languageservices specifically for women was togo against entrenched beliefs andpractices. The first major survey ofinterpreting and translating needs bythe Department of Immigration in1971-2, did not seek responses frommigrants but from service deliverersand did not seek or record any infor-mation that might have distinguishedbetween men and women (except foritems relating to baby health centresand school health programs) (Depart-ment of Immigration, Survey Section,1973).

This important early survey treated

23


immigrants without regard to gender,making distinctions on the basis oflanguage requirements only. It is,despite this, a professional and valu-able survey which is worth summaris-ing, if only because many of the prob-lems uncovered are still prominentnow, nearly 20 years later. The surveyfound 'that deficiencies in existingprovisions in the community at largeare fairly widespread and that specialaction to alleviate the position is re-quired' (p. 1). At this stage, the Depart-ment of Immigration had by far thegreatest responsibility for translatingand interpreting. It was employingbilingual social workers and had justbegun to operate the Telephone Inter-preter Service (TIS), which was con-fined to Sydney and Melbourne. It wasresponsible, with education authori-ties, for teaching English but monopo-lised such teaching for adult migrantsunder the Immigration Wthication.) Act1971.

The report noted that 'the welfare ofsome immigrants was being adverselyand materially affected as a result ofcommunication problems' (p. 4). Of the2183 respondents, 73.5% reportedhaving regular contact with non-English speakers, a product of themethodology which only questionedthose believed to operate in areas ofmigrant concentration. Contact rangedfrom 100% in educational guidance to52.8% in school-parent contact.Health, another area of concern forwomen, showed a level of 80.3% con-tact with NES clients. It must beremembered that at this stage virtuallyall NES migrants were from Europe. Ofclients not speaking English, 16.3%could not be attended to because oflack of English and there was difficultyin securing interpreters in 69.7% ofsuch cases.

Health providers were unable to dealwith patients because of the lack ofinterpreters in 8.8% of cases for gen-eral practitioners, 13.7% for publichospitals, 14.3% for baby healthcentres, 17.9% for medical and hospi-tal benefits and 18% for psychiatriccentres. Areas of most relevance towomen in which providers felt thataccurate communication was essentialincluded gynaecology and obstetrics,psychiatric states, pre-natal care, babyfeeding, nutrition and mothercraft andparental consent to examination ofchildren. School counselling wasinhibited by the lack of communicationin general, especially in such areas asinterviewing over behavioural prob-lems, progress at school and transfers.At this stage, the area of family lawhad yet to be expanded and was notgiven by respondents as an area ofimportance in legal proceedings.

The States in which the greatest prob-lems were met were Victoria, WesternAustralia and New South Wales, wheremore than 60% reported difficulty indealing with clients from non-Englishlanguage groups. The languages pre-senting most difficulty overall wereYugoslav', Turkish, Greek, Italian,Spanish, Finnish and 'Lebanese'. Inthe Northern Territory, Chinese wassignificant. With the exception ofFinnish, it is probable that the samelanguages would still be nominated asrequiring interpreting today, althoughother languages such as Vietnamesewould now be added to the list and thevarious Chinese languages would bemuch more central. Of continuingrelevance was the finding that 'personsundertaking interpreting were oftentemperamentally and in other waysunsuited to the nature of the rolerequired by the respondent, and it was

2 41 7


often stated that in addition to linguis-tic competence, competence in thesubject matter of the area was alsoirlporlant' (p. 25). At this stage therewas no National Accreditation Author-ity for Translators and Interpreters(NAATI) to seek uniform standards andethical codes. NAATI was not estab-lished until 1977.

By 1971-2, the Department of Immi-gration was maintaining a translationunit. This was set up in 1959 and wasextended in 1963 to undertake trans-lating for all Commonwealth govern-ment departments. The service wasprovided free to immigrants for trans-lating documents directly related tosettlement. Charges were normallymade for other purposes. The 1971-72survey found that 26.2% of respond-ents sometimes needed documentstranslated, ranging from 41.5% infinance and insurance, down to 14.3%in transport. Difficulty in securingsuch translations was recorded by77.2%, ranging from WO% in localgovernment and transport, down to54.8% in employment. The only nomi-nated documents of special interest towomen included instructions andadvice to mothers (baby health cen-tres), pamphlets for parents (schoolhealth services) and marriage certifi-cates (legal officers). The greatestdifficulty in securing translations werein 'Yugoslav'. Turkish and Greek andthe greatest number of problems wasrecorded in Victoria.

The bulk of the Report consists ofdetailed analysis by delivery functionand the word 'women' does not seem tooccur anywhere (neither does the word'men'). Looking only at those areaswhere women might be assumed tohave a particular interest, the oft-

18

25

repeated story of unskilled hospitalstaff being used for medical interpret-ing is fully endorsed. Only 13 out of 85medical practitioners used paid inter-preters. Of the 'casual helpers' used,there was a variety of backgroundsincluding 'office workers, semi-skilledand unskilled workers, shop-keepersand business people, professionalpersons, and housewives' (p. 49).About three-quarters of public hospi-tals provided interpreters but theycould neither do so regularly nor covera wide range of languages. They there-fore called for assistance from 'clerical,typing, reception or other administra-tive staff or domestic or other serviceor semi-skilled workers' (p. 51).Therewere particularly acute problems indealing with psychiatric cases. Babyhealth centres regularly had difficultyin servicing clients and in translatingdocuments, which were normallyreferred to an outside agency or torelatives or friends of clients.

The 1971-2 report is of interest as itdetails the situation after a major waveof NES immigration comparable to(although larger than) that from Asiaafter 1975. Obviously, public agencieshad not been prepared in advance norwere the English teaching servicesmaking rnuch impact on SouthernEuropean or Middle Eastern immi-grants. The report is of historic interestin that it makes no reference to genderissues, nor to subsequent problemsassociated with family law or domesticviolence which had not reached thepolitical or legislative agenda. Theproblems it raises were consistentlyaddressed over the next decade andwere given added significance by theGalbally Report of 1978. Importantsubsequent developments include:


the nationalisation of TIS;the development of grants-in-aid andmigrant resource centres (MRCs);the creation of NAATI;the spread of ethnic broadcasting;the entry of State governments intothe area of multilingual information;the development of specialist healthand legal interpreting; andthe recognition of women as a 'targetgroup' in the delivery of services toimmigrants.

If parts of the 1971-2 report still soundfamiliar it is a measure of the prioritiesin resource allocation of successivegovernments, which have normallyallocated up to ten times as much toEnglish-teaching as to language serv-ices for immigrants.

The most influential report on settle-ment needs was undoubtedly thatpresented by its chairman FrankGalbally to Prime Minister MalcolmFraser in April 1978 (Galbally, 1978).This was wide ranging and it set priori-ties for the next ten years. Many of itsprovisions, such as grants-in-aid,ethnic-specific workers and MigrantResource Centres are still in place.Printed in ten languages, it was amongthe first Commonwealth publicationsto depart from the monolingual use ofEnglish. Unlike most previous reportsit recognised 'women' as a 'specialgroup' (section 8, p. 97) and referred tothem in 16 paragraphs. It posited aconflict between home and work,especially for women 'brought up toaccept a traditional view of their placein society'. It acknowledged the impor-tance of health issues 'particularlywith childbirth and family planningwhere traditional attitudes are strong'and made special mention of thepsychological impact of isolation and

lack of English. It argued that 'pro-grams and services must be designedand put into effect in a manner whichrecognises the particular disadvan-tages of migrant women and meetstheir special needs for information.communication and access to services'.

Among Galbally's recommendations ofrelevance to language services forwomen were:

Recommendation 12. All Common-wealth departments and authoritiesshould identify positions where asignificant proportion of the workingtime could be spent dealing withclients who speak a language otherthan English; and these positionsshould be staffed by officers profi-cient in the designated communitylanguage who would receive a lan-guage allowance.

Recommendation 13. As a trial, aspecial intensive English course(maximum six months) should beintroduced for people who havequalified overseas in professionaland sub-professional occupationswhich have substantial public con-tact, but whose limited command ofEnglish is an obstacle to the recogni-tion of their qualifications and theiremployment in this country in theoccupations for which they arequalified. Course members shouldreceive an appropriate living allow-ance equivalent to the unemploy-ment benefit.

Recommendation 14. Professionals.including those studying and thosecurrently in practices in areas withlarge migrant clienteles, shouldreceive assistance in obtaining, orupgrading, language skills andunderstanding cultural differences.

rt0

19

Women and thnguage Services

Recommendation 15. The TelephoneInterpreter Service should be ex-tended to Hobart and Canberraduring 1978-79, Newcastle, Whyallaand Geelong during 1979-80, andDarwin and Latrobe Valley during1980-81.

Recommendation 16. The TelephoneInterpreter Service and the transla-tion unit should be combined intoone unit within the Department ofImmigration and Ethnic Affairs andthe translation function of the trans-lation units in New South Wales andVictoria be extended to those otherareas where TIS operates.

Recommendation 17. The Common-wealth should introduce a newprogram to share equally with theStates the cost of providing addi-tional State-operated translation andinterpreter services to meet theirneeds in areas of prime State re-sponsibility and an extra $1.5mshould be allocated for this purposeover the next three years. In the firstyear the Commonwealth shouldprovide 100 per cent of the fundsand thereafter funding should beequally shared with the States.

Recommendation 18. The Depart-ment of Immigration and EthnicAffairs should commission an exten-sive survey of the information mostneeded by migrants, the forms inwhich it is most accessible to them,what use they make of the mediaand their attitudes towards differentmethods of receiving information.The DIEA should also be responsiblefor ensuring that all Commonwealthagencies through their ethnic liaisonofficers are aware of and where

20

appropriate make use of the resultsof the infcrmation survey.

Recommendation 21. Unions andsmall employers and others respon-sible for the well-being of workersshould be permitted to apply to theDepartments of Employment andIndustrial Relations and Productivityfor approval of essential material onsafety etc. to be translated andprinted using government facilitiesat nominal cost to the applicant.

Recommendation 22. The Common-wealth Department of Health shouldbe responsible for: (a) the develop-ment of information on all aspects ofhealth care, including preventivecare, in the main community lan-guages and its distribution to allorganisations which play a part inspreading information, (b) the devel-opment, with the producers of ethnicradio programs, of short informationsegments on health care to bebroadcast on ethnic radio in com-munity languages.

Recommendation 39. Additionalfunds of $0.7m should be providedunder the Commonwealth's commu-nity health program to employethnic health workers over the nextthree years on a range of specialservices for migrants. In the firstyear the Commonwealth shouldcontribute 100 per cent of the fundsand thereafter funding should beunder the usual cost-sharing ar-rangements with the States.

Recommendation 40. The currentchild-care policy should be reviewedand the Government should givepriority to funding child-care

27


facilities at places of work, jointlymanaged by the employers and theemployees or unions. The employershould meet part or all of the capitalcost with the Commonwealth provid-ing assistance for equipment andrecurrent costs.

Recommendation 41. The commu-nity development officers proposed,in conjunction with the Office ofChild Care, should advise on theneed for and assist in the develop-ment of appropriate child-careservices in areas where there arelarge numbers of working mothers.

Recommendation 42. An extra$0.4m should be provided throughthe Office of Child Care to enable theethnic communities to employ up to25 ethnic children's services workersover the next three years. In the firstyear the Commonwealth shouldprovide 100 per cent of the fundsand thereafter funding should beunder the usual cost-sharing ar-rangements with the States.

Recommendation 43. The implemen-tation of the general recommenda-tions of the Report, which have beenframed in recognition of the specialproblems of migrant women, shouldtake particular account of theirneeds.

It is worth noting that only in Recom-mendation 43 was there specific men-tion of gender issues. This recommen-dation was adopted by Galbally afterpressure from the Office of Women'sAffairs and after an OWA representa-tive was placed on the Galbally Imple-mentation Task Force to ensure that itwas implemented (Sawer, 1990). How-

ever, there was continuing doubt aboutits effectiveness in influencing Com-monwealth Departments. In particularsome departments did not collect dataon immigrant women and could not,therefore, monitor the impact of theirpolicies.

The Galbally Report was followed by aseries of implementation and evalua-tion exercises. In 1979, the Ga (bayInformation Kit (DIEA, 1979a) reportedon the implementation of Recommen-dation 43 that:

'recommendations of particularimportance to migrant women havebeen identified as those concerningchildcare. the home tutor scheme,the initial settlement program, theon-going migrant education pro-gram, the functions of the migrantresource centres, grants-in-aid andproject funding ...

... particular attention has been paidto the language and learning needsof women in orientation material ...

... The further development of ethnicmedia as a channel of informationfor migrants is expected to be one ofthe priority areas in the EthnicLiaison Officers' Scheme during thecoming year. Electronic media havebeen shown to be one of the bettermeans of information disseminationt o migrant women and the aim willbe to find ways of maximising effec-tive use of such media.'

At this stage, then, there seems tohave been little official recognition ofthe possibility that women might havediffering information needs from men,except for an assumption that women

2821


were more 'traditional' and 'isolated',an observation based on experiencewith Southern European immigrants ofthe preceding two decades.

The last decade

Since adopting the Galbally Reportthere has been a heightened con-sciousness of the communicationproblems of immigrants and of thespecial needs of women. This reflectsthe increasing variety of immigrantintake caused by the ending of theWhite Australia Policy and the strengthof the women's movement. The firstmajor survey of information needs (WDScott, 1980) claimed to have surveyeda representative and balanced sampleof 2200 from nine ethnic backgrounds.It took gender into account as one ofeight variables and used a question-naire translated into 12 languagesadministered by bilingual interviewers.The report found that neither gendernor ethnicity was identified as havingany significant effect on need type orintensity, once allowance had beenmade for the effect of an individual'seducation level or English ability. Norwere gender or ethnicity relevant to thechoice of information channel. Thecentral relevant finding was that 'therewere only minor differences betweenmen and women in their overall needsfrequency. The difference was notstatistically significant (4.2.6). Themost important information needswere in health and employment. Groupdiscussions suggested that women'sneeds leant towards 'the family andhome environment, men's towardsoutside work'.

The WD Scott survey gave little sup-port to the notion that women might

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29

have specific communication andinformation needs. It did, however.argue that government agencies 'sufferfrom language and communicationbarriers, that non-government profes-sionals on a face-to-face basis wereimportant, and that close friends andrelatives were important but not effec-tive as a sole source' mainly becausethey are often poorly informed. Themigrant's own language was rarelyused except with close friends andrelatives (5.3.21). Ethnic radio was themost widely used source of informationby non-English-speakers, other thanpersonal contacts. Some major differ-ences emerged in the use of main-stream community facilities (such asclubs, hotels or sports grounds) where`women with poor English were far lesslikely to use Australian facilities thantheir male counterparts' and 'visitingpatterns for schools were higher forwomen than for men'. Literacy levels inown-language varied most markedlyfor Lebanese, while English literacylevels varied most for Lebanese, Turksand Italians. The serious effects ofthese differences are much moredisabling for women in the less estab-lished groups such as the Lebaneseand Turks', the report concluded(8.2.17). However, it did not mentionthat this was not the case for theVietnamese, who had also recentlyarrived.

Overall, the WD Scott report wasinfluential in setting guidelines forfuture translating, interpreting andinformation policy. It concluded thatthe quality of official translated mate-rial was poor, in terms of accuracy,comprehensibility, crude verbatimtranslation and lack of consumerreview. Translations were seen ascrucial for hospital signs, medical


prescriptions and basic governmentforms. The availability of interpreterswas inadequate, especially in courtsand hospitals. Bilingual staff were animportant resource. Some areas ofdifficulty which were highlightedincluded: the need for more specialisedinterpreters and bilinguals in govern-ment departments; better remuneratedand recognised interpreting skills; lackof co-ordination and fragmentation ofmultilingual resources; and the need tobase information on client's own lan-guage to assist in community develop-ment (3.2.162).

The report concludes with a section on'differences between men and women',indicating an awareness of the debateabout inferior language and educa-tional capacity among mainly SouthernEuropean and Middle Eastern re-spondents. A 'slight' preference forhealth information distinguishedwomen from men, while child careproblems were raised in group discus-sions. Family demands might haveimpeded the learning of English. Therewas, however, a recognition that edu-cational levels varied greatly amongsome ethnic groups the proportionof Lebanese women with no educationwas 22% as against only 3% for men.Greek and Vietnamese women, incontrast, had a slightly higher level ofliteracy than men from the sameethnic group. But 'for all groups, theeducation levels achieved by womenwere much lower than by men, par-ticularly at tertiary levels' (8.2.14).

The report's failure to find statisticallysignificant differences between menand women once other variables areaccounted for is a common conse-quence of regression analysis whichseeks to discount the impact of vari-

ables. Fortunately the report concludeson a reasonable note by indicatingthat, while men and women may bethe same (other things being equal)certain matters (especially educationallevel) were not equal. 'While we saythere was no intrinsic difference be-tween the sexes brought out in thesurvey, women were found generally tohave reached lower education levelsthan men, and to be less able to speakEnglish well. These two factors, Eng-lish ability and education level, werefound to have an overriding effect onany individual's level of need andability to use sources, and women tendto be more disadvantaged than men inthis regard' (3.2.193). In other words,women from the groups chosen (Argen-tinians. Chileans, Greeks, Dutch,Italians, Lebanese, Maltese, Turks,Vietnamese and Yugoslays) did havemuch greater need of interpreters andtranslators than men (in 1981), even ifthe survey design could not establishthat they had different informationneeds in general. Later researchsuggests that women do have differentneeds in the health area especially butthe 1981 survey did not establish this.While undoubtedly of great value inpointing to weaknesses in providinginformation, the report might also haveinhibited further research and provi-sion specifically to women.

In 1982, there was a major evaluationof the Galbally proposals (AIMA, 1982)which produced a further 89 recom-mendations to add to Galbally's origi-nal 57. Few of these relate either towomen or to interpreting and translat-ing. Six of the full report's 326 pagesare specifically devoted to women, whoappear within a broader chapter titled'Special Needs', along with the aged,children and the handicapped. The

0.7 3


same chapter includes a section onHealth which makes passing refer-ences to issues of importance towomen, such as multilingual pam-phlets on pregnancy or family plan-ning, but does not address women'shealth in general. It is noted thatimplementation of Galbally Recom-mendation 43 had been delegated tothe Office of Women's Affairs and anew Co-ordinator of Migrant Women'sAffairs within DIEA. It was argued that'general progress in respect to Recom-mendation 43 was reported as satisfac-tory' although many governmentdepartments had been reluctant toreport on progress (a problem generalto Galbally implementation).

However, it was noted that 'progresshas been uneven and limited' and therecommendation had not been seri-ously addressed by the interdepart-mental Galbally Implementation TaskForce despite several conferenceshaving been held on the matter. Onesuch conference, on migrant women'slanguage needs in May 1979, gave riseto the report Language for Living(DIEA, 1979). Special acknowledge-ment was made of how importanthealth issues for women were, notingthat the Department of Healtti hadproduced a number of leaflets incommunity languages. It was alsoacknowledged that community consul-tations for the evaluation had identi-fied family conflict and migrant womenin industry as increasingly urgentissues.

The Australian Institute ofMulticultural Affairs (AIMA) evaluationand AIMA itself were severely criticisedby Liz Fell in a paper prepared for thereview of AIMA in 1983 (Fell, 1983).

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Her criticism centres on the claims:

that AIMA had not developed aconceptual approach which distin-guished gender issues;

that it did not conduct work specificto women even when requested to doso by the Department of Immigra-tion:

that it had not effectively evaluatedthe implementation of Recommenda-tion 43; and

that it had suppressed research onthe inadequacy of child care forimmigrant mothers.

She concluded that 'AIMA's tokengestures towards migrant women showa lack of critical concern. There aremany signs thzit migrant women arereceiving a second-class service. If theAIMA recommendations remain inplace they are likely to maintain, if notactually perpetuate, existing structuresof disadvantage'. The critique was notconcerned with the provision of trans-lating and interpreting services butwith more basic issues such as theconcentration of migrant women inmanufacturing, the lack of child careand the treatment of women as aspecial minority rather than as consti-tuting half the immigrant population.

The last major review of settlementpolicy in the decade was the Review ofMigrant and Multicultural Programsand Services (ROMAMPAS) (Jupp,1986). This followed in the tradition ofgiving no special treatment to womenbut did have a greater emphasis onlanguage services than had so far beenthe case. Women were still linked with


the aged, youth and refugees as poten-tially disadvantaged (3.41 3.47). Theconcentration of women in manufac-turing industry was noted and it wasclaimed that 'more women than menfrom Southern European countrieshave left school earlier and have noqualifications'. Of 32 recommenda-tions, none deals specifically withwomen. However, Recommendation 13was that 'all Federal Governmentagencies administering human servicesprograms should develop languageservices policies as an element of theiraccess and equity planning, with coststo be absorbed within program andadministrative appropriations'. TheDepartment of Social Security (DSS),and later the Department of Health,Housing and Community Services(DHHCS), have moved in this direction.

Chapter eleven of the ROMAMPASreport 'Don't Settle for Less' (Jupp,1986) was devoted to language serv-ices. It points out that, despite ex-panded services since the early 1970s,language services 'are still generallyperceived as a "special" provision, an"add-on", and not as an integral part ofthe basic service'. A distinction wasmade between language services as a'welfare' issue and as an 'equity' issue.It was stressed that full participationin legal proceedings might requireinterpreters and that 'without theprovision of comprehensive and profes-sional language services, all othermeasures to encourage access andequity ... are rendered doubtful' (11.7).Most of this section of the report wastaken up with administrative andfunding suggestions for improving andco-ordinating language services, anapproach which has become moreimportant since with the proliferationof various provisions. Victoria had

a translating service and a similarapproach was being explored by West-ern Australia. Health interpreter sys-tems were also being developed, espe-cially in New South Wales. The com-mittee considered that 'the proposal tofund on-site interpreters for the privatehealth sector but also for elements ofthe private legal and welfare sectorswarrants investigation under the Cost-Sharing Program' (11.49). As in previ-ous reports there was no acknowledge-ment that women might have specificinterpreting or translating needs.

Despite some acceptance that womenconstituted a distinct sub-category ofimmigrants, there was limited concen-tration on women's issues until themid 1980s. The concept of 'doubledisadvantage' (gender plus NESB)began to take hold. This largely re-flected pressures upon governmentrather than abstract bureaucraticpolicy development. These pressuresincluded initiatives under the Interna-tional Women's Year (1975) and theinternational conference at Nairobi adecade later. The Federation of EthnicCommunities' Councils of Australia(FECCA) became more actively inter-ested in women's issues by 1984 andreceived a grant from the Office ofStatus of Women (0SW) in 1986 toappoint a women's officer. The mainresult of her work was the creation ofthe Association of Non-English Speak-ing Background Women of Australia(ANESBWA) at the end of 1986. FECCAalso developed a women's policy and awomen's network. As a result of thesedevelopments the ANESBWA wascommissioned by the Office ofMulticultural Affairs (OSW) to producea paper on migrant women's issues in

3 225

Women und Language Services

1989 as part of the development of theNational Agenda for a MulticulturalAustralia (Eliadis et al., 1988).

It is worth analysing the FECCA andANESBWA policy statements to under-stand how unofficial pressure groupsarising from the ethnic women's con-stituency saw language services is-sues. FECCA's policy on women in1988 stressed double disadvantage onthe grounds of gender and ethnicity.'For significant numbers their inad-equate knowledge of the English lan-guage, coupled with an absence ofinformation in their own languages, isthe single most important cause ofdisadvantage and isolation' (Women1.3). 'Ethnic women have the right tofree and full access to knowledge ontheir rights and entitlements as mem-bers of the Australian community'(2.3). Key areas of interest nominatedby FECCA included employment,training and retraining, housing,education and information, health,care of the ageing, child care andimmigration. Further development wasnecessary for specialised serviceswhich provide crisis, health, legal andother forms of support. Services devel-oped specially for women 'must allowfor infornmtion to be available in anappropriate form and in major commu-nity languages used by ethnic women'(3.3). Health services should includeethnic women in their targeting, e.g.,by advertising in community languagesin the ethnic and mainstream media.Government services and programsshould be staffed by persons who areable to work effectively in cross-cul-tural situations. This may irwolve:sensitizing existing staff: employingmore bilingual staff; effective use ofaccredited interpreters; and providingbridging courses for persons who

26 33

already possess linguistic skills and aproven ability to deal effectively withcross-cultural issues' (FECCA, 1988).While the FECCA policy on womenthus gave significance to the need forlanguage services for women, its policyon languages did not make any dis-tinctions based on gender. Nor, sur-prisingly, did its health policy, exceptto delegate to ANESBWA the pursuit of'issues relating to the national policyon women's health' (Health 4.1.4).

The ANESBWA policy option paper forOMA (Eliadis et al., 1989) was basedon wide consultations with NESBwomen and with government agencies.Among ten 'needs which transcendedmost issues' were: multilingual infor-mation, interpreter services and bilin-gual and bicultural workers (p.12). Thepaper noted that lack of information onservices, programs and policies madethem inaccessible and presented amajor barrier to NESB women partici-pating fully in society. A suggestedsolution included 'reviewing existingservices for cultural and linguisticsensitivity; and identifying personswith bilingual/bicultural skills inGovernment agencies ... developingand providing in accessible locationsinformation which is specifically aimedat the needs of women from NESBs byfacilitating and supporting womenfrom NESBs as translators and inter-preters; involving women from NESBsin the dissemination of information;identifying and promoting accessiblelocations for women from NESBs; andorganising special information forumsfor women from NESBs' (p. 39).

The most important recent publicpolicy document of relevance is theNational NESB Women's Health Strat-egy (Alcorso and Schofield, 1991.


Among its recommendations are Rec-ommendation 14 which endorses theNational Women's Health Policy andRecommendation 6.1.19 'for the provi-sion of: additional health care inter-preter services and telephone inter-preter services, including 008 tel-ephone numbers, together with train-ing to enable appropriate responses toissues such as domestic violence andsexual assault'. Recommendation 15outlines basic requirements for re-structuring language services in Aus-tralia, making health interpretersavailable as a right to NESS womenwith low English proficiency, providingtelephone and on-site interpretingservices free of charge to women ofNESB for health-related purposes andother specified purposes. Recommen-dation 16 supports publicising therights to language provision; Recom-mendation 17 recommends that healthinterpreter services be funded throughMedicare by December 1993; andRecommendation 20 calls for an in-crease in the number of communitylanguage speakers in health services.Recommendation 21 (ii) advocates 'amultilingual health and health servicesinformation strategy', Recommendation21(vi) supports 'the employment andLargeting of bilingual/bicultural healthcare professionals': and Recommenda-tion 21(vii) supports 'ethnic access/liaison officers'.

33. Council supports the recommen-dations of the National NESB Wom-en's Health Strategy relating to theprovision of specialist health careinterpreter services for women, andthe publicising of such services.*

' See sununary of reconunendations on p. 7.

3 4

27


Summary:the development ofthinking on thecommunication andinformation needsof immigrantwomenNot until the late 1970s was there anyserious attempt to distinguish immi-grants by gender in terms of specificneeds.

At least until the mid 1980s, women ofnon-English speaking backgroundwere grouped with the aged, children,the disabled or refugees as a 'disad-vantaged minority' possibly requiring'special' services.

Only from the mid 1980s did an effec-tive NESB women's voice emerge tourge specific services and approaches.

Only in the past few years have inter-preting and translating needs begun toemerge as requiring a gender approachin some respects.

The progression outlined above reflectsthe emergence of a coherent andorganised NESB women's constituencywhich influences the broader women'smovement, the ethnic communities'movement and the official women'sbureaux and (partly through theselarger influences) has an impact uponofficial policy. This progression doesnot necessarily reflect the greaterurgency of current problems comparedwith those of the past. It cannot,

28

therefore, be assumed that the needfor interpreting and translating is onlyconfined to women arriving as immi-grants in recent years.

Characteristics of NESBwomen

An outstanding feature of the officialliterature surveyed above is thatwomen of non-English speaking back-ground appear as 'doubly marginal'.They are added-on to accounts ofNESB needs and services, often alongwith the elderly, youth, the disabled,refugees and residents of remote areas.They are added-on to accounts ofwomen, often with less space andattention than Aborigines, whom theyoutnumber by at least ten-to-one. Thiscreates the false impression of womenas a 'minority', a term currently usedin a most confusing way by somesociologists to embrace groups whoconstitute a clear majority of thepopulation in numerical terms. Whilemany NESB ethnic groups do have amale majority (as in most other compa-rable societies and historic situations),it is often slight and, sometimes (aswith Filipino women and Thais), is thereverse. For the whole of Asia and theMiddle East there is complete parity innumbers between males and females,although this varies between birth-places and age groups. Moreover, withthe ageing of many settler groupsarriving in the 1940s and 1950s, thegender balance tends to become re-versed, as women normally outlivemen in developed societies. It will best.ggested that in many areas of inter-preting, both the deliverers and therecipients of services are more likely tobe women than men. To be perverse, itmight make more sense to see inter-


preting (although not translating) as aservice to NESB women, with NESBmen 'added-on' as a 'minority! Such areversal of traditional perceptionswould challenge the attitude thatservices for women are additional,when in many respects they are cen-tral.

1. Council recommends thatinterpreting policy should reflectthe particular needs of NESBwomen, given that they are recog-nised as the main users of interpret-ing services.

The sex ratio (men to each hundredwomen) for major NESB birthplacegroups in 1986 can be seen in Table 1.Birthplace groups of smaller numbers,which have mainly arrived in the pastten years and might be assumed tohave a greater need for languageservices, can be seen in Table 2. Fur-thfr data on sex ratios may be foundin the detailed tables in Appendix 1.

These tables do not take account of thepersistence of some small and nowrapidly ageing ethnic groups fromEastern Europe, who were recruited toAustralia mainly in the 1950s andwere never replenished by furtherimmigration. These include Ukraine(10 461), Latvia (10 784), Lithuania(5358), Estonia (3888) and Bulgaria(1737). Some other birthplaces fromwhich migrants are no longer beingrecruited but which may have signifi-cant language difficulties include Iraq(mainly Assyrians) and some of thesmaller Latin American states. Amongthe most rapidly increasing birthplacegroups since 1986 which should beincluded are Fiji, Tonga, Poland,China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philip-pines, Thailand, Iran, Vietnam, Leba-

non and El Salvador. A small NESBpopulation which is often overlookedconsists of the Christmas and CocosIslanders who have been resettled inWestern Australia and who are Aus-tralian citizens. They mainly speakChinese and/or Malay.

The 1986 Census shows the majorlanguages used 'in the home' by morethan 5000 women each to be as shownbelow in Table 3.

Among important languages omittedfrom this Table are: Farsi (Dari/Per-Sian), which was not listed in the 1986Census at all; Lao (3046 female speak-ers) and Khmer (4119), which arewidely used in translated material; andlanguages of increased use since 1986such as Hindi (4221), Korean (3849),Romanian (1934), Tamil (2165), Thai(2419) and Tongan (2230). It is prob-able that most of these languages willappear in the 1991 Census as used by10 000 people in their homes. Alsoomitted is the indigenous language ofTimor, Tetum (291) which, despite itssmall recorded numbers, was beingwidely used in the TIS in the late1980s. Indigenous African languages,including Amharic, Somali and Swahiliwere used by only 2012 people in1986, but have increased since then.

There is a potential demand for over 30languages in regular use, apart fromsmaller languages which might becalled upon irom.time to time. Mostpublic agencies now regularly translateinto between nine and 15 languages.As the Table suggests, it is often as-sumed that some languages are usedby those already proficient in English.These include German, Dutch, Frenchand Maltese as well as the languagesof South Asia, such as

3

29


Table 1Major NES Birthplace Groups 1986:Total Population, Sex Ratios and Major Languages

Birthplace

Sex Ratio by Birthplace1986, %

Hungary 127Vietnam 124Czechoslovakia 119Austria 119Yugoslavia 119Spain 118Italy 117Malta 115Netherlands 115Lebanon 113Poland 113Turkey 110Indonesia 107Greece 106Cyprus 105EVpt 105France 104Hong Kong 101Malaysia 99India 99Germany 99Chile 98Sri Lanka 98China 96Singapore 88Other USSR 76Philippines 44

Source: 1986 Census of Population and Housing

the languages of South Asia, such asHindi, Tamil, Sinhalese, Bengali orUrdu. The sex balance figures forbirthplace suggest that women are atleast as likely as men to require trans-lation and interpreting in this range oflanguages. When allocating resources.it should be a prime objective to pro-vide swift and effective translating andinterpreting in the 30 languages listedabove as a minimum, which wouldrequire targeted recruitment in some

30

37

instances where demand exceedssupply. It should be noted that theCensus does not distinguish betweensome languages within a broadergroup, nor for dialects which might bedifficult to understand for majoritylanguage users. The most importantvariety occurs among Chinese lan-guages. The category 'Yugoslav' defiesanalysis as it is the chosen response ofso many immigrants from Yugoslavia.Whether that will be the case in the


Table 2Small, Newly Arriving GroupsSex Ratio 1986

Birthplace

Sex Ratio by Birthplace1986, %

Romania 130Iran 114Portugal 111El Salvador 106Laos 105Timor 104Cambodia 101

Argentina 100Tonga 99Uruguay 96Korea 95Western Samoa 94Fiji 93Japan 85Thailand 66Pem 65


1991 Census is impossible to say. Itseems probable that most 'Yugoslav'speakers can be reached in Croatian,Serbian or Macedonian. Respondentsclaiming to speak Serbo-Croat (theofficial language of former Yugoslavia)have been grouped with Serbianspeakem in Table 3, although somemight think of themselves as Croatian.

The Census gives no information onliteracy but does attempt to assess thedegree of English-language proficiencyof respondents. This is on a subjectivebasis and does not distinguish be-tween facility in spoken and writtenEnglish nor in English levels requiredfor particular tasks. Table 1.3 in theNational Non-English Speaking Back-ground Women's Health Strategy,

shows only 194 903 women speakingEnglish 'poorly' or 2.7% of the popula-tion over five years of age. This perthelanguages of South Asia, such asHindi, Tamil, Sinhalese, Bengali orUrdu. The sex balance figures forbirthplace suggest that women are atleast as likely as men to requ',e trans-lation and interpreting in this range oflanguages. When allocating resources,it should be a prime objective to pro-vide swift and effective translating andinterpreting in the 30 languages listedabove as a minimum, which wouldrequire targeted recruitment in someinstances where demand exceedssupply. It should be noted that theCensus does not distinguish betweensome languages within a broadergroup, nor for dialects which might be

38

31


Table 3Major languages used 'in the home' bymore than 5000 women, 1986

Birthplace

Italian 199 024Greek 131 894Chinese languages 65 570German* 56 592Arabic 50 877Spanish 34 915Polish 33 532Yugoslav' 32 524Dutch* 32 033Maltese* 28 175French* 26 636Vietnamese 25 250Croatian 24 008Macedonian 21 042Aboriginal languages* 18 559Filipino language* 16 315Hungarian* 15 436Turkish 15 086Russian 11 818Portuguese 9 808Indonesian/Malay* 8 779Serbian/S. Cr. 8 255Ukrainian* 7 511Japanese* 5 819

* These languages are rarely used for translating official information.Source: About Migrant Wornert: Statistical Profile 1986

difficult to understand for majoritylanguage users. The most importantvariety occurs among Chinese lan-guages. The category 'Yugoslav' defiesanalysis as it is the chosen response ofso many immigrants from the formerYugoslavia. Whether that will be thecase in the 1991 Census is impossibleto say. It seems probable that most'Yugoslav' speakers can be reached inCroatian, Serbian or Macedonian.Respondents claiming to speak Serbo-Croat have been grouped with Serbian

3239

speakers in Table 3, although somewould be Croatians.

The Census gives no information onliteracy but does attempt to assess thedegree of English-language proficiencyof respondents. This is on a subjectivebasis and does not distinguish be-tween facility in spoken and writtenEnglish nor in English levels requiredfor particular tasks. Table 1.3 in theNational Non-English Speaking Back-ground Women's Health Strategy,


shows only 194 903 women speakingEnglish 'poorly' or 2.7% of the popula-tion over five years of age. This per-centage varied between 3.9% in Victo-ria down to only 0.9% in Queenslandand Tasmania. Some 79% of the totallived in New South Wales and Victoria.However, the source does not commenton the validity of the combined cat-egory 'not well' or 'not at all' other thanto say that 'this figure should be seenas a minimum estimate of poor Englishspeakers only' (p.4). Moreover, it isonly a figure for ability to speak, not toread or write English. Figures in thesame source show that 13.8% ofwomen over five years of age use alanguage other than English at homeand that nearly 20% of capital citydwellers are in this category. On thislimited basis, and taking into accountthe arrival of many more NESB immi-grants since 1986, it is probable thatover 500 000 women need some assist-ance with translating and interpretingwhen dealing with official agencies, the

law or public services. One importantarea for further research, possibly onthe basis of sampling as well asthrough official figures for TIS or otherinterpreting usage, is the validation ofthe above estimate and its relation tothe likely demand for languages. Suchdemand has shifted rapidly since 1975towards new languages. But the overalldemand may still be for Southern andEast European languages as it hasbeen for 30 years. It would be mostunfortunate if policy were posited on adeclining need in some languageswhen that may not be the case.

Major birthplace groups with low levelsof English proficiency ('not well' or 'notat .all') in 1986 included for womenonly: Hungary 14.8%, Poland 22.9%.Cyprus 33.1%, Greece 41.5%, Italy34.1%, Yugoslavia 28.5%, Egypt14.2%, Lebanon 32%, Turkey 43.4%,Central and South America 25.9%,China 52.4%, Hong Kong 16.7%,Vietnam 48.2%. These figures suggest

Table 4Percentage of women over 65 and leaving schoolat 13 or less (including never attending)for selected birthplaces

Birthplace % over 65 % early leavers

Greece 45.6 8.6Italy 39.4 15.1Other Southern European 24.8 5.3Yugoslavia 19.6 7.2Malta 16.4 9.1Lebanon 13.3 4.2Central/Sth America 10.5 4.7Poland 10.2 21.4Netherlands 7.3 15.7Egypt 6.4 15.2China 6.2 22.4Hungary 6.1 25.6Other North European 6 22.6Austria 2.2 19.9

Source: About Migrant Women 1986

4 033

a

Women and I.anguage Services

the continuing problem of poor Englishamong long-established settlers fromSouthern Europe and the Middle East.

Two other relevant characteristics fromthe Census include age distributionand level of education. While there issome controversy over the extent towhich English proficiency declines withage, it is undeniable that the elderlyare likely to call on more public serv-ices than the young and fit. It is alsohighly probable that those leavingschool early will have lower levels ofEnglish proficiency than those betterqualified if their native tongue is notEnglish. Relevant data by birthplacefor women is as in Diagram 4 below.

This data strongly suggests that edu-cational weaknesses are heavily con-centrated among Southern Europeanwomen, especially Greeks. Poor school-ing is not usually combined with highage levels except for Italians and Poles.But other Southern Europeans arenow moving into the post-working agegroups and will constitute large num-bers with poor schooling and high agelevels in the coming decade. MostAsians, in contrast, are relatively well-educated and young, except for thosefrom China who also have exception-ally high levels of those unable tospeak English at all. It is interesting tonote that some birthplace groups ofwomen with poor English, such asTurks or Vietnamese, have relativelyhigh school-leaving ages. The availablelimited data does not establish thatwomen coming from Islamic countriesare likely to have left school particu-larly early, although many of them arenot Muslims. The great bulk of educa-tional disadvantage is still locatedamong Southern European women. Onpresent intake indications this cohort

34

will age over the next twenty yearswithout being replenished from over-seas, whereas intakes from Asia andthe Middle East are less likely to bepoorly educated and will not enter thepost-working age groups in largenumbers until much later. Thus aninterpreting need will continue forSouthern European women for manyyears even although virtually none arenow arriving in Australia.

41. Council recognises that the needfor language services is not neces-sarily homogeneous throughout theNESS community and considers thatthere is an urgent requirement forresearch to differentiate needswithin different categories.

41

10.


Chapter 2Women and priority groupsPriority groupsThe available data suggest a number ofoverlapping priority groups. While notall individuals in need of languageservices necessarily fall into any ofthese groups, they are useful in help-ing to target need. Many Census meas-ures can be applied, although there isno such data on refugees, who must beidentified from intake figures providedregularly by DILGEA through theBureau of Immigration Research'updates'. Nor are all language groupsidentified in the 1986 Census, al-though the 1991 Census may remedythis defect. Both Censuses go beyondtheir predecessors in providing infor-mation on birthplace, language, reli-gion, ancestry (1986 only) and parent-age. These can be correlated in such away as to give useful data on a widerange of ethnicities. The relevantpriority groups Include: recent arrivals,the elderly, industrial workers, refu-gees and immigrants living in remoteareas.

Recent arrivals

Current DILGEA policy, following therecommendations of the FitzGeraldReport of 1988, focusses services onrecent arrivals. This has been particu-larly relevant in redirecting adult andDEET-adrninistered child migrantEnglish teaching, although it has notbeen effectively extended to translatingand interpreting. The official expecta-tion is that agencies other than

DILGEA (both Commonwealth andStates) will service the needs of otherNESB Australians. One of the contra-dictions of this approach in practice isthat, while it has led to the expansionof language services by DSS andDHHCS and some State Ethnic AffairsCommissions (EAGs), DILGEA is pro-posing to co-ordinate these servicesthrough a national language servicesprogram. This has led to some confu-sion which is surveyed later in thisreport. Some newly arrived groupshave been surveyed in SettlementNeeds of Small Newly Arrived EthnicGroups (Jupp et at., 1991). They covera variety of languages but, like otherimmigrant groups, are characterisedby a broad balance between males andfemales. Among the larger such groupsare Vietnamese and Poles, whilesmaller groups include Tongans,Romanians, Salvadorans, Laotians,Khmer, Timorese, Soviet Jews, Portu-guese and Fijians. Between the Cen-suses of 1986 and 1991, major newarrivals recorded as permanent settlershave included by birthplace thoseshown in Figure 5.

The major languages relevant to thesegroups include Chinese (Cantonese,Hakka, Mandarin), Spanish, Vietnam-ese, Polish, Russian, Arabic, Farsi,Korean, Portuguese, Tongan, Samoan,Hindi, Fijian, Romanian, Turkish,Khmer, Lao, Hmong, Thai, Filipino/Tagalog, Tamil and 'return. Many ofthese have little presence in educa-tional institutions or in the provision oflanguage services.

4 235


Table 5Major arrivals 1986-1990 by NES Birthplace

Birthplace

Arrivals

Ezipt 4 200Portual 4 500Germany 5 250Korea 6 410Vietnam 10 430India 11 710Malaysia 24 290Mauritius 4 290Turkey 4 640Indonesian 5 300Poland 6 820Sri Lanka 10 880Lebanon 12 130Hongkong 24 330USSR 3 280Cambodia 4 380El Salvador 5 154Chile 6 090Singapore 7 120Yugoslavia 10 880China/Taiwan 19 970Philippines 32 120

Source: Australian Immigration ConsolidatedStatistics No. 16

The elderly and ageing

Too much emphasis on recent arrivalsobscures the large numbers who arenot proficient in English but who havelived in Australia for many years. Thetwo most important such groupsinclude the elderly and ageing andindustrial workers. These are drawn toa large extent from Southern and EastEuropean settlers of the 1950s and1960s, although many industrialworkers are also drawn from morerecent arrivals from Southeast Asiaand Latin America.There is consider-able literature on ethnic ageing which

36

emphasises the low levels of Englishand high levels of women among theaged. Rowland's recent study PioneersAgain: Immigrants and Ageing in Aus-tralia (1991: 23), shows that by 2001the largest gross numbers of NESBimmigrants over 65 will be from thoseborn in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia,Germany, Netherlands, Poland, India,Malta, Indochina, Lebanon, USSR/Ukraine, Egypt, Hungary, China,Cyprus, the Baltic States and Austria.Most important languages in this areainclude Polish, Russian, Italian, Greek,Dutch, Chinese, Spanish, Maltese.Hungarian and the languages ofYugoslavia.

4 3

`a.


Industrial workers

Most of these languages a7e alsorelevant to the needs of vomen work-ers in manufacturing, although Viet-namese. Khmer and Lao should alsobe added for them. The concentrationof NESB women in manufacturingdistinguishes them clearly from Aus-tralian-born and English-speakingwomen. In 1986. the overall proportionof women workers classified as 'labour-ers and related' was only 5.4% ascompared with 13.5% as clerks and5.1% as professionals. But for somebirthplaces the percentage of labourerswas twice or more the national femaleaverage. These included Greece(14.4%). Malta (12.3%), Yugoslavia(17.5%), Central and South America(12.6%), Philippines (10.3%) andVietnam (11.7%). In August 1990,women born in NES countries made up12.8% of the female workforce butmade up more than twice that propor-tion (29%) of women engaged in manu-facturing. These women are muchmore likely to suffer industrial injuryand much less likely to need Englishfor their employment than do otherAustralian women, whether migrantsor native-born. Their interpreting andtranslating needs may well be differentin some respects, for example in theareas of workers' compensation andindustrial health and safety.

38. Council recommends that alltrade unions should be encouraged,in consultation with the ACTU, toinclude the provision of interpretingand translating services withinawards where appropriate and to usesuch services themselves in commu-nication with their members.

Refugees andhumanitarian migrantsAnother grouping, which overlaps withthose above, includes refugees andhumanitarian migrants. These are alsofound strongly concentrated in indus-try and among the unemployed. Mostare young. The particular problems ofrefugee women have been explored byEileen Pittaway in Refugee WomenStill at Risk in Australia (Pittaway,1991). These include the after-effectsof torture and trauma which often hasa component of severe sexual assault,especially for those from LatinAmerica. Pittaway's study shows thatof refugee and humanitarian entrantsbetween July 1987 and December1989, 42% of Indochinese, 42% of EastEuropeans, 53% of Latin Americans.44% from the Middle East, and 38% ofothers were women, making a total of44% (op.cit. Table 3.1). The mostimportant languages for recent refu-gees include Spanish, Arabic, Vietnam-ese, Lao, Khmer, Chinese, Polish.Russian, Romanian, Hmong, Kurdish,Farsi/Dari, Tamil, Tetum and someminor East African languages (in smallnumbers).

29. Council recommends that theprovision of special training towomen interpreters to work withtorture and trauma centres andwomen's refuges should be a highpriority for all Governments.

Migrants in rural andremote areasThe female NESB population is nowwidely dispersed over Australia for tworeasons marriage to Australians and

4 4 37

Women and Lcmguage Services

refugee placement. This phenomenonis numerically most important forFilipino women but also includesThais, Vietnamese and some LatinAmericans and Southeast Asians.Another reason for dispersal in thepast was the creation of small agricul-tural settlements of mainly SouthernEuropean origin, especially in northQueensland, the Murray/Murrumbidgee irrigation districts andparts of Victoria and Western Aus-tralia. While many of these are nowinhabited primarily by Australian-borndescendants, it is characteristic ofrural areas that lack of English per-sists through life. Widely dispersedwomen have little access to formalinterpreting and translating servicesexcept through TIS. They are toolimited in numbers to form effectivecommunities, except in some remotelarge towns such as Darwin, Mt Isa,Port Hedland, Townsville or Cairns (seeRecommendation 21).

Culturally distinctivemigrants

A number of women need to be recog-nised in terms of their cultural distinc-tiveness. Some elements of culturemay lead to a more traditional view ofgender roles and issues than in con-temporary society, and thereforewomen from such cultures requireadditional sensitivity when dealingwith personal information or in specificsituations, for example when impartinginformation on health and childbirth.Some other groups, for example, agedwomen of non-English-speaking back-ground, will also need to beapproached with cultural sensitivity.

38

There are many ways of categorisingNESB women which might help tobring out special needs but those listedabove are probably the most impor-tant. As a generalisation, the levels ofEnglish are likely to be lowest forrefugees and humanitarian immi-grants, for manufacturing workers,and for the elderly from Southern andEastern Europe. It would be quiteincorrect, however, to classify womenin 'continental' terms (as Europeans,Asians or Latin Americans for example)without taking social and economicfactors into account. A language serv-ices delivery strategy must focus onareas of greatest need. There areunlikely to be enough resources in thisarea to provide a perfect service foreveryone who needs it. The mostimportant priority is for languageservice agencies to have the capacity todeal with all language service needs.Otherwise interpreting and translatingmust be targeted at those who need itmost. These include many who havebeen settled in Australia for manyyears.

Women as clientsFew interpreting and translating serv-ices keep records of users based ongender. As in other areas the availabledata is insufficient to assess in detailthe clientele for services. While itwould not be burdensome or intrusiveto have a simple `M/F' tick box for useranalysis, this is rarely done. The firstDILGEA Access and Equity Report of1988 identified one of its seven broadobjectives as 'to develop cross-culturalcommunication and awareness skillsof staff, including an awareness ofcross-cultural gender differences andthe special needs of some migrant


women'. Another objective was 'todevelop and implement an appropriatelanguage services policy'. However, thelanguage service policy elaborated inthe report did not mention women atall. The only priority target groupspecifically mentioned was 'recentarrivals'. Although DILGEA has nomi-nated women (with unemployed youthand refugees) as a priority group, itsannual reports make no reference tothem in connection with languageservices, concentrating instead on theirrole in the AMEP, where they nowconstitute a majority of students.

8. Council recommends that allproviders of interpreting and trans-lating services should keep statisti-cal records of the gender and lan-guage or birthplace of clients andinterpreter staff, while respectingthe Privacy Act.

Needs Assessment

Assessing need is one of the moredifficult aspects of evaluating thedelivery of bervices. At a basic level itcan be measured by service deliveryresponse to effective demand. Thus, ifTIS cannot be accessed because of abacklog of calls or a shortage of rel-evant interpreters. it is reasonable toargue that a need is not being metalthough it could be met with theallocation of greater resources. A majorlimitation on this straightforwardapproach in recent years has been theargument that budgetary allocationsare predetermined and that servicesmust do 'more with less' or, in eco-nomic terms, become more efficientand cost-effective. This can lead toquestioning the va.ue of the serviceprovided and to calls for its flmitationor for the introduction of charges

which will impose a 'market discipline'on users such that they will not use aservice without considering the costsand benefits to themselves. From thisperspective, the TIS is a likely candi-date for such analysis. It provides aservice which is free to the immediateuser and which is open-ended inmeeting the demands of new andexisting community languages, withoutimposing any restrictions on the userin terms of length of residence (or evenof birth) in Australia. It cannot bestressed too strongly that a servicesuch as TIS is absolutely central to thewhole field of language services be-cause of its adaptability over geo-graphic space. This is particularly vitalfor women in isolated areas, for usersof small, minority languages, for theaged and disabled or for otherwisehousebound women. Thus any attemptto impose charges or to limit the con-cept of 'need' for TIS is likely to impacton precisely those women who needthe service most. The basic questionsto be asked in evaluating TIS must be:

are all clients being serviced quicklyand accurately through the service;

what improvements to the servicewould make it more effective; andonly then

how much would such improve-rnents cost?

A different but related issue is whetheragencies using TIS other than itsprovider, DILGEA, should pay DILGEAfor that use without passing the coston to the individual client (whichcurrent policy rightly prohibits). Thisargument does not deny an individual'need' for TIS, but argues that meetingsuch needs is the responsibility of the

439


relevant Commonwealth or Stateagency whose function is to deal withthe particular service. As the greatestuse of TIS over many years has beenfor health inquiries, this focussesattention on the State-provided hospi-tal systems. The 1986 Review ofgrant and Multicultural Programs and -

Services (ROMOMPAS) (Jupp, 1986)recommended (in Recommendation 16.that 'the Federal Government shouldprogressively institute agency-user-pryarrangements with State governmentusers of TIS' . In support of this recom-mendation, ROMAIVIPAS (11.44/45)argued that some States (notablyQueensland) were heavy users of TIS.The target was thus 'large-scale Stateusers'. However, 'as precipitate intro-duction could discourage serviceproviders from using interpreters, wesuggest that the pace of introductionbe carefully planned. We see agencyuser pays applying systematically toState agencies making substantial useof TIS on-site interpreters'. Thus theargument was not that a need did notexist, but that it should be met by awider range of funding. Unfortunately,the introduction of 'agency user pays'has had some of the consequencesforeseen by ROMAMPAS, namely areluctance on the part of some agen-cies to add the costs of interpreting totheir budgets.

Beyond assessing need simply in termsof effective demand, much programevaluation is influenced by two differ-ing (and in some respects opposite)philosophies. One argues that therewill always be an 'untapped need' forservicing the disadvantaged and that itis the responsibility of agencies toattempt to assess that need and topublicise available services to makethem accessible to those who mightotherwise not know about them. The

40

other argues that 'if it ain't broke, don'tfix it'. In other words, the measure-ment of needs must be confined to

'effective demand as that is the onlyvalrclasis for its determination. ThelattvAposition is sometimes sharpenedby:arping that if there were a chargefor setiiices this would be a usefulflastrurnent in measuring demand. Thisis 'a diffIcult argument to sustain whenservices'are targeted on the disadvan-

\tmed who are least likely to be able toafford their market price. Nevertheless,it is often used in formulating policy.Imposing a 'price' is seen as limiting`overservicing' or the artificial creationof a new demand. A price may also becharged where the service provided isseen partly as revenue-raising inintent, for example, as in the chargelevied by DILGEA for translating docu-ments not directly related to immediatesettlement needs.

4 7

The particular constituency beingdiscussed here, namely women of non-English-speaking background (andnormally with poor English profi-ciency), seem relatively unlikely tomake excessive demands on publicservices. Most consultations suggestthat they have a limited knowledge ofsuch services and that such knowledgeis most likely to come either throughword of mouth, or through speciallyappointed ethnic welfare workers(including MRCs) or because the needto raise income when unemployed, orto attend to serious health problems,drives them to the employment serviceor the public hospitals. There is, unfor-tunately, no major and persuasiveliterature on the take-up of publicservices by NESB immigrants. They aremore likely to use public hospitalsthan English-speaking or Australian-born residents; more likely to be regis-tered as unemployed (31% of the


unemployed for 25% of the labourforce are immigrants); and probablymore likely to use the industrial injurycompensation systems. However, theseare all easily explained in terms of thegreater sensitivity of public hospitals tointerpreting needs, the higher levels ofunemployment for NESB new arrivalsand the greater concentration of NESBimmigrants in manufacturing industry.

It seems plausible that NESB womendo not attempt to access all thoseservices for which they are eligible andthat an unmet demand exists forinterpreting and translating informa-tion. This has been the assumption ofmost previous studies and there seemslittle reason to dispute it. althoughsome further research would help toclarify the issue. While many Europeanarrivals in the past came from societieswhich provided a better network ofwelfare services than did Australia,this is less true of more recent arrivals.The concept of the 'welfare state' isunknown or inadequately developed formost Asian, Middle Eastern, LatinAmerican and Pacific Island societies.These have depended on family sup-port networks or on religious charity.Those most likely to mention theweakness of Australian welfare haverecently arrived from Poland and theSoviet Union. Immigrants from Viet-nam or Lebanon are either unawarethat a wide range of services exists, orare surprised to learn of them or havedifficulty of access due to languageproblems and the lack of interpretersor translators.

The assumption of 'unmet need' ideallyrequires empirical verification, but theargument will proceed on the basisthat it is likely to exist when it comesto providing language services for

women. NESB women are likely tohave left school earlier than NESBmen, are less likely to understandEnglish than any other major categoryof Australians, are more likely to beinhibited in approaching authority andless likely to be informed about avail-able services than most other Austral-ians. This does not, of course, apply toall NESB women. Filipino women aremuch more likely to have a tertiaryeducation in the English languagethan any other large ethnic category inAustralia (including the native-bornbut excepting Americans and Canadi-ans). Women in Sydney, Melbourne orAdelaide have far more on-site facilitiesfor interpretation, translation andinformation than women in Hobart.Brisbane or Ballarat. Muslim womenare much more likely to have inhibi-tions about u3ing some public servicesthan others but some are also likely towork in industrial conditions which aremore stressful and injurious thanthose experienced by many otherAustralian women.

Differing needs

The need for interpreting and translat-ing services may not be evenly spreadthrough the NESB population asbetween genders, ethnic groups, agegroups or socio-economic levels. Onemajor piece of further research whichis strongly recommended, would at-tempt to differentiate needs withinsuch sub-categories. This is not possi-ble within the limited scope of thisreport, although some suggestions canbe made based largely on consulta-tions undertaken for this report withclient groups. Obviously health consid-erations differ considerably betweenmen and women, a point already madeat length in the National NESB Worn-

4841


en's Health Strategy. This arises notsimply because of the differing physicalnature of men and women but becauseall cultures have created taboos andinhibitions based on such differences.It is in this area that cultural sensitiv-ity often becomes more important thansimple linguistic facilitation.

An important difference was revealedin consultations between the demandfor interpreters and translators. Inter-preters were of particular importancefor the less educated and for newarrivals unfamiliar with English. Manyof those long resident in Australia withpoor English were of industrial work-ing-class background. However, amajor demand for translators camefrom middle-class recent arrivals,many of whom were relatively fluent inspoken English. Those with educa-tional qualifications needed themtranslated. Those with recourse to thefamily court needed translations ofmarriage certificates and other legaldocuments. While it might be assumedthat those with high educational levelswill not need interpreters, it cannot beassumed that they will not need trans-lators.

Cultural factors

While all societies differentiate betweenmen and women in a variety of ways,some are more likely lo expect strictlydefined roles, taboos and inhibitionsthan others. Some religions have morerestrictive attitudes than others. Thedifficulty and danger in using 'culturalfactors' to determine service delivery istwofold: that service deliverers willimpose their own values on others; andthat uninformed or sentimental beliefswill be attributed to immigrants who

42

do not subscribe to them. Neverthe-less, some understanding of culturalfactors is essential for interpreters,especially when dealing with medicalor legal issues. It should always beborne in mind that most recent immi-grants do not come from 'traditional' or'rural' backgrounds but are frequentlywell educated and from modern cities.Nor are they necessarily from themajority culture in their country oforigin. For example, virtually no immi-grants from Iraq are Muslims nor aremost immigrants from India Hindus.

To understand the 'culture' of variousethnic groups or individuals it isnecessary to know:

what is their country of origin;

what is their religion;

what is their educational level;

are they of rural/provincial or ofurban/metropolitan background;

to what extent have they assimilated'Australian' norms; and

to what extent is their 'culture' welldefined?

Religious background is of primeimportance, as it is through religionthat most definition of female roles andexpectations has historically occurred.In most situations it will not be rea-sonable to expect a high level of under-standing of cultural factors, which arevaried. However, such an understand-ing should at least be one of the aimsof interpreter training.

4 9

Services using interpreters need to beaware of potential pitfalls and prob-


lems. For example, for strict Muslimwomen it is not permissible to be alonewith an unrelated man. Thus, allwomen assumed to be Muslims mustbe asked whether they share this tabooand should be accommodated if theydo by providing a woman interpreter asa matter of course. Most women fromrural backgrounds, of whatever cul-ture, are more comfortable discussinggynaecological or childbirth issues witha woman. Indeed, this should beassumed to be a universal attitudeunless the client clearly states other-wise. As a general rule, all medicalinterviews, especially those requiringthe exposure of the body, should beconducted by, or in the presence of, awoman interpreter. This may be essen-tial for the early treatment of condi-tions which would not be otherwisediscovered.

2. Council recommends that womenwho are clients of government serv-ices should be offered the choice ofa female interpreter.

In legal matters, niost P' SB immi-grants come from systL. which differsubstantially from the Australian,which is one of the few in the EnglishCommon Law tradition. Europeans areused to a system based on prior inves-tigation and codified law. Thus, some-one arrested in Australia may well feelthat they are already seen as guiltyand may not understand their rights todefence. Even such a simple procedureas finger-printing may be seen as ameasure of guilt. Refugees, in particu-lar, are used to systems in which it isbest to abandon hope altogether oncearrested. Interpreters need to be espe-cially sensitive in dealing with womenfrom Latin America, Indochina Af-ghanistan, East Africa or Sri I ..:nka

who may need legal interpreting.

Apart from European legal codes, morerecent immigrants may be influencedby legal codes from outside the West-ern Christian tradition. There aredistinctive legal philosophies for Mus-lims, Sikhs and Hindus, particularly inareas affecting property and familyrelationships. Most major religionsprohibit or discourage the use of birthcontrol devices but adherence to theseprohibitions varies greatly, beingclosely related to levels of education.The obligations of fathers, brothersand uncles towards their female rela-tives may be strongly defined and bedifferent from local practice.

A central problem in interpreting is thepossible clash between group or famil-ial obligations and the need to ensureneutrality and confidentiality. In manycultures the rigid division betweenpersonal and official obligations inher-ent in Western bureaucratic theorydoes not normally hold nor is it under-stood. Part of an interpreter's trainingmust necessarily address this problem.Relatives may feel a strong obligationto pass on information to others whichthey have learned during their inter-preting. This is not simply a matter ofgossip or untrustworthiness but ofsocial expectations. The client needs tobe protected against this danger,which many are well aware of. Equally,those using interpreters need to under-stand that the interpreter may besubject to clashing expectations.

14. Council recommends that partof the training of interpreters andtranslators should address the issueof balancing community or familyobligations and the need to ensureneutrality and confidentiality.

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43


These problems do not arise in thesame way when dealing with trans-lated material. Here the major culturalissue is the extent to which likelyclients will understand the language ofthe translation. In some languages,there have historically been two levels

a popular and an educated. Thedifference between the two was aburning issue in Greek politics andeducation for most of this century. Thesame is true to an even.greater extentof the gap between classical, literaryand popular usage in many Asianlanguages. A well-educated translatormay be at the disadvantage of notusing the right vocabulary for the less-educated clients who may. need theinformation most.. Thus, all translatedinformation should, wherever possible,be tested on potential clients of aver-age literacy and rewritten if necessaryin response to their levels of compre-hension. This would be more produc-tive if the original text in English hadalready been tested for comprehension,which is rarely the case. In somelanguages this is not simply a matterof 'writing down' to the client, but ofusing quite different terms and gram-mar. All translators, as part of theirtraining, need to be weaned away fromliterary formulations and towards'newspaper' levels of language. Oneproblem for older groups is the 'taint-ing' of language through colloquialEnglish, such that many poorly edu-cated NESS women speak a kind of'argot' or 'pidgin' which needs specialskills in translation.

both the English language and otherlanguage versions have a clearmeaning and are readily understand-able by the target group. All writtenmaterials should, wherever possible,be tested on clients of averageliteracy to ensure that the level oflanguage used is appropriate.

. Council recommends that, wherehe Government arranges for trans-ation of information of general orpecific interest to women, it shoulde held responsible for ensuring that

445 1_

A cultural problem likely to affect bothinterpreters and translators is thedeferential use of language whenaddressing different audiences. Theremay be different formulations foraddressing women by men, or theelderly by the young and vice versa, orthe poorly educated by the well edu-cated. This is particularly likely to bethe case with the developed Asianlanguages influenced from Chinese orIndian traditions. The job of the inter-preter is to facilitate communicationand understanding for the client, notto dominate or patronise her. Manycultural and linguistic traditions makethis difficult to achieve. The client mayalso feel deferential towards the inter-preter and this may inhibit the freeexchange of information. In manycultures, respectful forms of addressare obligatory between the young andtheir elders, a tradition which is almostabsent from normal Australian prac-tice today.

Many of the cultural traditions likely tobe met run counter to much egalitar-ian, feminist or democratic thinking.Service providers who often subscribeto such thinking may face a dilemmabetween their own views and those oftheir clients. The apparent 'subjuga-tion' of women in some cultures maybe seen by many of them as 'protec-tion', especially in the hostile environ-ment perceived by newly arrived immi-grants. Culture clash is likely between


service providers, interpreters andclients. While the customer is notnecessarily always right, relationshipsshould proceed as although she were.It is the client who might have breastcancer, or a still birth, or loss of chil-dren and property, not the servicedeliverer, interpreter or translator.

Cultural factors need to be understoodat a general level but should not beseen as equally applicable to all from aparticular background. With someexceptions among refugees and familyreunion immigrants, most NESBmigrants since 1975 have been as welleducated as the Australian averageand subscribe to many of the samevalues and attitudes as other Austral-ians, As in all modern cultures, indi-viduals will define their situation asthey think fit although within a contextof attitudes and beliefs. It is importantto expect cultural difference but not toimpose external values on the client.This must be a basic requirement inthe training of all interpreters, transla-tors and ethnic-specific service deliver-ers.

15. Council recommends that alltranslators, interpreters and ethnicservice deliverers receive training incross-cultural awareness as a basicrequirement.

The best advice on cultural influenceson interpreting is given in a recentWestern Australian/NAATI publication:

The professional who has the oppor-tunity to deal with members of othercultures is strongly advised to seekinformation about specific culturesfrom libraries, university depart-ments of anthropology, migrant orcultural advisers in government

departments, and, of course, indirect contact with individuals fromthose cultures. (Roberts-Smith et at.1990: 16)

Special areas of need

Women are more likely to need adviceand assistance in health, child care,domestic violence and reproductiveissues. As women normally live longerthan men in Australia, they form ahigh proportion of the 'old old' (agedover 75) or the 'frail aged'. The currentgap between male and female lifeexpectation at birth is six years. Therole usually ascribed to mothers alsomeans that schooling may be of greaterconcern than for men. There is, then, aneed for interpreting and translatingservices which are specialised in theseareas or at least able to cope with therelevant terminology and practice. Thedevelopment of family law makes itmore important that women haveaccess to court interpreters thanbefore. Women do not figure signifi-cantly in criminal cases but, by defini-tion, are likely to be equally involved infamily law disputes with men.

7. Council recommends that theAttorneys-General should amendcurrent legislation to include theservices of a competent, preferablyfemale and accredited, interpreterfor women in cases of domesticviolence, sexual assault and familybreakdown in all Australian courtsystems as a matter of urgency.

28. Council recommends that Stateand Territory Education Authoritiesshould ensure that parents areadvised of the availability of inter-preting and other support services

5245

Women and Language SenAces

for parent-teacher consultationsthrough the school system.

32. Council considers that Govern-ments should support the recruit-ment and training of specialisthealth and legal interpreters andtranslators in all States and Territo-ries. Key areas are reproductiveissues, care of children and theelderly, and family law.

The language services required bywomen in health matters have alreadybeen well surveyed in the NationalNESB Women's Health Strategy.. Theinquiry found that 'the upgrading oflanguage services for health was seenas a major priority Issue', which wasborne out by consultations undertakenfor this report. Apart from New SouthWales, Victoria and the ACT, interpret-ers were not usually specialised inhealth issues. Health interpreterservices were normally limited tobusiness hours, some interpreterswere not generally competent andmany health workers were unaware oflanguage services or were not skilled inusing them. Female interpreters werelacking in areas such as domesticviolence, sexual assault, family plan-ning and maternity services. Therewere serious problems, especially intranslating, because of differencesbetween dialect and standard lan-guage. On this basis, the review rec-ommended that there should be addi-tional health care interpreter servicesand specialised training on issuessuch as domest ic violence and sexualassault.

The Strategy supported providinghealth interpreters as a right to NESBwomen with low English proficiency incertain situations, including obstetricand maternity care, accident, violence

46

53

and emergency. cancer, pediatrics,mental health and terminal illness.Female interpreters would be availableas a right in mental health, reproduc-tive and violence cases, and appropri-ate training for female interpretersshould be undertaken. TIS should beredeveloped to allow specialist panelsof health interpreters linked throughall States. This health interpreterservice would be monitored throughDILGEA and State governments andhave a complaints and evaluationmechanism. The service would beunderpinned by a publicity campaigninvolving public agencies and medicalassociations with the incentive thatloud-speaker phones for interpretingwould become a tax-deductible item fordoctors. The increased cost of ensuringthe right to a health interpreter wouldbe funded through Medicare by theend of 1993. It was also recommendedthat efforts should be made to increasethe number of bilingual health workersby promoting the learning of commu-nity languages for those in the publichealth services. A register of bilingualhealth professionals would be kept ona regional basis.

37. Council considers that the useof health interpreter services shouldbe eligible for the Medicare rebate,as previously recommended in theWomen's Health Strategy.

Many of the problems raised in consul-tations for this report as well as thosefor the Strategy would be met if inter-preting services were more available; ifprofessionals were aware of the prob-lems of dealing with patients notproficient in English; and if healthinterpreting services on the New SouthWales model were developed. Allhealth professionals should be trainedto recognise that NESB women have


the right to expect an interpreter andshould be advised of the availability ofinterpreters as their right to be in-formed.

35. Council recommends that allhealth professionals should betrained to recognise that NESBwomen have the right to expect aninterpreter and to be advised of theavailability of this service.

It is absolutely essential to enrol thesupport of the medical and nursingprofessions behind the extension ofinterpreting services. As these oftenconstitute as useful an adjunct tomedical attention as radiolov orphysiotherapy, there are strong practi-cal and ethical arguments for usinginterpreters which many health profes-sionals should recognise. The sugges-tion that Medicare funds should beused to provide incentives for usinginterpreters is sound and should beadopted. Any reorganisation of inter-preting on national lines must ensurethat specialist health interpreters areavailable nationally and not just inthose States which provide them aspart of their health services.

The special needs of aged NESBwomen arise from their increasingnumbers and the fact that they comepredominantly from language groupswhich were not given effective Englishteaching in Australia. These often hadhigh proportions who had never beenformally educated or who had theireducation disrupted by war. Virtuallyall NESB migrants arriving between1947 and 1970 are likely to fall intothe triple disadvantage of being poorlyeducated, being inadequately taughtEnglish and suffering wartime educa-tional disruption. Major relevant lan-

guage groups are the Baltic languages,Polish. Russian, Hungarian and someCroatian and Serbian speakers. Withinten years they will have been joined bylarge numbers of Italian and thenGreek speakers and more Serbs andCroats. A particularly high proportionare likely to be in Victoria and SouthAustralia which received more Euro-pean migrants than New South Walesin the two post-War decades. Alreadyby 1986. there were in Australia14 100 German- and Dutch-bornwomen aged over 65 years. 25 000women from Greece, Italy and Malta,and 12 000 from Poland and Yugosla-via a total of 51 000 without thelesser numbers from other parts ofEurope (Rowland, 1991). Of these,67.4% of Greek, Italian and Maltesewomen aged between 65 and 74 spokeEnglish 'not well' or 'not at all', as did42.7% of Polish and Yugoslav women65-74 years old and 73.3% over 75years old. Rowland's study concludesthat 'the question of language regres-sion seems to be far less importantthan the finding that a high proportionof settlers who migrated to Australia intheir later years have never becomefluent in English' (p. 27). It should benoted that AMEP classes will now notnormally take students aged over 54and Rowland's belief that elderly NESBimmigrants should try to learn Englishseems 'utopian' for most of them. In1983, AIMA estimated that there wouldbe 90 000 Italian-born aged over 65 by2001, 44 000 Greeks, 40 000 Yugo-slays and 25 000 Poles. These are allgroups with a relatively low level ofEnglish competence among women.

As the aged are disproportionate usersof health and welfare services, it hadalready become clear as a result ofAIMA's studies of the early 1980s that

5 4

47


a major problem was developing andwould escalate to the end of the cen-tury. A greater emphasis was placedon ethnic-specific residential care anda number of appropriate nursinghomes have now opened with fundingsupport from the DHHCS. However,most elderly people do not live insheltered residences and currentpublic policy favours this independ-ence. This means that all servicesaimed at the elderly will need inter-preters in the major European lan-guages at least for the next ten to 20years, when the demand will startshifting towards those from Asia. Thereseems to be an inescapable need foreffective language services for elderlywomen. It is regrettable that the mostrecent study of this growing entityurges that they become more self-sufficient through learning English(Rowland, 1991). If taken seriously thisapproach could inhibit the necessaryprovision of effective language servicesfor those who have left the workforce.There will be at least 100 000 NESBwomen in this category in the currentdecade.

31. Council recommends that allservices for the elderly, whetherresidential or home-based, shoulddevelop language service strategies.

There are a number of sensitive areaswhere women would undoubtedlyprefer interpreting to be done throughanother woman. These include preg-nancy, birth control and abortioncounselling; domestic violence andcrisis services; and family law. Allofficial policy should attempt to ensurethat women interpreters are not merelyavailable in such cases but have had

48

55

some training in the necessary back-ground and expertise. Every interpret-ing course should include a segmentdealing with such areas and the appro-priate issues and terminology. Glossa-ries of relevant terms should be pro-duced in a variety of languages forboth interpreting and translatingpurposes, on the model created formedical terms by the Department ofSocial Security in Victoria in the early1980s. These should ideally be pro-duced by the relevant authority, suchas Attorney-General's for family law, orhealth departments for reproductiveissues. They should be made availableas a service to all professionals at acharge no greater than cost-recoveryand should also be used in interpretingand translating courses. Other profes-sional trainers should be advised of theexistence of such guides, which shouldbe as nationally uniform as feasible,taking some legal differences betweenStates into account. There is no plausi-ble reason, after 40 years of multilin-gual Australia, why this has not yetbeen done (except on a spasmodic andunco-ordinated basis). Lack of unifiedresponsibility in many areas should beovercome by an initiative from anappropriate agency, such as the OSWor the OMA, in consultation withappropriate departments and profes-sional bodies.

16. Council recommends that everyinterpreting course should include asegment dealing with sensitive areassuch as birth control counselling,domestic violence and family law,covering relevant issues andterminology.

27. Council recommends that theDepartments of Health, Housing and


Community Services and Attorney-General's produce and distributeglossaries of special health and legalterminology in a variety of lan-guages for use by interpreters andtranslators, in consultation with theOffice of Multicultural Affairs (OMA).

Numbers and geographicaldistribution

With some important exceptions, suchas Filipino women, the numbers ofNESB immigrant women are about halfthe total number of NESB immigrantsand they are geographically distributedin the same way as the total number ofNESB immigrants. As data from the1991 Census is not yet available, thereis inadequate information on thedistribution of new arrivals other thanthat available from 1986. Some lin-guistic groups, especially Koreans andIranians, have increased rapidly since1986 while there has been a continu-ing expansion of Spanish-speakers,especially from El Salvador. Numbersof Pacific Islanders such as Tongansand Samoans have also increased butare difficult to estimate because of arelatively high level of illegal over-stayers and considerable movementbetween Australia and the homelands.It is reasonable to assume that speak-ers of Tongan, Samoan and Fiji Hindihave increased considerably since1986. Conversely, the numbers ofspeakers of most East Europeanlanguages have probably declined, withthe exception of those who speakRussian and Polish, whose numbershave been increased by recent refugeearrivals. Other European languageslikely to show increases between 1986and 1991 include Croatian, Serbian,

Macedonian and Portuguese. By farthe largest increases are likely to be invarious Chinese languages as immigra-tion from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia,Singapore and Vietnam has continuedat a high level. Family reunion mayhave increased the numbers ofmonoglot speakers from some lan-guages which are normally spoken bythose bilingual in English, such as theFilipino and Indian languages. Figuresrelating to the use of TIS are of interesthere, as they show changes made since1986. They are, however, only indica-tive, as some language groups mayhave a greater need for TIS informationservices than others. A definitivetabulation must await the release of1991 Census figures.

These figures suggest a fairly constantdemand for at least a dozen languages.Shifts due to immigration only appearslowly. While there has been a declinein demand for Greek, as might beexpected from the long residence ofGreeks and the paucity of new arrivals,this has not been so marked for Italiannor for the languages of Yugoslavia.One clear message from the TIS figuresis that assumptions about decliningdemand should not be made fromimmigration figures alone. On theother hand, assumptions about in-creasing demand (for example, forCantonese, Mandarin or Arabic) aremore soundly based. The number ofrecorded TIS calls has increased from336 650 to 362 235 in the periodunder review above, falling in 1989-90by about 3500. The demand is fairlysteady although there has been adecline for some European languagesand an increase for some Asian lan-guages. As a baseline, the TIS figuresshould be taken as indicating thegreatest probable need for the supply

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Table 6Major Languages Used in TIS by % of Total Calls (Other than English)

Language 1985-6%

1986-7%

1987-8%

1988-9 1989-90

Spanish 12.9 12.6 14.2 16 15.7Vietnamese# 14.1 12.8 14.2 13.8 13.8Cantonese* 5.1* 3.6 4.3 4.8 6.5Polish 6.2 5.7 5.7 5.2 5.3Mandarin* * A 1.6 2.4 4.7Turkish 4.4 4 4 4.5 4.5Greek 7.1 6.1 5.7 4.7 4.5Italian 5.2 4.9 4.2 4.3 4.2Arabic 2.4 2.7 3.1 3.2 3.4Serbian 4.8 3.8 3.1 3.2 3.1Croatian 2.4 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6Russian A A A A 1.6Japanese A A 1.5 1.8 1.6Khmer# 1.6 1.6 A A 1.5Macedonian 1.7 1.6 A A A

Portuguese 1.8 1.9 2.1 1.8 A

Hungarian A A A 1.8 A

languages of China, not separately enumerated until 1986-7# languages of IndochinaA not available from published source

Source: DILGEA Annual Reports

of interpreters and of translated infor-mation. However, the distribution oflanguages across States is not uniformand some groups may be less willing touse the telephone than others. It wasfound in the consultations in NorthQueensland that many of the ruralgroup of Hmong near Innisfail did nothave telephones. It should be notedthat the majority of TIS calls comefrom women.

The geographical spread of languagegroups corresponds fairly closely tothat for birthplaces, as does spread formales and females. One large excep-tional group, the Filipino women.

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57

requires special analysis. In this con-text, the two most important featuresof the Philippine-born is that 69% werefemale in 1986; and that only 24%used English in the home. WhileEnglish is the second language of thePhilippines. it seems probable thatsome Filipino women at least requirean interpreter from time to time. In1986, 5.5% of the Philippines-bornspoke English poorly (Not Well/Not atAll), a similar figure to that of 1981.The figure for the small number ofwomen aged over 60 was 29%. Whilemost Filipino women are to be found inSydney or Melbourne, many are lo-cated in more remote places than is

MIMI


normal for NESS immigrants. Theseincluded (in 1986), 907 in the NorthernTerritory, 150 in Townsville. 145 inMount Isa, 136 in Cairns, 103 inRoebourne (WA), 100 in West Pilbara(WA), "9 in Exmouth (WA) and 47 inWeipa (Qld). Some at least of these areout of reach of most NESB-orientedservices normally available in metro-politan locations. Special attentionshould be paid to the adequacy oflanguage services for such a widelyscattered clientele and one which hasincreased rapidly since 1986.

Apart from the anomalous situation ofFilipino women, most other NESBwomen are to be found in the majorcities, especially in industrial suburbs.In Sydney, the local government areasin which over 35% of the populationnormally use a language other thanEnglish include Fairfield, Auburn,Canterbury, Burwood, Ashfield,Marrickville, Botany, Strathfield,Concord and Rockdale. These are wellserved with Migrant Resource Centres,grant-in-aid workers and other agen-cies oriented towards NESB clients.Some local councils, such as Fairfieldand Canterbury, also provide serviceswhich are sensitive to an NESB clien-tele, although others, such as Auburn,do not. In Melbourne. concentrationsof NESB are, likewise, fairly wellserved. Areas where more than 35% ofthe population normally use a lan-guage other than English at homeinclude Sunshine, Keilor, Whittlesea,Brunswick, Coburg, Northcote, Rich-mond, Oakleigh, Fitzroy, Collingwood,Melbourne City, Altona,Broadmeadows and Preston. Councilssuch as Northcote and Brunswick arewell-known for their responsiveness toan NESS clientele. In other cities,concentrations are less dense andnumerous. In Adelaide, only two small

municipalities, Hindmarsh andThebarton, have a concentration ofmore than 35% of the population usingnon-English languages. In Perth, thereis no similar municipality. In Brisbanethere are two comparable concentra-tions, around Darra and West End, butthese do not form the basis of distinctlocal governments (Jupp andMcRobbie, 1989).

For the large number of NESB womenwho live in these areas of ethnic con-centration, there is good availability ofservices, although they are not neces-sarily perfect. There is also, of course,considerable pressure upon suchservices because of the large numbersof potential clients involved. Most ofthe areas of NESB concentration arealso attracting new arrivals, who mayrequire services based on new lan-guages. Thus the concentrations ofVietnamese, Chinese and Khmer inareas like Richmond and Springvale inMelbourne or Fairfield and Marrickvillein Sydney, are moving into areas whereservices were originally developed inresponse to Southern European needs.Any allocation of funds for languageservices must take into account thatthe potential need is highly concen-trated and is mainly in Sydney andMelbourne. However, some moremiddle-class migrants, such as Kore-ans, Tamils or Iranians have moved toareas which have not been responsiveto NESB clients to the same degree asthe more traditional areas of immi-grant settlement.

The more intractable problem of reach-ing relatively isolated NESB women isof importance to Filipino women, whofortunately often have a high level ofEnglish competence. Other rural andprovincial birthplace groups of signifi-cance included (1986 total for malesand females of over 150):

5 -

51


Italian-born: Griffith (2195), Lismore(378), Leeton (372), Broken Hill (173).Coifs Harbour (168), Orange (151);Mildura Shire (773), Rodney Shire(583), Wangaratta (482), Myrtelford(398), Swan Hill (393), Cobram (341),Madura City (294), Oxley Shire (238),Traralgon (209), Wonthaggi (198),Narracan (190); Hinchinbrook Shire(1176), Maroochy (1038), Burdekin(890), Johnstone (717), Mulgrave Shire(564), Stanthorpe (532), Atherton(255). Cardwell (207), Bundaberg(187), Mackay (168); Mt Gambier (283),Pt Pixie (249), Whyalla (223), MurrayBridge (190); Bunbury (473), Geraldton(222), Manjimup (176), Albany (169):Northern Territory (1301).

Greek-born: Mildura City & Shire(249); Renmark (316), Coober Pedy(169), Berri (156), Barmera (154),Whyalla (152); Northern Territory(744).

Yugoslavia-born: Albury (212):Wodonga (409), Mildura Shire (179):Maroochy (167). Cairns (156); Whyalla(284), Port Lincoln (179), Coober Pedy(167); Port HedlanJ (239), East Pilbara(224), Roebourne (218). Carnarvon(154); Northern Territory (329).

Poland-born: Maitland (215); Moe(160); Bunbury (152).

Vietnam-born: Northern Territory(148).Source: Birthplace, Language. Religion:1971-86.

There are identifiable groups of NESBorigin people living in a wide variety ofsmall provincial or remote centres. Thegreat majority of these are from Italy.Most of their communities are ageingand declining, although they may

52

59

contain significant numbers of womenwith poor English, as a survey of NorthQueensland suggested in 1984 (Smithet al., 1985). Most such communitiesare balanced between males andfemales, with the exception of CooberPedy and some of the Pilbara mininglocations. There are arguments forbasing some women interpreters insuch regional locations, particularly inthe Pilbara, the Murray andMurrumbidgee irrigation areas andnorth Queensland. The most usefulallocation of resources would probablycombine the work of interpreting withthat of a grant-in-aid or communitydevelopment worker. The long estab-lished Italian communities undoubt-edly worked out communication strate-gies of their own some years ago. Asthey age, however, they are likely tomake more demands on public serv-ices which would best be handledthrough professionally qualified inter-preters. This might frequently have tobe handled through TIS rather thanon-site. It is particularly important toensure that public services in suchrural and remote areas are fully awareof the interpreting services to whichthey have access, and the use of trans-lated information which will normallybe produced in the metropolitancentres.

30. Council recommends that famili-arity with TIS should be built intoremote area services provided byGovernments and the rate of remotearea usage should be monitoredcentrally on a regional and genderbasis by TIS.

=0..


Women as providersof interpreting andtranslating servicesAs women require or prefer womeninterpreters, it is obviously necessarythat enough such interpreters beavailable. This is particularly impor-tant for languages such as Arabic orTurkish where it must be assumedthat religious factors underpin anypreference for dealing through womenonly. In general, those interpreters ortranslators accredited by NAATI have afemale preponderance but this variesbetween language groups. No availablefigures exist for others who are notNAATI accredited. NAATI accreditationdoes not guarantee that a person isactively engaged in interpreting andtranslating among immigrant commu-nities. Indeed, the large numbersaccredited at relatively high levels inFrench or German suggest that manylanguage teachers are acquiring NAATIaccreditation as part of their profes-sional development rather than be-cause they intend actively to becomeinterpreters. Moreover, for on-siteinterpreting it is highly desirable for afemale interpreter to be availablewithin reasonable geographical dis-tance. Thus it is necessary to analyseNAATI data in terms of the number offemales accredited, the languages inwhich they are accredited and theareas in which they live. NAATI doesnot officially distinguish between malesand females in its published listings,but most are distinguishable by 'Mr','Mrs', 'Miss' or 'Ms'. Others, such as

'doctors', 'reverends' or other titles canbe assumed to be predominantly malebut are separately listed here. The levelof doctorates is particularly highamong Central and East Europeansand most of these are men.

It would be desirable if NAATI couldclearly indicate which interpreters aremale and which female and attempt toshow whether they are actively em-ployed in their profession.

24. Council recommends that NAATIreport in its Annual Report on thenumbers of interpreters and transla-tors accredited at each level, theirgender and language groups, and onspecialist accreditation in areas ofcentral concern such as law andhealth.

The following Tables indicate thenumbers of women accredited inter-preters and translators by languageand by region, together with an indica-tion of the availability of women inter-preters in minority languages.

Table 7 suggests that the apparentfemale majority among accreditedinterpreters and translators at orabove NAATI level 3 is partly explainedby the large component fluent inFrench and German, rather than byfemale majorities in most 'communitylanguages'. While some interpretingmay well be needed in French andGerman, it is unlikely to be central tothe needs of NESB women. Of concernis the deficit of women among somemajor language groups, especiallyArabic, Maltese, Turkish and Vietnam-ese. As Arabic and Turkish are the twomost important languages of Islamic

53


Table 7NAATI accredited interpreters/translators by language, gender and level;1990-91. (* Females over 50%).

Language Male Female Drs, etc.

Level Five:French* 3German* 2Spanish* 3TOTAL' 8

Level Four:Afrikaans* 1

Arabic 5 1

Cantonese 1

Dutch* 1

Farsi(Persian) 1

French* 5 11 2German* 4 13 1

Creek 1 1

Italian 5 5 3Japanese* 2 5 1

Mandarin 5 3Russian* - 2Spanish* 8 1 0TOTAL' 37 52 8

Level Three:Arabic 58 21 2Bulgarian 1 1

Cantonese* 22 32 1

Croatian* 31 41 2Czech 3 5 2Dutch 8 9 4Farsi (Persian) 13 9 3French* 45 111 12German* 84 136 13Greek 74 65Hungarian 12 7 7Indonesian 15 12 6Italian* 85 148 15Japanese* 18 44 4Khmer 4 -Korean 21 11 2Lao* 3 5 -Macedonian 14 15 1

Malay 4 1 3Maltese 13 1 1

Mandarin 93 73 8Polish* 37 58 9Portuguese* 12 18 3Romanian* 9 12 2Russian 27 22 4Serbian* 32 49 2Slovak* 1 3 -Spanish* 60 140 8Thai* 7 9 1

Turkish 59 36Ukrainian 1 -Vietnamese 85 38 7TOTAL' 951 1131 123TOTAL lessFrench and

German 822 884 98

Note: Figures in this Table do not necessarily refer to separate individuals. In some cases, the sameperson may be accredited in several languages or as both an interpreter and translator.54 Source: calculated from NAATI National Directory 1990-91

61

Women ancl Language Services

women in Australia, their expressedpreference for female interpreters isnot likely to be transformed into aneffective right unless the deficit is met.There seems to be a strong case foractively encouraging women-onlyclasses for those fluent in these lan-guages, although the demand will nodoubt be less for Maltese (many ofwhom are fluent in English) than forthe other three (where English profi-ciency is low).

11. Council recommends that alltertiary institutions and fundingbodies responsible for languageservices should be aware of thegender imbalance in the numbers ofNAATI-registered interpreters andconsequently adopt recruitment andtraining strategies to train sufficientnumbers of women interpreters.

17. Council recommends that thereshould be women-only classes ininterpreting and translating forwomen fluent in Arabic, Turkish andVietnamese, to redress the deficit ofwomen interpreters and translatorsin these languages.

What is not revealed by the above tableis the fact that in many situations nowoman professional interpreter islikely to be available. There were nowomen accredited to Level 3 in anumber of major languages; as indi-cated in Table 8.

While there may be no significantdemand for some of these major lan-guages in areas like Tasmania or theNorthern Territory, some gaps areworth noting. The assertion thatwomen 'have a right to a woman inter-preter', as argued by the NESB wom-en's health strategy, cannot be effec-tively implemented on-site while thesegaps remain. The problem is, ofcourse, most acute in the lesser Statesand Territories. It is also acute for theminor languages (or 'rare' languages asNAATI defines them in a listing of 51which includes Aboriginal groups). Fewof these have accredited interpreters ortranslators at Level 3, while most onlyhave them at the basic language aideLevel 1 or as recognised interpretersand translators without NAATI accredi-tation.

Table 8Areas without NAATI Level 3 accredited women

NSW Vic. gm SA WA Tas NT ACT

Khmer x x x x xMaltese x x x x

Arabic x x x x x

Thai x x x xHungarian x x x x

Korean x x x

IndonesianFarsiCantonese

x x

xxx

x

Greek

62 55


In Australia as a whole there wereaccredited women, usually at thelowest level, or recognised only, in thefollowing languages listed in Table 9.

Table 9Accredited women at Levels 1 or 2or Recognised

European languages:Albanian 1, Armenian 4, Finnish 2,Slovene 2. Yiddish 2.

Middle East languages:Assyrian 1, Hebrew 3

Southeast Asian languages:Burmese 2, Cebuano 1, Tetum 1,Filipino/Tagalog 13

Indian languages:Dari 1, Hindi 2, Punjabi 2, Tamil 4,Urdu 1

Chinese languages:Hakka 3, Hokkien 1, Teo Chlew 1

Other languages: Tongan 1

Languages in which there is a deficit ofqualified or recognised women include:Assyrian (1 out of 11) and Urdu (1 outof 8).

Languages which had qualified orrecognised men but no women include:Estonian, Hakka, Konkani, Latvian,Pushto. There appears to be a severeshortage of women interpreters for thelanguages of Islamic Afghanistan andPakistan. In contrast, the great major-ity of those fluent in Filipino/Tagalogand Cebuano are women.

These figures suggest that there is along way to go before all NESB womencan exercise a 'right' to an interpreter

56

63

except through TIS. While some inter-preting may be done competently andprofessionally by those at Level 1 orwithout formal NAATI accreditation,this is likely to be less satisfactory inhealth and law matters than for moregeneral purposes. Because of the needto pass through the NAATI levels, thelonger-established European lan-guages are well represented at Level 3and above, while the newer Asian orother minor languages are concen-trated at Levels 1 and 2 or the basiclevel of recognition. The NAATI accredi-tation levels are currently under re-view. However, at present NAATIdescribes these levels as follows:

Recognition does not have equivalentstatus with accreditation, nor does itspecify a level of proficiency since itdoes not involve any form of assess-ment... Recognition is now grantedonly in rare languages for which NAATIis unlikely to offer accreditation tests.

Level 1 is an elementary level. At thislevel persons are accredited NOT asinterpreters and translators but as'language aides'. This level is appropri-ate for persons who are capable ofusing a minimal knowledge of a lan-guage for the purpose of simple com-munication. This capacity may be auseful adjunct in performing theirprincipal duties.

Level 2 represents a level of ability forthe ordinary purposes of generalbusiness, conversation, reading andwriting. This level is generally suitablefor those who use a second languageas an important part of their principalduties.

Level 3 is the first professional levelfor those who undertake the general


purpose tasks of interpreting andtranslating in a wide range of subjects.

Level 4 is the advanced professionallevel for specialist translating andinterpreting. Interpreters working atthis level are expected to be capable ofboth simultaneous and consecutiveinterpreting at meetings and confer-ences.

Level 5 is only attained by a selectgroup of interpreters and translatorswho have proven extensive experienceand demonstrated leadership in thefield.

There is a substantial concentration inthe 'newer' languages at these lowerlevels and a high proportion of women.At Level 2 there were 36 women quali-fied in Arabic in New South Wales, asagainst 65 men, but 61 women quali-

fied in Cantonese as against only 29men. In Victoria there were 20 womenqualified at Level 2 in Khmer, com-pared with 21 men and eight in Laocompared with six men. In Turkishthere were 44 qualified women inVictoria and 39 men, while in NewSouth Wales there were 30 women and33 men. For Vietnamese at Level 2. theNew South Wales figures were 51women to 56 men while for Victoriathey were 49 women to 61 men. Thuswhile there are still male imbalances inArabic and Vietnamese, the overallpicture at this lower level is moreencouraging than for Level 3 andabove. It seems highly desirable thatwomen qualified at Level 2 should beencouraged to continue their studiesas a necessary contribution to fillingexisting gaps for women interpretersfor new arrivals from Asia and theMiddle East who do not use Europeanlanguages.

64 57

Women and Langua,7e Services

Chapter 3Provision of language servicesConsultations forthis reportFocussed discussiongroups

Discussions with groups of womenwho were potential or establishedusers of interpreter and translatorservices were held in Melbourne,Sydney and North Queensland. Fullreports on these focussed discussiongroups appear in Appendix 2, and asummary of issues and problemsraised appears below. It should benoted that while the consultants madeevery effort to discover whether serv-ices referred to were Commonwealth,State, or private, in some cases thewomen themselves were uncertainabout the affiliation of the interpretersthey used. In the following reports ofconsultations, comments relate toaccredited interpreters unless other-wise stated. In addition, the women'sperceptions of their rights in relation tolanguage services may not have beencorrect. As a result, it is almost certainthat in some cases complaints werewrongly ascribed to particular organi-sations.

Availability of services

There arc difficulties in obtaining helpin newer and minor languages. Mostrespondents knew of TIS and manyhad used it. However, some found thesystem slow and complicated, espe-

58 6 5

daily where prior appointments wereneeded. It was not always appropriatefor health purposes as there could be along waiting period for appointments inminor languages. Interpreters were notusually available at night. Interpreterswere not often available for dealingwith schools, unless there was a largenumber of children from a particularlanguage background when teacher'saides might be available. The elderlyoften needed interpreters. There werefrequent delays in translating impor-tant documents, sometimes for as longas four months. Knowledge of languageservices was inadequate in remoteareas.

Specialist interpreting

The lack of trained health interpretersin some languages could lead to seri-ous errors. In general, the publichospital system was more responsivethan private practitioners. It was feltthat specialist handbooks could beprepared for medical terminology.Specialist interpreting was particularlyimportant in medical and legal cases.

Use of unregistered orunqualified people

Many women used children or relativesas interpreters and some were reluc-tant to use professionals for fear oflack of confidentiality. The use ofchildren was not always appropriateand, in some language groups, chil-dren were not effectively bilingual. Itwas noted that grant-in-aid workers


were frequently used rather thanprofessionals. Many agencies preferredgrant-in-aid workers, as they did notcharge for their services. This wasparticularly true of the Queenslandpolice, especially in domestic violencesituations. In remoter areas it wascommon to use unqualified peoplewithout payment.

Need for female interpreters

Female interpreters were essential inhealth matters. It was desirable tohave women doctors from the relevantlanguage background if possible. Manylegal matters, particularly relating tofamily law, were best discussedthrough a female interpreter.

Standards and ethics

Some court interpreters intervenedunduly in proceedings, rather thansimply interpreting between client,lawyers and judges. Privately engagedlegal interpreters often charged highfees. Lack of punctuality was a prob-lem with interpreters, as was availabil-ity outside normal working hours. Lackof confidentiality was also a problem,especially in smaller communities.Translating standards were often poor,leading to mistakes in official docu-ments such as birth certificates.

Barriers to obtaininginterpreting qualifications

Poor English or lack of general educa-tion were seen as obstacles to gainingqualifications. Some felt that providing

better English classes would solvemany problems, especially for theelderly. For some women, the absenceof single-sex classes was a barrier forreligious reasons. Family responsibili-ties prevented many women fromenrolling in courses. Most respondentsfelt that interpreting and translatingwere honourable and desirable profes-sions but that they did not have thetime or the capacity to undertakeintensive training.

Discussions with serviceproviders and relevantorganisations

Consultations were carried out with awide range of service providers, profes-sionals, ethnic and women's organisa-tions and relevant government advisorsin a number of States. Both agencieswhich used and agencies which pro-vided language services were includedin consultations, in most cases at thesame meetings. Many issues wereraised in discussions, including thosewhich had also been raised by thetarget group consultations. Theseincluded issues of interpreter andtranslator competence, ethics andtraining, availability of services, in-cluding the use of unqualified orunregistered people, the need fortraining of professionals, the effect ofcost recovery or 'user pays', and theproposed language services organisa-tion. Each of these broad headings isdealt with in more detail below.

59


Competence, ethics andtraining

In general, most service providers andorganisations considered that thecompetence and ethics of interpreterswere of a good standard, although theneed for specialist knowledge in themedical, legal and domestic violenceareas was strongly stressed in alldiscussions. It was felt that in somecases the use of unqualified or unreg-istered people or indeed relations withlanguage skills in these areas wasnecessary because of their trustedstatus or relevant experience, but thatthese people were often least able tocope with the specialist terminologyrequired. However, in other cases, theethics and competence of interpreterswere considered to have been of aninadequate standard. Cases whichwere raised in relation to this includedproblems of insufficient confidentialityand inadequate knowledge of legal andmedical terms which had in somecases extremely bad consequences forthe clients. While some service provid-ers felt that these problems could onlybe overcome by more appropriatetraining, others questioned the needfor greater 'professional neutrality' andsaw a need for the recognition of theplace of unqualified or unregisteredpeople with specialist knowledge of anda commitment to women's issues andservices. The need for codes of ethicsand training to include proper mentionof women's issues, in particular therecognition of situations in which awoman interpreter should be providedif at all possible, was stressed by manyof those consulted, and it was felt thatsuch codes should be developed withwide community consultation.

60

18. Council recommends that Minis-ters for Ethnic Affairs agree to anational uniform code of ethics forinterpreters and translators.

19. Council considers that all inter-preters and translators should beregistered members of a nationalprofessional body which subscribesto the national code of ethics.

In relation to training, many of thoseconsulted believed that insufficientpriority was given to encouragingwomen to undertake training. This wasespecially so for those from newlyarrived groups. The needs of womenwith limited English or education werenot considered to be sufficiently ad-dressed, nor were the needs of countryand otherwise isolated women. Again,the need for specialist terminology forboth registered and unregisteredinterpreters was stressed in relation totraining, as was the need for adequatecoverage of issues of ethics and confi-dentiality. In addition, it was felt thatthere were inadequate incentives forinterpreters to upgrade their skill level,especrally as many qualified interpret-ers were unable to obtain full-timeemployment. Some of those consultedfelt that priority in employment shouldbe given to those speaking newerlanguages, even if they were not able tobe accredited at Level 3.

Availability of services

In relation to availability of interpretingservices, many service providers weredeeply dissatisfied with current serv-ices. The most commonly mentionedproblems included getting inter 17-etersin newer languages, obtaining womeninterpreters, accessing out-of-hours


services, and getting the same inter-preter consistently throughout a case.Translation services were seen astaking an inordinately long time,especially in relatively simple cases,and mistakes were said to be fairlycommon. Again, obtaining translationsin the newer languages was said to beparticularly difficult. Crisis serviceworkers strongly stressed the need forgreater availability of women interpret-ers, especially outside regular workinghours. The lack of three-way tel-ephones in hospitals, police stations,crisis services and other key pointswas also raised as an issue whichneeded addressing.

Use of unqualified peop/e

The reliance of service providers andprofessionals on unqualified people,particularly out-of-hours, was raisedby those consulted on many occasions,with the majority considering themadequate in skills and often morereliable, available and committed tothe client. As mentioned above, it wasfelt that specialist and upgradingtraining should be available to thesepeople where appropriate, as themajority of these were women, oftenwith many other responsibilities eitherat their normal workplace or in thehome, or both. It was felt that suchreliance was inevitable, especially inrural areas, and that proper recogni-tion of the role and training and sup-port needs of unqualified people wasnecessary.

It was stressed, however, that usingfamily members had many problems,for both client and service provider,and that the overriding principleshould be that the client should beable to reject an unacceptable inter-

preter and to make a choice based onknowledge of the availability of serv-ices. It was also felt by many thatintolerable burdens were often placedon women workers in welfare or refugeservices, forcing them to act as inter-preters despite the fact that this couldundermine their relations with sectionsof their community. The special bur-dens of having to deal with situationsfor which they were not trained, oreven emotionally supported, such astorture or psychiatric-related matters,were strongly stressed.

Training of professionals

It was stressed at all meetings withservice providers and other organisa-tions that considerably more effortneeds to be put into training profes-sionals in using interpreter and trans-lator services. While it was acknowl-edged that some professionals hadundertaken such training, it was feltthat difficulties still arose from lack ofcross-cultural understanding. culturalinsensitivity or lack of experience tosupport such training. The particularneeds of police were stressed in anumber of discussions, as were theneeds of legal and health professionals.It was also felt that many 'counter'officers in government departmentswere unfamiliar with the range ofinterpreter services available, and didnot know how to use them effectively.It was felt by some that relying onunqualified or unregistered people wasan outcome of this lack of experience.The need to educate such professionalson the special needs of women clientswas also stressed, with lack of sensitiv-ity to gender issues and cultural differ-ences in women's roles cited as beingwidespread among professionals of alltypes.

61


34. Council considers that bothinitial training courses and refreshercourses for professionals providingservices to NESB clients shouldinclude compulsory units in how towork with interpreters and transla-tors.

36. Council considers that the Actsin Victoria and Tasmania requiringpolice to use interpreters, especiallyin cases involving domestic vio-lence, set an example which shouldbe adopted in all States and Territo-ries.

The effects of cost recovery

Understanding of the spirit and prac-uce of cost recovery varied consider-ably among those consulted. While itwas generally understood that theperson of NESB should not be person-ally responsible for payment, there wasconsiderable confusion about whichagency was likely to be responsible. Inmany cases, agency representativeswere worried by their inability to useinterpreting services as much as theyfell was necessary, because theirbuugets were unlikely to cover suchuse. It was felt that many services werethereby suffering effective cutbacks inservices, especially in relation to serv-ices for newly arrived groups and thosewho were not in the initial stage ofsettlement. A considerable increase inreliance on unqualified or unregisteredpeople was seen as a direct outcome ofcost recovery. It should be noted,however, that in principle cost recoverywas seen as an inevitable althoughundesirable development in an Aus-tralia-wide atmosphere of restraint and'sharing the burden'. Some Stategovernment representatives wereconcerned at the possible effects on

6269

smaller States of the Commonwealth'scommitment to cost recovery, and werestrongly of the view that providingspecialist language services should beviewed as a settlement service andtherefore a Commonwealthresponsibility.

The proposed languageservices organisation

The then proposed language servicesorganisation received mixed responses.A majority of those consulted perceivedit in a positive light, with a potentialoutcome of greater service efficiencyand choice, while retaining the special-ist knowledge of experienced interpret-ers in a number of fields. The excep-tion was State government representa-tives, who saw the proposal as a retro-grade step, especially in States withestablished specialist services.

Adequacy ofservices

Existing provision atCommonwealth and Statelevels

Existing interpreting and translatingservices are under continuous review,as are now the structure and functionsof NAATI. What is relevant to thisinquiry is the extent to which servicesare likely to reach NESB women effec-tively. The available literature suggeststhat this has never been evaluated insuch terms, nor is it clear that thepresent negotiations and evaluationstake into account the probability thatthose women needing the services


most are the least likely to know aboutthem. The major consultancy commis-sione.d by the Language Services TaskForce through the Bureau of Immigra-tion Research in 1990-91 (unpub-lished) does not distinguish betweenmen and women in its questionnaireresponses. Most debate on languageservices in the bureaucratic arena isfocussed on costs and eliminatingduplication, rather than on clientneeds. However, it is obviously desir-able that available funds and servicesshould be used as efficiently as possi-ble. There is little point in advocatingthe 'right' of all women to appropriateinterpreting or translating of 'all'relevant material, if funds are beingwasted or misapplied. At the sametime, it is important to understand theissues surrounding the cost recoveryapproach, as NESB women are amongthose least likely to be able to affordcharges for interpreting and translat-ing services, while public and privateservice provision agencies are currentlyfaced with restricted or decliningfunds.

Language services in Australia origi-nated at the Commonwealth level whenpart-time interpreters in post-Wardisplaced persons camps were em-ployed. These were drawn from thecamp inmates who enjoyed some smallprivileges and payments but did notconstitute a salaried or professionalworkforce. Such a workforce was notdeveloped until the institutionalisationof the Bilingual Information Officersystem within DILGEA in 1979 inresponse to the Galbally Report of theprevious year. These officers (29 full-time and 68 part-time in 1986) haveamong their duties 'information provi-sion, bilingual assistance to teacherswithin the AMEP, interpreting and

translating, development of materialand clerical duties' (Jupp, 1986: 440).These officers were of most value whilea system of hostels or migrant centreswas in place. As this system windsdown their functions are no longer assignificant. It is unlikely that thesystem will be expanded.

At the centre of DILGEA's languageservices is theformer Telephone Inter-preter Service, now renamed theTranslating and Interpreting Service(TIS) following the amalgamation ofDILGEA's translating and interpretingservices. Its official aims were 'toprovide interpreting over the telephoneto persons with English languagedifficulties in situations where theiraccess to services is involved and tothe providers of those services (exclud-ing commercial and social situations).Where telephone interpreting is im-practical on-site interpreters can bearranged. In addition, TIS provides amultilingual information and referralservice' (Jupp, 1986: 496). The originsof TIS were of direct relevance towomen, as they arose from a voluntaryresponse to the death of a woman whowas unable to seek help because shecould not speak English. This led thethen Liberal Government to institutethe system in 1972. This origin in amedical crisis continues to be relevant,with medical issues being the largestsingle item of inquiry throughout thehistory of the service. TIS is a remark-able organisational achievement byworld standards and is of particularimportance to isolated or house-boundwomen. As a general principle, theservice cost is limited to a local callcharge since the introduction of a 008number. However, the principle thatagencies using TIS as part of theirnormal language service should pay

70 63


the Commonwealth, has now beenintroduced. This applies especially toState services such as hospitals orpolice in States without their ownlanguage services.

4. Council considers that the provi-sion of all languages Australia-widethrough TIS 24 hours a day on 008numbers is a bare minimum stand-ard of service to be achieved andthat the principle that no charge toindividual callers from the publicshould be made for TIS other than alocal charge should be maintained.

The other significant DILGEA servicewas provided through TranslationUnits, which were closely associatedwith TIS and have now been amalga-mated into the new Translating andInterpreting Service. These were for-mally established in 1959, althoughtranslations of relevant documents hadbeen provided on an unorganised basissince 1947. From 1959 the serviceundertook to translate all documentsrelevant to settlement, while in 1963this was extended to provide translat-ing services for all Commonwealthdepartments. The principle that settle-ment-related documents should betranslated free has been maintained,but fees are charged for all othertranslations and they are paid byeither the user or the agency.

DILGEA's own assessment of its role inlanguage services is contained in itsAccess and Equity statements of 1987-90 and 1991-94 (OMA, 1991). 'Barri-ers' noted in the 1987 plan were 'thepoor quality of information material'and 'the limited availability of informa-tion material in languages other thanEnglish'. It aimed to 'implement aLanguage Service Policy for better

64

71

communication with clients'. Amonginterpreter and translation serviceinitiatives which DILGEA claimed hadbeen implemented by 1990 were theincreased use of on-site interpreting,greater publicity for TIS, the introduc-tion of dual handsets in DILGEAoffices and the introduction of morecost-effective word processing units fortranslation.

A requirement that senior officersidentify interpreting and translationpriorities in the estimates process wasnot implemented. Commenced but notfully implemented initiatives includedtraining interpreting staff in depart-mental policy and procedures, andeducating staff in the recognition ofcommunication difficulties and the useof interpreters. There was no specificmention of women and languageservices, although the statement notedthat identifying 'priority target groupswhich may be particularly disadvan-taged and require more specialisedattention (such as recently arrivedgroups)' is to be implemented throughsettlement plans which 'are eithercomplete or at an advanced stage'.

For the future, DILGEA spelled outfurther initiatives for the period endingin 1994. Some of these repeated goalsset in 1987 but carried over into thenew period. Responses to the Minis-ter's round of consultations in 1991revealed some relevant problemsrequiring solution. These included:

DILGEA staff do not use TIS orbilingual staff as often as theymight;

jargon is still used in place of plainEnglish in information material;


information is not translated into anadequate number of languages;

information is often outdated by thetime it is translated;

there is a lack of information aboutthe preferred language of clients,which is often assumed to be basicEnglish;

'it has become clear that communi-cation is a major barrier in providingquality services for clients'.

Among strategies proposed for 1991-94are:

review and produce an annualreport on the Language ServicesPolicy:

commission a survey on perceptionsby female clients of barriers toDILGEA's services;

collect client data at the counter onservice required, ethnicity, languageand gender;

measure the effectiveness of TIS/Translations service:

maintain a national register ofcurrent staff language skills;

develop a plain English policy for theDepartment;

It design and display posters advertis-ing TIS at DILGEA counters:

train interpreting staff in Depart-mental policy and procedures;

use computer and other technologyto deliver information sessions in

community languages in rural andisolated areas:

implement the Department's Wom-en's Issues Plan ;

provide training on working withinterpreters to other agencies and tofinal year university students inmedicine and law faculties:

program managers to identify inter-preting and transiating priorities inbudget estimates. (OMA, 1991)

Employing interpreters and translatorsthrough TIS and the Translation Units,put DILGEA at the centre of officiallanguage services. Other services wereprovided by private agencies, such asthe banks, from the mid 1950s. Privateservices now almost invariably chargefees at commercial rates. The role ofthe States in providing language serv-ices was limited prior to the cost-sharing program of 1979. Bilingualteacher aides were used in schools inthe major areas of immigrant settle-ment but many State agencies simplyused Commonwealth facilities such asTIS. Following the Galbally Report of1978 and its evaluation by AIMA in1982, the Commonwealth agreed tomatch State expenditures on a three-year basis, with a view to their devel-opment of effective language services.This was a reducing commitment withthe objective of encouraging and as-sisting States (including the NorthernTerritory) 'to set up their own languageservices in areas of prime State re-sponsibility'. In 1989 the Common-wealth announced that it intended towithdraw from the cost-sharing ar-rangements over a four-year period.The program summary for 1986 stated

65


that 'implicitly, the program extendsonly to those State responsibilitiesinvolving delivery of human services toimmigrants. As the program has devel-oped, funding has largely been directedto services in the areas of health,justice and general settlement andwelfare. Funding has been refused forproposals not directed to permanentresidents (e.g.. tourism) and for pro-posals involving language services foremployees of State authorities' (Jupp,1986: 503).

The other area of Commonwealth-Stateco-operation and joint funding is thesupport for NAATI. NAATI was estab-lished in 1977 and was reorganised asan independent body (now a publiccompany) in 1983. It is jointly fundedby the Commonwealth and States andTerritories, who are represented on itsmanagement. NAATI also receivesexamination fees for its accreditationfunction. The aims of NAATI are 'toestablish professional standards forinterpreters and translators, to developthe means by which practitioners canbe accredited at various levels, and todevelop and implement a nationalsystem of registration and licensing'(NAATI, 1990: 1). The largest singlecontribution to NAATI comes from thebudget of DILGEA ($318 000 in 1989-90). Its headquarters are located inCanberra but not within the DILGEAoffices.

This Commonwealth inpk It into lan-guage services follows from the exer-cise of Commonwealth power overimmigration and is centred onDILGEA. However, other Common-wealth agencies now have an interestin this area. The DSS has developed anetwork of interpreting, translatingand telephone information services.

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The DSS Multilingual Telephone Infor-mation service uses sixteen majorlanguages (Arabic, Chinese, Croatian,Filipino, Greek, Italian, Khmer, Mac-edonian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese,Serbian, Spanish, Tetum, Turkish andVietnamese) with TIS acting as asupplement for less commonly usedlanguages. Direct service is providedthrough DSS offices in New SouthWales, Victoria, South Australia andQueensland, while elsewhere DILGEA,or private agencies, are used. In NewSouth Wales and the ACT, 29 DSSregional offices provide on-site inter-preter services in 18 languages addi-tional to the telephone provision inCantonese, Korean. Lao and Russianon a rostered basis, although onlyVietnamese is available in Canberra.The DSS spent about $3m on thisservice in 1989-90 and demand for it isexpanding steadily. As with othersimilar services, most employees areon part-time contracts. More recentlythe DHHCS has launched a communi-cation strategy to reach its clients.Both DSS and DHHCS have a largefemale clientele.

The other Commonwealth Departmentof relevance to the provision of lan-guage services is DEET through itscarriage of the Australian Languageand Literacy Policy (ALLP). This super-seded the National Policy on Lan-guages (NPL). The autonomous Na-tional Languages Institute of Australiawas set up in Melbourne under theNPL, and after the ALLP was releasedby the Government in September 1991it became the National Languages andLiteracy Institute of Australia (NLLIA),reflecting its enhanced funding andbroader brief. In June 1991 the thenNational Languages Institute of Aus-tralia conducted a discussion seminar

.4


on 'Interpreting, Translating andLanguage Policy' in accordance withthe NPL principle requiring 'equitableand widespread language services'.While the Institute does not providelanguage services, it must be consid-ered as a possible participant in anyreorganisation of services. It claimsthat 'interpreting and translating is animportant resource in a multiculturalsociety and the development of theprofession is an important issue forboth the NLLIA and Australian policyin general' (NLIJA Newsletter, Septem-ber 1991).

Four Commonwealth Departments areInvolved, in varying degrees, in lan-guage services either directly orthrough autonomous agencies such asNAATI or the NLLIA. There is morevariety at the State level. The Com-monwealth Task Force on LanguageServices estimates that there are ninedistinct language services operating inthe public sector in Australia. In NewSouth Wales, the Language ServicesDivision of the Ethnic Affairs Commis-sion employs 18 full-time and 400contracted interpreting and translatingstaff at a cost of $3m in 1989-90. Thisoperates a translation service on a'user pays' basis. The NSW HealthTranslation Service was established in1980 and claims to be 'the only one ofits kind in Australia'. It has printedand distributed over three millionleaflets rind provides more than 300transla'ied publications, includingpamphlets on women's health, chil-dren's health and information onschool screening. Translations are in17 languages (including Armenian andPortuguese) and some publications arealso available in Indonesian, Japanese,Korean, Filipino, Thai and Tongan. Theservice cost $5m in 1989-90.

In Victoria, the Office of Ethnic AffairsLanguage Services consists of General,Legal, Education and Health Interpret-ing Services and a Translation Service.These services are now consolidatedand cost about $4.5m altogether in1989-90. The General InterpretingService was established in 1989 andcovers 63 languages. A major client tsCommunity Services Victoria, espe-cially in the areas of maternal andchild care. The Legal InterpretingService is mainly used by the Legal AidCommission, Victoria Police and Attor-ney General's. Demand has expandedsince 1989 under the Crimes (FamilyViolence) Act (VEAC Annual Report1990).

The Ethnic Policies and ProgrammesAnalysis report, issued by the Victo-rian Government in June 1991, identi-fies the range of interpreting andtranslating services used by manydepartments. These include translatedpublications from such areas as Plan-ning and Housing, Health, Labour,Agriculture, Education, Arts, AttorneyGeneral, Community Services andConservation and Environment. Inter-preters were provided through Health,Labour, Consumer Affairs, Corrections,Education, Attorney General andCommunity Services.

In other States, services are less devel-oped and there is less demand. Thelargest commitment is in South Aus-tralia through the Office ofMulticultural and Ethnic Affairs. TheOffice spent $1.7m on language serv-ices in 1989-90 but is self-fundingthrough cost recovery. In Queensland,the new Bureau of Ethnic Affairsprovides for translation only. Queens-land has never seriously developed

7 4 67


language services in the past and itspublic hospital system has been amajor user of TIS. The ACT has aMigrant Service Unit within its Depart-ment of Health, as does Western Aus-tralia. The ACT health interpreting unitts supported by the CommonwealthDHHCS. Plans for a centralised inter-preting and translating service devel-oped in Western Australia in 1985 donot seem to have come to fruition. Inthe Northern Territory there is anInterpreting and Translation Service(NTITS) which operates mainly withinthe education system. There are noState language services in Tasmania.

In addition to the services outlinedabove, many Commonwealth, Stateand local government agencies trans-late information material on a spas-modic basis to meet particular needsor in response to policy initiatives oroccasional funding. In the ACT, forexample, pamphlets on supportedaccommodation, including women'srefuges, were translated into eightlanguages in 1990 after Walling withthe service providers and communitiesconcerned. In New South Wales, theWomen's Coordination Unit of thePremier's Department has, since 1984,published translated information ondomestic violence and, in 1986, onwomen and tranquillisers.

The complexity and unevenness ofprovision had prompted the Common-wealth initiative in proposing a na-tional language services organisation.A similar proposal came from Victoriain 1986 under which 'the State wouldprovide all on-site interpreting servicesfor State and local government andvoluntary community service organisa-tions, translate publicity material forState and local governments, and

68

75

possibly provide translation services toCommonwealth departments. TheFederal Government would provide alltelephone interpreting and informa-tion, liaise with the State on the provi-sion of on-site interpreters in areascovered by the State, provide an after-hours booking service through TIS,and translate immigrants' documents'(Jupp, 1986: 248). This proposal wasnot implemented, nor would it havebeen applicable in most other Stateswithout their agreement to a greatlyexpanded role and expenditure.

The Commonwealth proposals wereput to the States but gained inad-equate support to achieve implementa-tion. A consultancy with Peat Marwickwas completed and recommendationsbased on its unpublished report wasdeveloped. The basic Commonwealthargument was that 'variety has createdservice gaps, overloads and duplicationof administrative costs'. This hasconfused the clientele and encouragedwasteful competition between agenciesin the use of interpreters and transla-tors. The Commonwealth suggestedthree possible models:

continuing present arrangementsbut setting national standards,rates, research and promotionthrough an autonomous agency:

setting up a joint Commonwealth-States organisation for deliveringservices either through a distinctagency or through resource agree-ments;

creating tied grants to the Stateswho would retain control over serv-ice delivery on the existing model ofAMEP.


The advantages seen by the Common-wealth include ending wasteful dupli-cation and competition, creating acomputer booking service, creatingflexibility in providing accredited orspecialist interpreters, improvingcareer opportunities and variety, usingnational resources, diversifying intoother and commercial language serv-ices, and upgrading the languageservices profession. It suggested thatpayments from some clients couldcross-subsidise services to others.

Some of the respondents were perfectlysatisfied with the services available,especially in hospitals in Melbourneand Sydney. There is no doubt that theadequacy of language service provisionis at a much higher level than whenmany migrants were arriving in the1950s and 1960s. The major problemstoday are likely to be faced by thoseliving away from the two major me-tropolises and those from newly devel-oping language groups. One advantageof the better established communities(which are mainly from Europe butinclude the Cantonese-speaking Chi-nese) is that they have second andlater generations who are often per-fectly bilingual. In some cases, thesehave entered the professions, espe-cially in the larger cities. Many areservice providers or are involved involuntary ethnic-specific or MRC work.There is clearly a growing reserve ofpeople who, although not necessarilytrained interpreters and translators,can fill many of the gaps in an emer-gency. Thus, while the numbers ofnon-English-speakers are still concen-trated among the middle-aged andelderly from Europe, the basic problemof effecting any communication at allmay be borne by others. Here again,there are many well-educated and

bilingual migrants arriving from Asiaand Africa. The TIS figures suggestthat some new groups, most notablyfrom Indochina and Latin America,have more severe language problemsthan others. There may well be quiteenough bilingual speakers of Indian orFilipino languages already in theprofessions in Australia. Equally, theremay be insufficient Vietnamese, Ara-bic, Turkish or Spanish speakers.Respondents' complaints about serv-ices must always take into accountthat while the general services may beadequate, the language-specific serv-ices may not be. Data on service provi-sion is often of little use unless itincludes details of language spokenand proficiency in English.

Access toinformation aboutservicesEver since the beginning of NESBmass migration in 1947, Australianauthorities have been concerned withcommunicating information aboutservices, rights and responsibilities.There is a wide variety of informationnow available, much of it translated.One of the important functions ofmigrant resource centres and ethnic-specific grant-in-aid workers is todistribute this information and most oftheir offices have a range of materials.The details of TIS are printed at thefront of telephone books in 23 lan-guages (English, Arabic, Chinese,Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian,Indonesian, Italian, Khmer, Korean,Lao, Macedonian, Farsi, Polish, Portu-guese, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish,Tagalog, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese

7 69


in 1990). The only major languagesused in TIS which were not included in1990 were Japanese and Russian. Yet,in one of the consultations undertakenfor this report (with Arabic-speakingwomen), there were still several whodid not know that TIS existed. It is notknown whether using translatedleaflets has been evaluated recently,nor exactly how the languages usedare arrived at. Most information aboutservices still seems to be gathered by'word of mouth within communitynetworks and is not necessarily reli-able. An advertising campaign hasrecently been conducted by the DSS onSBS television in major languages.

42. Council recommends that theuse of translated leaflets to commu-nicate information on Governmentservices, rights and responsibilitiesshould be evaluated, including therange of languages used.

There are several major problems inproviding information about serviceavailability. There is a multiplicity ofservices at the Commonwealth, Stateand often local government level, apartfrom those provided by private agen-cies which receive some public funds.Much of the language of officialdom isopaque and does not translate well.Administrative changes are frequent,so that printed material quickly be-comes out-of-date. These problems areprobably more acute than the often-quoted remark that some migrants areilliterate in their own languages andcannot read printed material. It isunlikely that this is often the case forrecent arrivals, except for some refugeegroups and some family reunion migrants.

By far the best agency for spreading

70

information in languages other thanEnglish has been community-basedradio programs. These are particularlyimportant for small language groups ofrecent arrival (Jupp et al., 1991). Thereare few languages spoken by morethan 500 women throughout Australiawhich do not have a radio programsomewhere. These are not necessarilyaccessible to those in remote areas,but they are few. As those listening tosuch programs are likely to be womenand, by definition, understand thelanguage being used, this avenue ofinformation seems important. How-ever, it is desirable that agenciesproviding extensive interpreting andtranslating services should repeat themessage about their availability andshould make a small payment toprogram organisers for doing so. Suchmessages, confined to a basic fact anda telephone number, should feature inall publicly-funded broadcasts inlanguages other than English.

43. Council recommends that agen-cies providing extensive interpretingand translating services should usecommunity-based radio programs toinform the public about the avail-ability of these services, and shouldconsider making make a small pay-ment to program organisers fordoing so.

7 7

After-hours serviceMany of the consultations stressed theneed for after-hours, on-site interpret-ing. This is particularly essential inmedical cases, where the onset ofconditions is unpredictable. Domesticviolence normally peaks at weekendsor in the late evening, often being


related to alcohol intake which alsorises at such times. Rape crises alsotend to peak at similar times. Manycrises affecting women take place atnight, at the weekends and around thehome. They need personal interventionby an interpreter as it is often imprac-tical to use telephone interpreting insuch conditions. TIS is available 24hours a day by switching from thesmaller centres to Sydney and Mel-bourne. Frequently nothing is readilyprovided on-site as interpreters are notavailable or are reluctant to attend.Police or medical workers are the mostlikely to ring such services at thesetimes, but may be reluctant to do so ifa high cost is involved which needsclearance. This is one of several prob-lems created by the principle of 'agencyuser pays' surveyed below.

As grasp of English is likely to dimin-ish rapidly in such crisis conditions, itis extremely important that the provi-sion of after-hours interpreters shouldbe improved. This would require arostering system and overtime pay-ments, comparable with those avail-able for police, nurses, fire officers orambulance drivers. Their terms are alllaid down in awards which take intoaccount the likelihood of being calledout in crisis situations outside normalworking hours. As part of the increas-ingly professional nature of languageservices, it is highly desirable thatsimilar award terms, based on theexamples given above, should benegotiated. This will not necessarilysolve all problems, especially for lesserlanguages or remote locations. Moreprobably it will ensure that thosecalled to emergencies will be informedabout the availability of languageservices and be able to use them. Itwould be undesirable for such an

emergency provision to be costed fullyto agencies, as this would inhibit itsuse. It should, more appropriately, beseen in the same light as other emer-gency services. Without some financialincentive to interpreters, most of whomare on part-time contracts, it is diffi-cult to see how the problem of after-hours se-- .,ze can be taelded. Yet it isessential to provide such service,especially for women.

26. Council considers that Govern-ment should consult with the rel-evant professional body to develop anational uniform award for inter-preters and translators taking intoaccount levels of proficiency, exper-tise and training and the need towork outside normal hours.

Cost recovery inprinciple andpracticeThe principle of cost recovery has beendeveloped in recent years for manypublic services which were once sup-plied free of charge to the user. It hasalways applied to public utilities suchas gas, electricity, water, telephonesand public transport. Some serviceshave been subsidised to reduce theircost to all or some consumers, includ-ing the widespread Australian practiceof supplying subsidised services toremote areas. Supplying subsidisedservices for medical or welfare pur-poses has been widespread, especiallyfor the aged and for ex-service persons.Public education was also withoutdirect charge for many years except forsome marginal sporting and equipment

71


fees. Recently, fees have been payablein higher education to be derived fromsubsequent income or for 'recreational'studies in TAFE or university exten-sion. In language policy, the majorservices without direct charge to theuser have traditionally been teachingEnglish to adult and child migrants,providing translated material on publicservices, translating documents essen-tial to immigrant settlement, telephoneinterpreting through TIS, and inter-preting in some medical and legalsituations. Some free language services(usually interpreting) have been sup-plied without charge by grant-in-aid ormigrant resource centre workers, whoare paid from public funds. Otherservices, such as translating of non-essential texts, have ahvays beencharged for.

The cost recovery principle often in-cludes a prohibition on subsidisingfrom public funds or from other activi-ties within the same area (cross-subsidisation). Its upholders arguethat services which have no cost arenot appreciated nor can they be effec-tively measured in terms of demand orprotected against 'over-servicing' orunnecessary use. On one level, theargument is a moral one, based on theproposition that users should make achoice between alternatives involvingsome personal cost or sacrifice. Atanother level, the argument is morepragmatic and centres on the so-called'fiscal crisis of the state' or the inabilityto continue providing services indefi-nitely to those who will not or cannotpay for them. This view is usuallysupported by economic argumentswhich hold that the public servicesector is not productive and thusdetracts from investment in wealth-producing activity.

72

The principal argument against costrecovery in language services is thatthe potential user either will not orcannot pay. The potential user will not,therefore, use the service which will beunable to sustain itself on fees and willdisappear. This argument does notapply in all cases. For example, if alawyer or other professional can addinterpreting and translating costs to afee for services which bring profit tothe client, there is no particular reasonwhy that should not be done. lf, how-ever, the client is unable to use a rightto legal service (including languageservices) because of lack of funds, thelegal systems of Australia, throughlegal aid, recognise that some subsi-dised assistance is necessary for theexercise of a right to equity before thelaw. If a client using a public hospitalcannot explain the nature of her illnessto that hospital, then equity requiresthat she should be financially assistedto do so by providing an interpreter. Ifan immigrant cannot speak English onarrival, public policy for over 40 yearshas accepted that English should betaught to that immigrant free ofcharge. This is accepted on the samebasis as English skills are taught inthe public school systems free ofcharge and for the same reason,namely that economic and socialintegration in Australia dependslargely on being literate in English.

The principle of cost recovery can beimplemented on a capacity basis,namely that the user pays if able to doso. This requires an income or assettest, similar to that currently imposedon recipients of unemployment benefit.As the users of language services, bydefinition, are deficient in English,such a test would require interpreting

79


or translating at some stage to make iteffective in any case. As those deficientin English have high rates of unem-ployment and relatively low incomes,public policy has generally continuedto deny the validity of the cost recoveryprinciple. This is not, however, true forservices in New South Wales andSouth Australia nor need it alwaysremain true at the Commonwealth orany other level.

The most plausible arguments for costrecovery when applied to serviceswhich were previously free of directcharge, are:

that the user can afford to paywhich requires a means or incometest:

that the service is too expensive forgovernment to continue it withoutpayment which is based on ahierarchy of priorities;

that the service is not essential andthat users should be forced tochoose whether they want to use itor not.

All of these approaches involve moraland ideological values which cannot beresolved in the abstract.

There are other relevant arguments,however, which should not be over-looked. These include:

that governments are committed toprinciples of access and equitywhich require language services fortheir implementation. Thus there isa policy commitment in one areawhich cannot be implemented with-out free services in another;

that social harmony requires thatthose who cannot use Englishshould be assisted in their dealings

with public agencies to prevent thembecoming alienated ane. hostile tothe social and political system:

that immigrant settlement is positedon universalised intake which neces-sarily requires language services formany new arrivals:

that vital medical, self-protectionand legal rights cannot be guaran-teed without language services;

that the disadvantaged are assistedfrom public funds in many respects,and language services arc anotherexample of this long-establishedpractice.

Some of these arguments derive fromthe principle that, in a social democ-racy, authority has a duty to ensurethat all citizens and legal permanentresidents must be able to exercise theirrights equally with others regardless ofgender, class, age, language. race,religion or ethnicity. This is not a viewthat ideological advocates of costrecovery find convincing, but it hasbeen the basis for much public policyin Australia for most of this century. Itis accepted in varying degrees by allcurrent Australian governments.

There is, then, no universally agreedbasis on which the principle of costrecovery can be assessed. In practice.it is applied differently in differentsituations by different authorities. Forthe purposes of this argument, NESBwomen with English so deficient as torequire intervention, are among theleast capable of paying for services ofany large section of society other thansingle parents, the severely disabledand Aborigines. They are stronglyrepresented among the elderly, manualindustrial workers, the poorly edu-cated, the unemployed and refugees.

6073


The extension of cost recovery princi-ples would not be in their generalinterest even if it meant that morefunds were available for better serv-ices. In the piesent state of the debate,however, cost recovery is much morelikely to be the basis for constrictingservices within current budgets.

The second basis for cost recovery iswhat has become known as 'agencyuser pays'. This is an accountingpractice, now widespread throughoutthe public services, whereby transfersof resources which once went uncostedare now charged on departmental orsectional budgets. This makes it easierto cost such exchanges than waspreviously the case although it in-creases the burden of accountability indoing so. Thus, departments will nowbe charged for published materialwhich they once received as a matter ofcourse, including census information.Agencies which once freely used inter-preting and translating services pro-vided through DILGEA will now becharged for such services. DILGE A willthus be able to practise 'cost reco ,ery'and to offset expenditure items byincome.

All 'agency user' transfers in the publicsector involve, of course, taxpayer-produced revenue, and do not neces-sariiy save any of this. They are justi-fied in terms of greater efficiencythrough accountability.

There is no serious objection to costingtransfers comparable with objectionswhich can legitimately be raisedagainst charging individual users. Thisis now nomial accounting practice inmost large-scale organisations. How-ever, some aspects of 'agency userpays' are causing concern and need tobe reassessed. There is some confusionabout the principle that neither inch-

74

vidual nor 'community organisations'should be charged for services. Al-though DILGEA has publicly adver-tised the fact that no individual will becharged for services which were hith-erto free, it is also clear that commu-nity-based organisations are notcharged. On the other hand, somepolice forces, most notably in NorthQueensland, are not sure againstwhose budget such charges might bedrawn. The most serious problemperceived by service deliverers is thatagencies previously familiar with freeinterpreting will be reluctant to addsuch costs to their budgets and will nolonger call on paid professional assist-ance. The situation could rapidly revertto that of 20 years ago if this reluc-tance became widespread, with clean-ers or clerical staff being brought in tointerpret without charge or with rela-tives or children forced to accompanyclients. One central issue which needsto be evaluated (especially by DILGEAbut also by those State agencies whichmake charges) is whether chargingagencies for interpreting and translat-ing reduces or distorts demand. Suchan evaluation would need to takedemand from women centrally intoaccount. In theory, 'agency user pays'obliges service organisations to incor-porate language service costs into theirnormal budgets. In practice, this maynot be happening.

10. Council recommends thatDILGEA and other State agencieswhich levy charges should evaluatewhether charging agencies for inter-preting and translating servicesreduces or distorts demand.

Wornen and Language Services

Chapter 4Professional and funding issuesProfessional issues

Training of interpretersand translators

Interpreters and translators aretrained mainly through the TAFE andthe former Colleges of Advanced Edu-cation systems. Some may alreadyhave been trained outside Australia.The availability of training courses inAustralia is limited by effective de-mand, given that most institutions arenow unable to gain funding for courseswhich are seen as 'under-subscribed'.This penalises the lesser and morerecently established languages. whichare likely to produce few students, andthe smaller population centres. As withlanguage learning in general, there islittle cohesion or planning acrossAustralia nor is there any agencyequipped to implement such planning.The National Language and LiteracyPolicy white paper of 1991, Australia'sLanguage, nominates fourteen prioritylanguages on which Commonwealthsupport will focus. These are Aborigi-nal languages, Arabic, Chinese,French, German, Indonesian, Italian,Japanese, Korean, Greek, Russian,Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese. Theseexclude some of the major languagesused in TIS such as Polish, Turkish,Serbian, Croatian and Khmer. TheALLP is already being implementedwith the support of the States andTerritories. Under this collaborativeeffort to improve national proficiency inlanguages other than English, the

Commonwealth will provide to eachState and Territory Government, ornon-government education system, anannual grant of $300 for each year 12student who completed in the preced-ing school year one of up to eightpriority languages identified from thelist of fourteen. A ceiling of 25 per centof year 12 enrolments applies. TheState and Territory school systems arefree to apply this funding to any lan-guage-related activity in their schools.Nevertheless, there is still the risk thatinstitutions will tend to favour thoselanguages seen by the Commonwealthas a priority. Tertiary education feedsinto the staffing and recruitment ofmany interpreting and translatingcourses. This will make it more diffi-cult than at present to maintain viablecourses in many community lan-guages. DEET should take the initia-tive in providing specific funds to thetertiary and TAFE system to supportcourses in minor languages and toredress gender imbalance in courseenrolments.

12. Council recommends that DEETshould take the initiative in provid-ing specific funds to the tertiary andTAFE system 1:o support courses inminor languages and redress genderimbalance in course enrolments.

Between 1980 and 1990, NAATI ap-proved a range of interpreting andtranslating courses and these form themajor part of those available (NAATI,1990). Languages studied includedSpanish, Italian, Chinese (Mandarin,

8 275


Cantonese, Hakka), Greek, Polish,Macedonian, Arabic, Serbian,Croatian, Turkish, Vietnamese, Khmer,Farsi, Korean, Lao, German, Portu-guese. Malay, Tagalog, Indonesian,Aboriginal languages, Japanese.French and Russian. These weredistributed over 23 institutions (in-cluding secondary schools) in allStates and Territories except Tasma-nia. But this distribution was irregu-lar. The highest levels (3 and 4) inJapanese were only available inQueensland, reflecting commercialrather than community targets. Level 3in major community languages wasavailable in New South Wales, Victoria,South Australia and Western Australiaonly. As in many other relevant re-spects, only these four States canprovide a reasonable basis for trainingin major languages of community use.

Although the main thrust of publicpolicy has been towards improving theformal qualification of interpreters andtranslators, many transactions are stillundertaken by 'informal' interpreters.These do not necessarily have anyqualifications other than knowledge oftwo languages. However, given thepaucity of resources for teaching allbut a handful of languages outsideSydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, it isinevitable that these intermediarieswill fulfil a useful function for manyyears. While no statistics exist forthem, observation suggests that thegreat majority are women and thatmany women prefer to deal with thembecau Ise they are personally ac-quainted. In some language groupsthese 'informals' may be well educatedbut they may not have access to train-ing courses because they do not existnearby.

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13. Council recommends that TAFEshould offer training programs toupgrade the skills of bilingualworkers.

Training this large number of usefulintermediaries could best be under-taken through migrant resource cen-tres or other focal points familiar to theNESB clientele. Such training wouldnot be in formal language skills, asteachers would not be available. Theycould, however, be in techniques andterminology and in familiarising 'infor-mal' interpreters with likely situationsand the services available for copingwith them. MRC, grant-in-aid or bilin-gual information officers might all havea role in such practical training. Thiswould, of course, need to be funded,supervised and evaluated throughDILGEA, NAATI or the proposed na-tional language services organisation.If such basic training is not under-taken it is probable that two classes ofinterpreters will be sustained. One willbe NAATI qualified, found mainly inthe major cities and paid official rates.The other will be untrained, found insmaller languages or outside themetropolis and unpaid. Such a divisionmeans that an equitable level of servicewill remain a utopian aspiration formany women.

Codes of ethics

A frequent concern of women cun-suited was that confidentiality wouldbe breached. This could have disas-trous social consequences in a smallcommunity, leading in extreme casesto violence or even death. At least onecourt interpreter has been murdered in


recent years in a case which is regu-larly quoted among practitioners. Moreimportantly, many women will notdiscuss sensitive matters if they feelthere is a probability of informationreaching their relatives or acquaint-ances. As many language groups formeffective sub-cultural social networks,this fear is well founded. Anotherproblem quoted is the possibility thatthe interpreter will take a leading rolein the discussion such as to distortmessages passing between professionaland client. This may be more seriouswhen a male interpreter attempts todominate a female client or reinter-prets messages for a male professional.It is also possible that a well-educatedand 'emancipated' woman interpretermay reinterpret messages from a more'traditional' woman client. The centralethical issues are that interpretersmust remain a channel for communi-cation rather than taking an active rolefor themselves and must treat theclient with strict neutrality even ifrelated or personally known to her.

NAAT1 has endorsed a code of ethicsand ethical issues are discussed insome training courses. Developingsuch a code is not part of NAATI'sfunction but rather of the new Austral-ian Institute for Interpreters andTranslators (AUSIT, established in1987), whose code 'supported byNAATI, represents a national code ofethics and should be recognised by allpractising interpreters and translators'(NAATI, 1989b: 1). The recommendedcode is remarkable for not mentioningwomen's needs, a fault which shouldbe rapidly rectilled. While many ethicalissues are the same for both sexes, thenature of social relationships is suchthat ethical questions are almostinvariably gender specific in important

respects. Whole theological, philo-sophical and ethical systems havebeen constructed by the major reli-gions which assume different relevancefor men and women. This is true forthe separation of ritual roles in manyimmigrant groups (see Recommenda-tion 21).

The AUSIT code of ethics (NAATI,1989b) says of confidentiality that 'amember shall not disclose informationobtained from a client which he or sheknows or ought to know is confidentialto such client except with such client'spermission or upon being required todo so by any person legally entitled torequire such information and mustthen use the utmost discretion' (p. 3).This is basically sound, although itavoids the reality that a DILGEA com-pliance officer has the legal right toseek information which might other-wise be deemed confidential, such asthe working, visa or marital status of atcmporary resident. The same couldapply to interpreters and translatorswho are full-time DILGEA employees.However, these are inhibited by an-other part 01 the code where a possibleconflict of interest related to theiremployment might arise. The codedoes not approach the degree of confi-dentiality required of practising law-yers, priests or journalists even if theseare occasionally challenged in court.The code of the International Associa-tion of Conference Interpreters doescommit its members to 'completeprofessional secrecy ... with regard toanyone or anything learned while amember is acting in a professionalcapacity at a private meeting'.

A further concern of women is that inmedical and legal areas, interpretersand translators are not necessarily

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technically competent. Several in-stances of this were quoted to theauthors. The AUSIT code requires thatmembers shall 'refuse work if theybelieve it to be beyond their technicalknowledge of their capacity or theirrecognised linguistic capacity Itseems that this is often not the case inpractice, nor could it be at presentowing to lack of medically or legallyqualified interpreters in many lan-guages. Frequent complaints ofunpunctuality suggest that the codestipulation in this area is not beingmet. This might also be due to a short-age of qualified interpreters, given thelength of time often taken in travellingacross a large city.

Most ethical breaches are only arbitra-ble within AUSIT itself in the case of adispute between members over unfaircompetition and practices. There is nosanction nor any appeal mechanismfor clients. Thus, while members arebound to confidentiality and impartial-ity, there is no recourse for clients ifthese obligations are breached. Only ifa member is convicted in court 'ofinfamous conduct in a professionalrespect as defined in the courts of lawor convicted of a felony or other crimepunishable by imprisonment' is he orshe liable to penalty, and then to oneimposed from outside the profession.Generally, the national anct State codesof ethics developed by the profession inAustralia have two objectives: to main-tain the reputation of the profession:and to inhibit its members from unfaircompetition with each other. Only thefirst protects clients but is notjusticiable between them and the:profession. Given the vulnerable socialsituation and poor education of many

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NESB women clients, it is unlikely thatthey would institute court proceedingsagainst an incompetent or indiscreetinterpreter or translator. Nor would thecourts necessarily see that professionin the same terms which they fre-quently apply to doctors or lawyers.

The ethical L.odes taught in majortraining courses do not refer to genderconsiderations either. They stressconfidentiality, punctuality and impar-tiality. The University of New SouthWales (UNSW) Institute of Languagesstipulates that 'the interpreter is underthe most unqualified obligation neverto divulge any secret ...' This is astronger prohibition than in the AUSITcode quoted above and a comparisonwith doctors and lawyers is madespecifically (NAATI, 1989b: 14). It isacknowledged that there may be aclash of interest if the interpreter isemployed by a public agency. A usefulsuggestion from UNSW is that transla-tors will find value in 'comic papersand cartoons, as well as novels inwhich some characters at least usebad grammar, speak dialects and evenhave to be reported phonetically'. Thisis not strictly an ethical proposition,except that it generally assists inservicing clients more effectively, whichis an ethical obligation. Interpretersand translators are, under this code,obliged to take on work even wherethey disapprove of its tenor because'they have no responsibility whatsoeverfor the substance of the speecheswhich he/she interprets' (p.17).

There is little difference in codes devel-oped for DILGEA's Translating andInterpreting Services or by the NewSouth Wales Ethnic Affairs Commis-sion. Neither of these mention gender


considerations and both stress confi-dentiality and professional compe-tence. TIS interpreters are bound tocomplete confidence which, as arguedabove, may be incompatible withgovernment employment. New SouthWales (which is not responsible forimmigraticn control, unlike DILGEA)binds its interpreters to 'strict profes-sional secrecy at all times. They shallnot disclose any personal or otherinformation acquired in the course oftheir professional duties'. The VictorianEthnic Affairs Commission LegalInterpreter Service limits interpretingto NAATI accredited languages unlessunavoidable. Strict confidence isexpected and 'personal preferences,religious or political opinions, or na-tional or cultural considerations' shallnot interfere with performance.

While these various codes do deal withthe major ethical and performanceissues raised in the consultations, theydo not provide any mechanism forregulation or appeal involving clients.This reflects the rather marginal na-ture of the profession. There is oftenlittle financial incentive to remain in it.There would be a distinct disincentiveif legal recourse were encouraged fromclients as can be done for doctors andlawyers who are usually well insuredagainst such a prospect.

Nevertheless, the frequency of com-plaints about confidentiality,unpunctuality, poor language skillsand lack of specialist knowledge,suggests that much remains to bedone. There needs to be greater recog-nition in ethical codes that some areasare particularly sensitive for womenand that relationships between afemale client and a male interpreterwill vary from one culture to another

and need to be equalised as far aspossible. There also needs to be somemechanism for complaint such thatconsistently defaulting interpretersand translators can be deprived ofcontracts after due process. The majorsupport for an ethical code comes notfrom its verbal formulation but fromraising the overall status of theprofession.

20. Council considers that somemechanism of complaint should beestablished such that interpretersand translators who are consistentlyin breach of the national code ofethics can be deprived of theircontracts after due process.

21. Council recommends that thereshould be greater recognition inethical codes that some areas areparticularly sensitive for women andthat relationships between a maleinterpreter and female client willvary from one culture to another.

Recruitment and trainingof interpreters andtranslators

As previously argued, a majority ofinterpreters and translators accreditedby NAATI are women. This is not truefor all languages and is less true ifthose fluent in French and German areexcluded. Nevertheless, the educa-tional profile of language learning inAustralia suggests that women aremore drawn to this area of study thanmen. The difficulty is not that womenare reluctant to acquire languageskills, although this may be true forsome cultural groups. It is rather that,

8679


having acquired such skills they can-not use them within a permanent andsecure career. The status of languageskills has been low in Australia untilrecently for a number of reasons:

the long monocultural tradition ofAustralia has tended to lead tocontempt or inr,'fference towardsother languages, especially as Eng-lish is the premier language ininternational communication atpresent;

the geographical isolation of Aus-tralia has meant that many native-born Australians have little directexperience of other languages norany real need to learn them foreveryday life (in contrast to thesituation over much of Europe andAsia):

the development of language servicesas relevant to migrant settlementhas led to them being seen as transi-tory until sufficient English is ac-quired:

the proliferation of languages usedin Australia has fragmented thepotential market for using skills:

the lack of commercial potential formany 'community languages' con-fines their users to public sectorservice providers:

the concentration of women at lowerlevels of qualification creates a'female under-class';

the continuing reluctance of authori-ties and professionals to use lan-guage services inhibits their furtherdevelopment as a career;

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budgetary restraints on providingservices limit the possibility ofestablishing more full-time salariedprofessionals in the public sector;

the central role of DILGEA limits themainstreaming of language servicesthroughout the Commonwealth andState sectors as a matter of course,although it does create a centralresource.

This combination of factors means thatthe typical woman interpreter or trans-lator in Australia can only function ona part-time basis on demand and shemust look elsewhere for her maincareer. In some less used languagesthis situation may be so discouragingthat qualified candidates may not evenpresent themselves for NAATI qualifica-tion because the fees are not likely tobe offset against any significant in-come. The time and effort spent intraining courses may not seem worththe effort in terms of eventual remu-neration. However, such courses areoften taken by professional servicedeliverers. Many ethnic-specific ormigrant resource centre workers arealso qualified interpreters and transla-tors and are frequently called upon assuch. However, these occupations(which are predominantly female) arealso based on short-term contractsand uncertain funding. The only im-portant incentive to language profi-ciency which accompanies a perma-nent position is often the languageproficiency awards payable at Com-monwealth and State levels to publicservants who require such proficiencyas part of their occupation. However,these allowances are not great and arelimited in their applicability. Somesuch public servants may have their


course fees reimbursed on successfulcompletion.

There seems little prospect of creatinga permanent career in language serv-ices for more than 12 to 15 languagesin Australia. Consequently, there islittle demand for professional trainingin other languages, and interpretingand translating courses in them arenot viable. Little attempt is made toselect and train speakers of particularlanguages, nor does any mechanismexist for doing so. While many English-speaking Australians are put (perhapspainfully) through courses in Japa-nese, Chinese or Arabic, native-speak-ers of these languages are frequentlyunemployed. Despite Australia's adop-tion of the ALLP, most qualificationsmust be gained through individualinitiative by using whatever coursesare made available, usually throughthe TAFE system. No system of schol-arships exists, such as might be usedto attract more women into courses inArabic. Turkish or Vietnamese. Dis-tance learning is sometimes availableat university level (for example, for Slavlanguages) but this does not extend tointerpreting and translating courses.The consultations associated with thisreport found little enthusiasm amongwomen for entering the languagesservices profession, unless they wereemployed in the welfare or educationalfields already and saw interpreting andtranslating as a useful additional skill.

22. Council recommends that schol-arships be made available for womento train as interpreters and transla-tors, particularly in languages wherethere is a shortage of female inter-preters such as Arabic, Turkish andVietnamese.

One advantage of a national languageservices organisation might be that itwould address the mismatch betweensupply and demand and the uncertainand ultimately frustrating careerexperience of all those using languageskills in their professions (includingprint and electronic journalists, teach-ers, creative artists as well as inter-preters and translators). At presentthere is little cross-subsidisationbetween languages of 'commercial' orof 'community' orientation (a distinc-tion which is sometimes made andsometimes denied in the NationalPolicy on Languages). There is almostno prospect of additional funding orinstitutional support for less com-monly used languages unless theyhappen to fall within the interests ofan individual teacher. Fortunately,some newly arriving communities,such as Iranians, include high propor-tions who are well educated and bilin-gual already. Others, such as Tongansor Khmer, do not. Thus, the officiallyendorsed view that language servicesare an essential component in accessand equity cannot be effectively Imple-mented except through the nationalservice available through TIS.

Among some possible options to ad-dress mismatch and lack of suitablyqualified interpreters and translatorsmight be:

a national policy on the provision ofinterpreting and translating servicesusing the tertiary and TAFE sectorsthrough funding arrangementswhich allocate resources to specificinstitutions for teaching skills inspecific languages:

the creation of a language servicesprofession by identifying public

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service positions more clearly and byimproving the existing conditionsnot only for contracted workers butalso for ethnic-specific or MRCworkers;

the recruitment of female trainees inspecific languages by advertisementwithin appropriate ethnic media andwith the co-operation of appropriateethnic community organisations;

the provision of allowances or schol-arships in deficit languages orspecifically for women to facilitateenrolment in tertiary and TAFEcourses;

the provision in Sydney and Mel-bourne of women-only classes inArabic, Turkish and Vietnamese:

cross-subsidisation within existinglanguage services such that com-mercial fees can be used to supportCommunity language provision;

the strengthening or introduction ofrequirements that professionalwomen interpreters must be used inspecified medical and legal situa-tions as a legally enforceable right.

25. Council considers that Govern-ment should support the conceptof permanent employment for inter-preters and translators incorporat-ing well-developed career structuresand equal employmentopportunities.

While there will always be specificlanguages which are not used suffi-ciently to warrant full-time profes-sional employment, there should

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already be such employment in a rangeof about 20 languages in New SouthWales and Victoria. Flexibility de-mands that contract work shouldcontinue and that the pool of contrac-tors should be expanded and modifiedas demand shifts. This requires thattraining courses be available andaccessible and that there should be areasonable expectation of remunerativeand predictable subsequent employ-ment. Service providers must face thereality that professionalising languageservices will cost more than at presentand that such costs cannot reasonablybe recovered from NESB persons ifthey are to be adequately serviced inemergency situations. An importantcontribution to professionalising lan-guage services would be the muchgreater use of such services in busi-ness, commerce, tourism and interna-tional negotiation. This would shift theemphasis away from its current immi-grant welfare focus and would generategreater revenue from the private sec-tor. However, unless the generatedrevenue was redistributed through aco-ordinated service, this might alsoshift the emphasis away from some ofthe most widely used Australian com-munity languages. Interpreting andtranslating should be integrated withinthe proposed language priorities advo-cated by DEET through the ALLP. Thatpolicy should be reassessed in termsother than commercial demand andwith a greater emphasis on languageservices than at present.

23. Council recommends that fund-ing systems for language teachingshould not discourage or restrictprofessional language service train-ing in languages widely used inAustralia in favour of languages usedin international commerce.


ConsistentstatisticsMost official reports since Galballyhave deplored the inconsistent use ofstatistics relating to ethnicity. Therehave been several attempts by agenciessuch as OMA to design standard dataand to encourage departments to useit. There are a number of basic prob-lems, of which the indifference orhostility of officials is not the least.Prior to 1986 there was no reliableCensus data on language use althoughthere was subjective and self-assessedinformation on levels of English com-petence. Obviously this information isof prime importance in designing alanguage services strategy. Client-oriented agencies vary greatly in theamount of information they require.Many do not even collect the basic factof birthplace, few collect informationon language use and none (as far ascan be ascertained) collect informationon ancestry and descent. This is de-spite the fact that Equal EmploymentOpportunity (EEO) and Access andEquity strategies require data on thoseof NESB I and II (born in a non-Englishspeaking country or with one or bothparents so born). Even the definition ofNESB is not always uniform, withsome agencies including those peoplewho came to Australia before the age offive with NESB II on the grounds thatall their education has been in English.

There is agreement on the English-speaking countries of birth (UnitedKingdom. United States, Canada,Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand)which are now usually called the 'Main'English-speaking countries to ac-knowledge that many immigrants from

elsewhere (such as India, Sri Lanka,Singapore or the Philippines) also haveEnglish as a mother tongue. The ABSAustralian Standard Classification cfCountries for Social Statistics(ASCCSS) is based on the concept ofgeographic proximity. It groups neigh-bouring countries into broad geo-graphic areas on the basis of theirsimilarity in terms of social, cultural,economic and political characteristics.In this classification, used by DILGEAsince July 1990, the term 'Asia' is nolonger used, and the region is sub-divided into Southeast Asia, NortheastAsia and Southern Asia. The MiddleEast is no longer included with Asia.but is grouped with North Africa.

40. Council considers that the Aus-tralian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)decisions about which languagegroups to include in its census datacollection should be made as late aspossible in the process so thatinformation collected is an accuratereflection of the current status ofuse of language groups within thecommunity.

It is essential that all Commonwealth,State and other public agencies collectuniform data which will act as a guidein developing language strategies aswell as ethnic-specific services. Indeed,it is amazing that after 40 years ofmass NESB immigration, this is still amajor administrative weakness. Thebasic information on which to buildsettlement and language policy in-cludes: gender, birthplace. mother (orregularly used) tongue, proficiency inEnglish (if NESB) and preferably birth-place of parents. It would be desirableto include religion (which is an op-tional Census question) as some reli-gions form the explicit basis of an

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Women and Language Serutces

ethnic group and most religions haveattitudes of relevance on many genderissues. However, such a questionmight be considered unduly intrusive.None of these questions need takemuch time, effort or expense and allare regularly asked in the Census. Theonly one which might require somefurther consultation is on language,where alternatives include mothertongue (first learned language) orlanguage used in the home. Englishproficiency should include proficiencyin speaking, reading and writing(which goes beyond the Census ques-tion) and need only be asked of NESBclients. Similar data should be kept onemployees as a method of monitoringEEO and placing counter staff.

No reasonable objections have everbeen publicly raised to using thesecategories for staff and clients in anyofficial report over the past ten years.Cost arguments are based on theproposition that forms and dataprocessing systems have already beenput in place and need modifying. Yetthe reasons for defective systems beingput in place in defiance of officialpolicy are rarely given. All States andTerritories now recognise the NESScategory and offer language serviceseither directly or through DILGEA. AllStates and Territories also accept EEOand Access and Equity principlesalthough not always giving them thesame priority. Census guideline publi-cations now fully define geographicalareas and explain the difficultiesinherent in language questions. Thelast two Censuses are among the bestin the world in giving relevant informa-tion. Thus there is little more thatneeds to be said. All official agenciesand all recipients of government fund-ing oriented towards client servicing

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must be instructed to collect consist-ent data on gender, ethnic backgroundand ethnicity as a matter of course.They should be publicly and severelycriticised by monitoring agencies ifthey do not. Language strategieswithout language data will be defectiveand poorly targeted even if they dependon the five-yearly Census. There is, forexample, a considerable differencebetween the languages most commonlyused in Australia according to the1986 Census and the most commonlyused languages on TIS. The TIS figureswould be of even greater use if theydistinguished between male and femaleclients. The argument for language andgender data is not simply one forcollecting more useless andunprocessed information. There cannotbe a sensitive interpreting and trans-lating strategy within current limitedbudgets without such data.

39. Council recommends that Gov-ernment departments should de-velop and report on a languageservices strategy within their main-stream reporting mechanismsthrough their Annual Reports andthe Women's Budget Statement.

Resource allocationWhile it is not always possible todetermine the exact costs of usinginterpreters and translators, it wouldappear from publicly available figuresthat this is certainly much less thanthe costs of teaching English to immi-grants. In 1987-88, DILGEA spent$304 695 on NAATI. This figure rose to$334 572 in 1988-89 but was only$318 000 in 1989-90. In 1987-88


DILGEA spent $3 008 560 on languageservices (offset against income), com-pared with $3 624 202 in 1988-89. Inaddition, $1 090 359 was transferredto States and Territories for translatorand interpreter services in 1987-88,$834 766 in 1988-89 and $769 000 in1989-90. Receipts from translationsrose from $109 000 in 1987-88 to$370 000 in 1989-90. Altogether,DILGEA expenditure in the past fouryears has attributed about $5m perannum to language services in a totalsettlement budget which reached$124m by 1989-90. To this should beadded over $4m in salaries which arenot directly attributed to languageservices in DILGEA published ac-counts. In the financial year 1989-90,DILGEA employed 121 staff directly inlanguage services and about 3000contracted interpreters and transla-tors. With a total expenditure of about$9.5m in 1989-90, this representedless than 8% of the Department's totalsettlement budget.

Until recently, no other Common-wealth department offered a range oflanguage services although someregularly translated information mate-rial. The cost of this translation serviceis not usually available as a distinctbudget item. Recently both DSS andDHHCS have developed language andcommunication strategies. The Minis-terial Committee on the Provision ofLanguage Services estimates that DSSexpenditure on its own languagesservices in 1989-90 was about $3mwith an expected increase in demandof 15%. DSS employed 55 part-timeinterpreters and over 900 contractedstaff (of whom many would also becontracted to other providers). Itstranslating staff included 100 con-tracted staff. DSS also operates a

bilingual information telephone servicewith an 008 number, which operatesduring normal working hours, and aseparate on-site interpreting service.

At the State level, the main costs oflanguage services are normally borneby the Ethnic Affairs Commissions (orequivalents). As at the Commonwealthlevel, other agencies frequently trans-late information and the costs of thismay not be directly attributed to 'lan-guage services' but rather be seen aspart of the informational responsibilityof the agency. By the nature of Stateservices, rather more resources haveprobably been targeted towards womenthan is normal for the Commonwealth,particularly in the health, educationand domestic violence areas. In 1984-85, the Victorian Ethnic Affairs Com-mission (VEAC) spent $45 992 onNAATI, $161 378 on the Legal Inter-preting Service, $94 979 on the Trans-lation Unit, or $302 349 from a totalbudget of $4 061 658. By 1989-90,expenditure had increased substan-tially. The Translation Unit spent$459 981, NAATI's costs were $84 874,the Legal Interpreting Service's hadincreased to $650 000, new LanguageServices expenses were $919 908, andthe Language Services Steering Com-mittee cost $76 836 per annum. Theseitems totalled $2 198 715 in a totalexpenditure of $5 731 273 (all figurescome from VEAC Annual Reports). In1989-90 the total State sector expendi-ture on Language Services amountedto $4.5m. This included the costs ofthe interpreting services in educationand health.

In New South Wales, the larger part ofinterpreting and translating costs isborne by the Department of Health, at$5m for 1989-90 for the Health Care

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Interpreter and Translation Service.The Languages Services Division of theNSW Ethnic Affairs Commission costabout $3m, employing 20 administra-tive/clerical staff, 18 full-time inter-preters and over 400 contractors andcasual staff. Providing on-site andtelephone health interpreters was alsoundertaken by the ACT Board ofHealth.

Elsewhere, there are very few languageservices provided by State governmentsin Western Australia and Tasmaniaand all costs in those States are borneby DILGEA on a cost-sharing basis,other than those for a small unitwithin the Western Australian Depart-ment of Health. In Queensland, thenew Bureau of Ethnic Affairs providesonly translation services at a cost of$124 000 with approximately $18 000recovered through charges. In SouthAustralia, the Office of Multiculturaland Ethnic Affairs provides interpret-ing and translating services on a self-funding basis with an initial outlay of$1.66m in 1989-90. Its service em-ploys 16 full-time and 215 contractedtranslators and interpreters. TheNorthern Territory spent $300 000 onlanguage services in 1989-90, mainlyin the school system.

The Language Services Task Forceestimated gross costs of languageservices in 1989-90 at $30m of whichthe Commonwealth provided 43%through DILGEA and DSS, New SouthWales 27%, Victoria 23% and SouthAustralia 5%. While it is not alwayspossible to delineate functions clearly,it is worth noting that the largest itemof expenditure in New South Wales ison health and that the largest numberof TIS calls (at 18.8%) is on medicalissues. The cost recovery principle iswidely used in State services and

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'agency user pays' is used by theCommonwealth which also chargesStates for the use of Commonwealthservices. While it is not possible toapportion costs between males andfemales, it seems probable, given theexpenditure on health and educationservices, that women benefit from atleast half of the expenditure of $30m.Despite evaluation findings by PeatMarwick in 1990 which argue againstsome overlapping and duplication inservices, these expenditures are notmassive considering the numbersserviced and the potential clientele ofabout 500 000 likely to need basiclanguage services. On the basis esti-mated above, each one of this coreconstituency notionally costs littlemore than $1 per week to service atpresent levels of competence andreach.

5. Council recommends that nointerpreting or translating serviceshould be withheld or differentiallycharged for on the basis that theclient has been resident in Australiafor any particular period of time,provided the call is not of a com-mercial nature.

9. Council recommends that theguidelines of funding programswhich cater for women's servicesshould require that agencies submit-ting for funding develop a strategyfor delivering language services. Thecost of language services should bebuilt into all program budgets andinclude the cost of interpreting andof keeping statistical records, basedon gender and language, of theirclient group as an integral compo-nent of program costs.

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Organisation ofexisting servicesThe most recent official statement ofCommonwealth policy towards lan-guage services stresses their essentialcontribution to a national policy onlanguage and literacy. Australia'sLanguage: the Australian Languageand Literacy Policy states that:'Language and literacy services pro-vided through interpreters and transla-tors, the print and electronic mediaand libraries, are essential componentsof the A(ustralian) L(anguage) andL(iteracy) P(olicy). In consultation withrelevant interest groups, the Common-wealth (through DILGEA) and Stateand Territory governments, are cur-rently developing an operational modelfor a national language services organi-sation. Governments are also collabo-rating to develop national registrationfor interpreters and translators. Theneed for a national training strategy forthese professionals is acknowledged.The Commonwealth, in consultationwith the States and Territories, willexamine training needs and possiblestrategies' (p. 20).

The improvement and extension ofInterpreting seivices will benefitwomen to a major extent. The im-proved co-ordination proposed by theCommonwealth government could beof considerable benefit in providinglanguages services to smaller Statesarid Territories and in the less widelyused languages. There remains animportant need for specialist legal andmedical interpreting and this is cur-rently being met by New South Walesand Victoria at the Slate level. There islittle doubt that a large backlog of non-

English speakers exists among womenwho first settled in Australia in the1950s and 1960s and who are, conse-quently, heavily concentrated amongthe ageing.

At present, related agencies such asthe National Office for Overseas SkillsRecognition (NOOSR) and the NLLIAboth come within the province ofDEET. It could be argued that NAATI,which is essentially a professionalexamining body, might equally belocated under the wing of that Depart-ment. This might have the conse-quence of broadening official percep-tion of language services beyond thatof immigrant settlement. It wouldcertainly enhance the role of languageservices as translators and interpretersfor commercial, diplomatic and touristpurposes if they were separated fromDILGEA. The proposed Commonwealthrole for TAFE, which is one of themajor educators of interpreters andtranslators, V. )uld strengthen such atransfer. Against this, it could beargued that DILGEA is at the core oflanguage services at present and hasdeveloped an expertise over the yearsthrough TIS which should not bediscounted or dissipated. Nor wouldtransfer at the national level to DEETnecessarily make a set of nationallanguage services and training institu-tions more acceptable to those Stateswhich have already developed suchinstitutions.

The arguments for a co-ordinatednational service are essentially that:

service development has been un-even as between States;

there is considerable duplication,with consequent confusion;

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money wasted on duplication mightbe better spent on improved serv-ices;

centralised booking and computerservices would better use the exist-ing pool of interpreters and transla-tors;

services could be made availableacross Australia, with particularbenefit to smaller language groupsand the geographically isolated;

professionalisation and careerswould be greatly improved within anational service;

extension into commercial (and thusmore profitable) services could beused to subsidise services to theneedy; and

interpreting and translating wouldbenefit overall and become recog-nised as important services notsimply confined to immigrant settle-ment.

On the face of it, these arguments arestrong. Any improvement both indelivery and in service conditionswould benefit women more than menon current indications, especially ininterpreting. Reasonable caution existsin New South Wales and Victoriawhich have already developed servicesof their own, especially in such areasas health and law where nationalservices have not developed to any-thing like the same extent. These twoStates between them include nearlytwo-thirds of all speakers of languagesother than English and almost 80 percent of women who cannot speakEng.ish well or at all. It is reasonableto be cautious about the settlement

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emphasis of DILGEA which, in thepast, has seen language services andEnglish education in 'survival' termsrather than as central to access andequity in a multicultural society. It isalso reasonable to be cautious aboutthe capacity of DEET to take overlanguage services when it is embroiledin controversy about its own handlingof the NLP and its tendency to seelanguages in commercial rather thancommunity service terms.

It is not a central concern of this studyexactly how language services shouldbe organised in the future. However, itis inescapable that such services areneeded by NESB women and willcontinue to be needed for the foresee-able future. Future arrangements, ifthey are to change, must take accountof certain realities which the consulta-tions undertaken for this report re-vealed, namely:

NESB women, especially the newlyarrived, cannot be expected to famil-iarise themselves with elaboratebureaucratic structures of servicedelivery but must have access toreadily accessible services whenthese are needed;

in an emergency, NESB womenoutside the major cities (and essen-tially outside Sydney, Melbourneand Adelaide) normally have accessonly to TIS;

speakers of minor and recentlyestablished languages will often findTIS to be their only accessible re-source;

health issues are of prime impor-tance to women and they needspecialist interpreters and transla-


tors who might be better trainedwith State-provided services than bythe Commonwealth which does notdirectly administer such services;

legal processes equally requirespecialist services which are bestdeveloped within State legal sys-tems;

State agencies are often closer to theNESB constituency than is theCommonwealth;

language services are not onlyneeded by newly arrived 'migrants'but, in many situations, may beneeded just as much by the elderlyand the long-established who arenot being serviced by DILGEA but byother Commonwealth and Stateagencies;

the case for special recognition ofwomen's needs does not seem to beinfluencing current discussion ofadministrative rearrangements tothe extent that is desirable;

NESB women are unlikely to be ablto afford to pay for professionalinterpreting and 1 ranslating services,especially at the rates needed toprofessionalise the service;

the current levels of remuneration,security and job satisfaction inlanguage services are not such as toconstitute a career path for women,who are consequently used as acheap resource.

Any administrative rearrangementswhich take these factors fully intoaccount should be supported, withoutregard to bureaucratic self-interest or

purely funding considerations. In thelong-term it would be highly desirablefor all language-related services to bebrought within a common frameworkwhich would include AMEP, Child ESL,language services. the ALLP, NAATI,NOOSR, TIS and the State services.

Client consultationAt least since the Galbally Report of1978, it has been acknowledged thatclient consultation has an importantrole in developing services for NESSAustralians. Among the arguments forthis approach are that:

greater expertise exists among theclient groups than among the main-stream in areas such as culturalfactors, collective experience orvarieties of language;

effective links with the clientelerequire using channels providedthrough ethnic community organisa-tions:

many clients prefer to be serviced bythose of their own cultural back-ground;

knowledge of service problems andissues is likely to be enhanced byreference to the experiences ofclients;

improvements in providing servicesare more likely to follow if clients'experiences are tapped.

There is a school of public administra-tion which is critical of the dangers ofbeing 'client driven'. This has had littledirect influence on services for NESBAustralians. Successive governments

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have been committed to regular con-sultation and have subsidised repre-sentative agencies like the Federationof Ethnic Communities Councils ofAustralia (FECCA) and the EthnicCommunities Councils (ECCs) toparticipate in such consultations.Major inquiries, such as those byGalbally or ROMAMPAS (Jupp, 1986),have solicited representations from awide range of elhno-specific organisa-tions or have conducted public hear-ings. In some cases interpreters haveassisted such hearings as a means ofreaching those unable to participate inconsultative processes requiring aknowledge of English at a high level.During 1991, widespread public con-sultations were held by the Minister forImmigration for the first time. Themajor criticism of such consultation isnot that it is limited in scope but thatit does not lead to measurable out-comes.

Consultations take several forms inmost, male-dominated organisationshave been influential. It should beurged that all group consultations onlanguage services must include arange of female-only situations. Thiswould avoid the undoubted dominanceof males in most formal organisationsand their tendency to dominate inmixed groups. Totally or predomi-nantly female organisations, such asthe Association of Non-English-Speak-ing Background Women of Australia(ANESBWA), OSW, the Common-wealth-State Council on NESB Wom-en's Issues or the National Council ofWomen, should always be consulted atlength on interpreting needs. It isparticularly important to move awayfrom the concept that language serv-ices arc 'migrant' or even'multicultural' and thus only of con-

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cern to NESB Australians and toethnic organisations. Representativebodies concerned with women's healthhave a major role, as have those con-cerned with domestic violence, schoolsystems, family law, EEO and femaleworkforce issues. It should be a primefunction of ANESBWA and the Com-monwealth-State Council on NESBWomen's Issues to ensure that all suchagencies keep language services ontheir agenda and make appropriaterepresentations through the channelsopen to them. It is of particular impor-tance that women activists ensure thatthese issues appear on trade unionagendas, as NESB women are stronglyrepresented in industrial occupations.

At a formal level, any representativebodies set up to administer or consultover language services, must contain ahigh proportion of NESB women,preferably at a level of half the mem-bers or above. Proposedreorganisations will almost inevitablyrequire that some such agency isestablished, as these have alreadyexisted for the NLP in the past. Indeed,no reorganisation of language servicescan reasonably dispense with a con-sultative body which represents clientsand service providers, among both ofwhom women constitute at least halfand arguably more than that.

3. Council recommends that in anyrestructuring of language services,community consultative committeesand processes should primarilyaddress women's needs, preferablythrough ensuring that at least halfthe members of any such committeeare women.

IND


However, most such consultativebodies are, by their nature, drawnfrom educated bilinguals in the profes-sional middle-classes. As the bulk ofthose with inadequate English arefound among the poorly educatedworking classes, the unemployed orthe newly arrived, some effort must bemade to ensure that they are alsoconsulted. Thus, no major develop-ments in language policy should beundertaken without using focusseddiscussion groups conducted in asingle language. It is particularlyimportant to test translated materialon such groups before it is publishedand distributed (see Recommendation6).

Education ofprofessionalsLanguage services are never likely tobecome professionalised and perma-nent unless other professionals takeseriously the need to use interpretersand translators. This need is now wellunderstood by public hospitals inmetropolitan centres. It has beenseriously analysed by the Common-wealth Attorney-General's Departmentin relation to court cases. Most Com-monwealth and State departments arepublicly committed to using languageservices, although field research isnecessary to ascertain the extent towhich this commitment has reachedmiddle management and counter stall.The current evaluation of access andequity programs being conducted bythe Commonwealth Department ofPrime Minister and Cabinet shouldproduce useful evidence in this regard.

In some police jurisdictions, officerscarry an information card relating toTIS and printed in a variety of lan-guages. This is not yet universal prac-tice but should be commendedthrough the Police Ministers' confer-ence.

In the public sector, a decade of com-mitment to access and equity princi-ples has influenced most service deliv-ery systems, although unevenly. Thesituation in Sydney, Melbourne andAdelaide (which contain over 80% ofthe target clientele) is generally satis-factory, although threatened by nu-merical pressures and the variety oflanguages needed. However, in otherStates and in outlying areas of NewSouth Wales and Victoria, sensitivity tolanguage issues does not seem asentrenched. Nor are facilities for inter-preting available other than throughTIS. In the privately employed profes-sions there seems less willingness touse language services. Several inquir-ies over the past decade have revealedprivate medical practitioners andhospital consultants as particularlyreluctant. The same seems to be trueof lawyers, although they will normallyemploy interpreters and translators atprivate rates if they can be sure of thecosts being added to their fees. Somelawyers have built up a small clienteleof their own interpreters and transla-tors, who are not always satisfactorynor committed to strict professionalethics in terms of privacy. There is noobvious solution to this problem otherthan the registration of qualified lan-guage deliverers and the restriction ofservices to them. This would undoubt-edly increase the income of the profes-sion and increase the cost to users.

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45. Council recommends that by theyear 2000 qualified translators andinterpreters should be registered,and only the services of these pro-fessionals should be used.

The ultimate solution to professionalindifference and reluctance is longterm. It requires a compulsory elementof cross-language training for allprofessional workers, coupled withsupervisory practices which enforcethe use of interpreters and translatorswhere requested by the person ofNESB (see Recommendation 35). Theproblem of sensitising professionalswas tackled by Galbally's Recommen-dation 14 in 1978 and has been re-peated regularly ever since. Recom-mendation 14 was that 'professionals,including those studying and thosecurrently in practices in areas withlarge migrant clienteles, should receiveassistance in obtaining, or upgrading,language skills and understandingcultural differences'. An evaluation ofthe implementation of Recommenda-tion 14 in 1981 found that most pro-fessional courses other than in SouthAustralia or Victoria had paid littleattention to the recommendation(Davis, 1982). There are grounds forarguing that this recommendation wasmisconceived in several ways. It con-centrated on language skills andcultural sensitivity, rather than theuse of interpreters. It is quite unrealis-tic to expect professionals to acquire anew language in mid-career and theycould only upgrade their languageskills if they had skills in relevantlanguages to start with, which isunusual for professionals unless theyare from a non-English speakingbackground. The recommendation'semphasis on cultural sensitivity has

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also been an obstacle to effectivecommunication in some ways. It is notpossible to know much about morethan a small handful of 'cultures'.Unless a professional is dealing with aclientele drawn from a limited range ofbackgrounds (for example, Greek orChinese clients), the more probableexperience will be of dealing withclients from a multiplicity of origins.

Much 'multicultural' and 'cross-cul-tural' training is still haunted byRecommendation 14. It would be farpreferable simply to instruct profes-sionals in the practicalities of usinginterpreters (including TIS) and profes-sional translators as a part of theirbasic training and skill upgrading.There would be far less resistance anda more immediately useful outcomethan is likely to be gained from at-tempting to teach doctors, lawyers ordentists about the languages andbackgrounds of clients whom theymight never meet. Professional workersshould know that many of their clientsare unable to understand what theyare trying to say or to answer theirqueries. Training in using languageservices then becomes a practicallyoriented method of improving skillrather than a vaguely conceived aL-tempt to teach people things they maynever need to know. This is not toargue that language upgrading andcross-cultural training do not have arole for some professionals in somesituations, particularly in the majercities. It is more important that they betaught about the existence and use oflanguage services. It would, of course,be highly desirable for professionals tobe more broadly educated than manycurrently are, but this is a majoreducational issue outside the immedi-ate scope of this inquiry.


With this criticism of previous ap-proaches in mind, it is highly desirablethat appropriate teaching and examin-ing bodies be persuaded of the need toinclude some practical training inusing language services, includingbasic information on the scope andlimitations of such services. In particu-lar, all professional workers with alarge female clientele need to be taughtabout the greater likelihood of womenbeing deficient in English or beingpoorly educated. Such training shouldinclude a degree of 'culturalsensitisation' in the probability thatwomen from some cultures will bereluctant to discuss some topicsthrough a male. This approach is moremodest than the various short-termprograms emanating from DEET (or itsequivalent) from time to time. Suchprograms have met with resistancefrom teaching and examining bodiesand from students and have tended todisappear when funding priorities arealtered. There are, however, somegeneral cross-cultural approaches now

being developed through sucli agenciesas the National Centre for Cross-Cultural Curriculum and Staff Devel-opmint founded at Flinders Universityin 1990. These concentrate on tech-niques and approaches rather than onknowledge of specific cultures. Suchknowledge is best acquired in the fieldor from those who practice the cul-tures themselves. Some sensitisationprograms are run by MRCs, usingmembers with specific national back-grounds to talk with service deliverers.These are a much better model foralerting service deliverers and profes-sionals in the field than anything theyare likely to learn in formal classes inthe tertiary sector, which are oftenabstracted from reality. It is importantthat interpreters and translatorsreceive such an educational groundingwhich will assist them in understand-ing their clients and act as a bridgebetween them and the average mono-lingual, monocultural professional.These are unlikely to acquire anotherlanguage or to spend much time learn-ing about other cultures.

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Women and Longuage Services

Chapter 5Literature surveyThe literature on translating andinterpreting needs of NESB women islimited. There is a wider literature onthe social and economic situation ofNESB women which often indirectlyindicates likely needs. There is alsolimited literature on cultural attitudestowards women among various ethnicgroups resident in Australia. These areall relevant to the project but are solimited that primary fieldwork is neces-sary to fill in the gaps. For example,while many assumptions are madeabout 'patriarchal' or 'traditional'attitudes in certain ethnic groups,these are often based on outdatedassumptions about the homelandculture. As one of the crucial areas inassessing the needs of women in thisarea is the tackling of 'sensitive' issues,this lack of soundly based sociologicalknowledge of current communityattitudes is especially regrettable. Asmany immigrants are not typical of thepopulation they have left behind, thereis no substitute for an understandingbased on the Australian situation.With rare exceptions this does not yetexist in the academic literature. Thereis a more extensive treatment of thesocio-economic status of NESBwomen.

44. Council recommends that fur-ther research should be carried outfocusing on current communityattitudes towards women in ethniccommunities, and the interpretingand translating needs of thesewomen.

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General surveys ofNESB womenAmong relevant surveys are thosewhich deal with NESB women as ageneral category and those whichconcentrate on specific ethnic catego-ries. Few of these indicate interpretingand translating needs but they areoften useful for assessing the socialsituation and probable needs of which-ever category is being studied. As withthe overall NESB category, there areconsiderable differences betweengroups of women and individuals. Moststudies stress the greater concentra-tion of NESB women in the manufac-turing workforce, the likelihood of theirisolation in the home through languagedifficulties, their lack of participationin 'mainstream' activities such asschool committees and their role inculture and language maintenance.Much of the literature posits a 'doubledisadvantage', created by ethnicity andgender. It often does not go beyond acritical approach to suggesting con-crete public policy proposals.

The OMA policy options paper Issuesfor Non-English-Speaking BackgroundWomen in Multicultural Australia(Eliadis et al, 1988) is the.. most recentfull treatment of the needs of NESBwomen. It claims that 'the specificneeds and rights of women fromNESBs have been largelymarginalised'. It lists the 'needs whichtranscended most issues' as includingmultilingual information, interpreter


services and bilingual and biculturalwo'kers. A survey of Commonwealthgovernment departments found littlerecognition of the specific needs ofNESB women except in the EEO area.DILGEA 'has one of the clearest posi-tions on women from NESBs'. Amongrelevant priorities identified in thereport were: bilingual child careworkers; the dissemination of informa-tion in community languages; and theimportance of interpreting services.Specific recommendations included:that women from NESBs participate inplanning and delivering languageprograms in child care centres; pro-viding multilingual (written and oral)information on occupational healthand safety; providing multilingualinformation on welfare; encouragingwomen from NESBs to become inter-preters and to foster gender and cul-tural awareness in all interpreters; andproviding multilingual information oncareer counselling and rehabilitation inthe workplace. The report concludedthat information'on services, programsand policies is usually inaccessible(e.g. language used etc.). Of directrelevance v,q-ks the recommendation for'developing and providing in accessiblelocations information which is specifi-cally aimed at the needs of womenfrom NESBs, which would Includefacilitating and supporting womenfrom NESBs as translators and inter-preters'. Recommendation 7.13 wasthat 'all information be provided inboth written and oral form in all com-munity languages by all governmentagencies'.

Earlier general reports had madesimilar points. Immigrant Women'sIssues (DIEA, 1986) argued that 'ac-cess to good health care by immigrantwomen and their dependant children is

limited by their lack of English, lack ofother community languages on thepart of medical staff and lack of femaleprofessional interpreters' (2.40). 'Immi-grant women often encounter difficul-ties in establishing their eligibility forpensions and benefits and have associ-ated difficulties in pursuing theirappeal rights through the Administra-tive Appeals Tribunal' (2.49). 'Few lawprofessionals and law enforcers arebilingual ... or trained and skilled inusing interpreters' (2.53). Interpreterservices, it was agreed, 'are not asubstitute for bilingual staff in thehealth and aged care system' (3.37).

Health issuesIn contrast to the lack of general andsociological studies of NESB women orspecific ethnic groups, there has beenconsiderable study of their healthneeds and problems. These havenaturally included lpecific referencesto the needs of women. The majorrecent study, edited by Janice Reidand Peggy Trompf. is The Health ofImmigrant Australia: a Social Perspec-tive (1990). This highlights variousproblems relevant to this study. Theseinclude reluctance to use interpretersin workers' compensation cases, theoverall need for specialist health inter-preters and the refusal of some Statesto participate in recruiting ethnichealth care workers or interpreters.This study notes the development ofspecialist services since the 1970s, butadds that 'continuous staff turnover inhospitals means that languages serv-ices may be in constant change ... It isclearly inefficient for a Vietnamesephysiotherapist to be a full-time Viet-namese interpreter' although 'on theother hand, it Is evident that even in

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health-care settings where relativelywell-developed interpreter services areavailable, domestic staff and gardenerscontinue to be used as interpreters'(p. 362). This source also addressesthe question of whether interpreterservices from a number of departmentsand agencies should be amalgamated(p. 368).

The Shergold and Nicolaou consulta-tions of 1986 showed the high prioritywhich health interpreting had as-sumed for NESB people. A study ofyoung Islamic women in Sydneyshowed that 'dependency on interpret-ers deprived them of privacy'. Only asmall number had used interpreters inpregnancy and baby care situations,while the rest `were totally unaware ofthe services and had always dependedon family and friends to act as inter-preters' (p.159). This group complainedabout a local public maternity hospitalbecause of its lack of interpreters orbilingual staff and the embarrassmentof using unskilled manual hospitalstaff for interpreters simply becausethey spoke Arabic.

Legal interpretingEver since the Galbally Report of 1978there has been pressure to introducethe right to an interpreter in court.This has been resisted by many in thelegal and judicial professions. As aconsequence of the adoption of theNational Agenda for a MulticulturalAustralia, a report has been preparedby the Commonwealth Attorney-Gener-al's Department (Access to Interpretersin the Australian Legal System) (Com-monwealth Attorney-General's Depart-ment, 1991). This study deals with thecriminal justice system (where women

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form only a small percentage of thoseinvolved) and such agencies as theFamily Court and AdministrativeReview Tribunals (where women arelikely to form a much higher propor-tion of plaintiffs or appellants). It doesnot specifically address gender issues,although data collected in the variousAustralian legal systems does allowa distinction to be made betweenmale and female applicants forinterpretation.

ConclusionThere should be a basic recognitionwhen providing interpreting servicesthat women have more need of suchservices than men, that women usesuch services more than men, and thatmore women than men provide inter-preting services. Thus, the idea of'special needs' for women is somewhatinappropriate. Women form the main-stream clients and providers. Theyform a preponderant number in deal-ing with health issues. Thus, all publichealth strategies must recognise thecentral importance of language serv-ices for their clients. All services tar-geted women must have built-in lan-guage services as a matter of course.All interpreter training must incorpo-rate ethical codes which recognise thesensitivities normally involved indealing with women. Thus a basic re-orientation in thinking is desirablewhich puts women at the centre ofinterpreting policies and provision.

As a large part of the need for inter-preting still rests among poorly edu-cated and ageing Southern Europeans,a national interpreting strategy musttake their needs into consideration. Itis crucial that interpreting services not


focus attention only on new arrivals.This must be clearly and explicitlystated in any agreement whichDILGEA might reach with other Com-monwealth and State agencies. Itwould be quite inequitable for manythousands of long-settled women to beexcluded from TIS or other interpretingservices or to be differentially treatedby them or differentially charged fortheir services should such charges beintroduced. All public policy in thisarea must stress that interpreting is aservice open to all who need it. Thiswould include the small number ofsecond-generation NESB not fullyproficient in English. While the needfor interpreting is overwhelmingly theproduct of post-War immigration, itcannot be set in the narrow time-framecurrently adopted for 'settlement'.

Women are central users of interpret-ing services, and they should beequally entitled to services regardlessof their date of arrival in Australia.They need such services more thanmen because their level of educationand of English proficiency is lower.They also need such services becausetheir use of health services is higher;.:ian for men. This should mean thatwomen can have access to a womaninterpreter on request and that such arequest should not be regarded asexceptional. All interpreting servicesand all recruitment and training policyshould aim at maximising the numberof women employed as interpreters. Itwill not be possible to implement theprinciple that women should havewomen interpreters as a right unlessthis be done. It would be mistaken tobelieve that only women of a certainreligious background, or from certaingeographical areas, need such a right.There is no certain way of knowing

how important privacy and femaleintervention may be except throughthe wishes of the client herself. Thisimplies that recruitment and trainingof interpreters should have a biastowards women, not on grounds ofequal opportunity but because womenclients should be able to exercise theright to a woman interpreter as amatter of course and can only expectto do so if a wide range of interpretersis available who are aware of theissues involved in interpreting forwomen. To implement such a rightrequires a planned recruitment ofwomen interpreters, particularly insome identified languages or regions.

A central difficulty in using interpret-ers is perceived by clients as lack ofreliability, trust and confidentiality.While this is not specifically a genderissue, it does have major implicationsfor the female client. As many lan-guage groups are quite small, lack ofconfidentiality in health or legal mat-ters may have serious personal conse-quences for a client such that some arereluctant to use interpreters at all andwould prefer to rely on friends orrelatives of a lower level of proficiency.Qualified interpreters must be properlytrained in relevant ethics and theymust also suffer a penalty equivalentto deregistration if they breach suchethics. Public agencies should beadvised of such breaches and shouldbe advised not to use the services ofinterpreters who have, after due proc-ess, been found guilty of suchbreaches. There may well be a culturalclash involved, with obligations to kinor to morality being seen as moreimportant than obligations to the clientor the using agency. However, this isan issue where 'Western' principlesmust necessarily operate if the system

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is to retain its integrity. Clients drawnfrom a wide variety of cultures expectsuch neutral and impartial treatment.There may be ingrained attitudeswithin some cultures where there is alack of trust when dealing throughindividuals who are not related or areunknown to the client. However, con-sultations undertaken for this reportsuggest that there is just as likely to bedistrust towards relatives and friendswhen health or legal matters are in-volved.

The gender issues involved in translat-ing are not as clear cut as for Inter-preting, where personal contact isinvolved. There is no particular reasonwhy female translators should be usedand those consulted for this report didnot see any arguments as to why thisshould become the practice. The issueshere centre on the kind of informationwhich should be translated and thelevel of vocabulary and formulation tobe used. A major cause of poor Englishfor many older settlers is poor generaleducation and this is more likely toaffect women than men. Most officialinformation is difficult to understandin English and may become impossibleto understand if not carefully trans-lated. A frequent complaint concernedthe accuracy of translations, especiallyfor personal documents such as quali-fications or certificates. It is importantthat all translated material directedtowards women, such as childbirthadvice, should be tested on a femalegroup before it is finalised. Suchgroups should be chosen from those ofaverage education. It is particularlyimportant to test such translations, asmany terms have meanings or conno-tations which some women might findoffensive or obscene.

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Office of the Status of Women, A Say, aChoice, a Fair Go:: the Government'sNational Agenda for Women, Canberra,AGPS, 1988.

Office of the Status of Women, Wom-en's Budget Statement 1991-92, Can-berra, AGPS, 1991a.

Office of the Status of Women, NationalAgenda for Women ImplementationReport, Canberra, AGPS, 199 lb.

Ovadia, T. and Webb, L., An Inquiryinto the Attitudes of Women from Non-English-Speaking Backgrounds toDomestic Violence Issues, Canberra,OMA/OSW, 1990.

Pittaway, E., Refugee Women Still atRisk in Australia: a Study of the FirstTwo Years of Settlement in the SydneyMetropolitan Area, Canberra, AGPS,1991.

Powles, M., Women's Participatton inTertiary Education, Canberra, Com-monwealth Tertiary Education Com-mission, 1986.


Reid, J. and Trompf, P. (eds.), TheHealth of Immigrant Australia: a SocialPerspective, Sydney, Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1990.

Review Group to the Victorian Ministerfor Immigration and Ethnic Affairs,Access and Equity: the Development ofVictorian Ethnic Affairs Policies, Mel-bourne. Government Printer: 1983.

Roberts-Smith, L., Frey, R. andBessell-Browne, S., Working WithInterpreters in Law Health and SocialWork, produced by the Slate AdvisoryPanel for Translating and Interpretingin WA (SAPTI WA) for the NationalAccreditation Authority for Translatorsand Interpreters, Mt Hawthorn, WA,Hawthorn Press, 1990.

Rowland, D.T., Pioneers Again: Immi-grants and Ageing in Australia, Can-berra, AGPS, 1991.

Sawer, M., Sisters in Suits, Sydney,Allen and Unwin, 1990.

Seitz, A. and Kilmartin, C., Don'tAssume the Stereotype, Canberra,Department of Immigration and EthnicAffairs, 1987.

Shergold, P. and Nicolaou, L., WhyDon't They Ask Us? We're Not Dumb!,Submission to the Review of Migrantand Multicultural Programs and Serv-ices, May 1986.

Skelton, K, and Kerr, G., Press Percep-tions of Non-English-Speaking Back-ground Women, Canberra, CurriculumDevelopment Centre, 1989.

Sloniec, E.. Women in a MulticulturalSociety, Adelaide, Multicultural Educa-tion Co-ordinating Committee, 1987.

Smith, K.F., Baldauf, R.B. and Taylor,S.C., English Language Needs in aRural Community: Mareeba, Queens-land. Canberra, AGPS, 1985.

Storer, D., But I Wouldn't Want MyWife to Work Here, Melbourne, Centrefor Urban Research and Action, 1975.

Storer, D. (ed.), Ethnic Family Values inAustralia, Sydney, Prentice Hall, 1985.

Vasta, E., If You Had Your nme AgainWould You Migrate to Australia?, Can-berra, AGPS, 1985.

Victorian Ethnic Affairs Commission,Annual Report 1990, Melbourne,VEAC, 1990.

Victorian Office of Ethnic Affairs,Ethnic Policies and Programs Analysis,Melbourne, VOEA, 1991.

Victorian Task Force on LanguageServices Policy, Access to LanguageServices: an Issue of Social Justice,Melbourne, 1987.

W.D. Scott and Company, Survey intothe Information Needs of Migrants inAustralia, Canberra, AGPS, 1980.

Western Australia Government Inter-departmental Working Party, Interpret-ing and Translating in Western Austral-ian Government Services: a Report,Perth, Govt. of WA, 1984.

Western Australian Multicultural andEthnic Affairs Commission, A Proposalfor a State Interpreter and TranslatorService for Western Australia, Perth,WAMEAC, 1985.

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Western Australian Multicultural andEthnic Affairs Commission, InterimReport of the Standing Advisory Com-mittee on Ethnic Minority Women,Perth, WAMEAC, 1988.

Western Australian Multicultural andEthnic Affairs Commission, InformationProvisionfor Migrant Workers in West-ern Australia, Perth, WAMEAC, 1988.

Women's Desk, Department of Immi-gration and Ethnic Affairs, AboutMigrant Women: a Bibliography, Can-berra, AGPS, 1984.

Women's Desk, Department of Immi-gration and Ethnic Affairs, AboutMigrant Women: Statistical Profile '81,Canberra, AGPS, 1984.

Yeatman, A., A Review of MulticulturalPolicies and F ograms in Children'sServices, Canberra, OMA OptionPapers, 1988.

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Appendix 1Demographic data

Table AMajor NES birthplace groups 1986: total population, sex ratios andmajor languages

Birthplace Population Sex Ratio Major Languages

Italy 261 881 117 ItalianYugoslavia 150 102 119 Croatian, Serbian,

Slovene, MacedonianGreece 137 611 106 GreekGermany 114 790 99 GermanNetherlands 95 083 115 DutchVietnam 83 028 124 Vietnamese, ChinesePoland 67 691 113 PolishLebanon 56 332 113 ArabicMalta 56 262 115 MalteseIndia 47 818 99 English, Hindi, TamilMalaysia 47 784 99 Chinese, EnglishChina 37 464 96 Chinese, RussianPhilippines 33 724 44 English, FilipinoEgypt 30 614 105 Arabic, Greek,

ItalianHong Kong 28 256 101 ChineseHungaly 27 226 127 HungarianTurkey 24 524 110 TurkishCyprus 23 657 105 Greek, TurkishAustria 22 651 119 GermanSri Lanka 22 561 98 English, Tamil,

SinhaleseChile 18 752 98 SpanishCzechoslovakia 17 868 119 Czech, SlovakIndonesia 17 730 107 Indonesian, DutchSingapore 16 442 88 English, ChineseSpain 16 263 118 SpanishOther USSR 15 230 76 RussianFrance 14 871 104 French


1 1 2 105

4


Table BSmall, newly arriving groups 1986: total population, sex ratiosand major languages

Birthplace Population Sex Ratio Major Languages

Portugal 14 928 111 PortugueseFiji 14 787 93 English, Hindi, FijianCambodia 13 234 101 Khmer, ChineseJapan 11 239 85 JapaneseUruguay 9 580 96 SpanishKorea 9 275 95 KoreanArgentina 9 196 100 SpanishRomania 8 119 130 Romanian, HungarianIran 7 497 114 Farsi, ArabicLaos 7 413 105 Lao, HmongThailand 6 965 66 Thai, ChineseTimor 6 571 104 Chinese, Tetum,

PortugueseTonga 4 456 99 TonganWestern Samoa 3 004 94 SamoanPeru 2 313 65 SpanishEl Salvador 2 107 106 Spanish

Source: as for Table A

106

1 13


Appendix 2Reports of discussions

Meeting with Iranian women,Mt Druitt, Sydney, 11 June1991

The meeting was arranged by MsBehnaz Nesvadarani, who also actedas facilitator and interpreter. Therewere seven participants, most of whomspoke some English. They raised anumber of issues relating to translat-ing official documents, legal, health,and education interpreting and the roleof cammunity workers in interpreting.

The first matter to be raised was thelong delay involved in translatingofficial documents. Some simple itemshad taken as long as four months.There was also concern about inad-equacy of translation of qualificationsby DILGEA and in one case, the incor-rect translation of a birth certificate.

In relation to interpreting in schools, itwas felt that some teachers lackedcross-cultural understanding but thatin some cases, teachers had organisedinterpreters to discuss children'sprogress. One woman felt that therewas a need for bilingual 'home teach-ers' to undertake home visits.

The area of legal interpreting was thenraised. One woman had requested aninterpreter in court and had beenprovided with a female interpreter whohad intervened unduly in a family lawdispute with opinions and unsolicitedguidance. The client had felt that thisreflected on the ethics and training ofthe interpreters, and now used rela-

tives where possible for interpreting.This particular woman was Assyrianby birth, but preferred to avail herselfof Farsi interpreters because theAssyrian community was so small and'too close together'.

The women wer :. concerned that aprivate solicitor had been calling inprivate interpreters (male) who hadcharged very high fees. Another matterraised was that clients were nowpaying for interpreters in court whensuing but not when defending.

Many of the women had used the TISand had found it satisfactory, with noreal difference in quality between themale and female interpreters provided.While generally happy with TIS, par-ticularly as it was available 24 hours aday, they were concerned that so fewFarsi interpreters were available.

The question of health interpreting wasthen raised, with all of the womenstressing their need for women inter-preters in health matters. None of thewomen had had problems in obtaininga woman interpreter in clinics orhospitals.

All of the women had used their chil-dren as interpreters, but felt that thiswas unfair, particularly as they weremore likely to use their daughters on aregular basis. It was also felt thatgrant-in-aid workers were over-usedfor interpreting, particularly now whenofficial agencies were reluctant to useformal interpreters for whom they hadto pay, when they could impose upon'free' grant-in-aid workers. It wasstrongly felt that the (female) grant-in-aid workers were used in cases ofdomestic violence, where friends andrelatives could not be used, because ofthe strict confidentiality required.

114

107

Women and amguage Services

Interpreting and translating was seenas a highly respected profession by thewomen, although it was pointed outthat because the main incentive toenter the field was altruistic ratherthan income driven, the majority of theFarsi interpreters were women and themajority of translators were men.Women were considered to be more'dedicated to helping'. The main factorinhibiting more women from becominginterpreters was seen as a lack ofEnglish skills. The need for moreEnglish classes was strongly stressed.

Meeting with Muslim women,Lakemba, Sydney12 June 1991

The meeting with nine Muslim womenwas organised by Ms Nada Roude, whoalso acted as facilitator and inter-preter. Two refuge workers attendedand the whole group varied in countryof origin and mother tongue. Theparticipants raised issues relating tohealth, costs of interpreting and trans-lating, education and standards andethics of interpreters/translators.

When asked about their use andknowledge of interpreting services, twoparticipants had never heard of TISand one had never used a formalinterpreter, although she had used thegrant-in-aid worker for interpreting.The DSS's Hotline had not been usedby any of the women, but most knew ofits existence. In general, most of thewomen had little knowledge of theavailability of services. The cost oftranslations was seen as being high,with an example being given ofDILGEA charging $70 for the basictranslation of a birth certificate. Whilethe New South Wales EAC means

108

tested, there were long delays in ob-taining translations from them.

In relation to health, the need forfemale interpreters for religious rea-sons was strongly stressed, and whileit was felt that some agencies weresensitive to this, others were not. Itwas stressed that Islam prohibitedmany situations where a man and awomen could be alone and that 'Mus-lim women prefer not to be alone or todiscuss their bodies with a man'.

It was mentioned that the Turkishwomen's refuge us':.d interpretersregularly, and prJerred a womaninterpreter for refuge work, althoughon some occasions a male interpreterhad been used satisfactorily. Oneinterpreter had referred a woman tothe Islamic Refuge, of which she hadnot heard.

The use by agencies of grant-in-aidworkers as interpreters was raised andthe New South Wales Department ofHousing was mentioned as consist-ently preferring grant-in-aid workersfor interviews rather than paying forprofessionals.

All of the women used family membersextensively for translating, and manyused small children, especially daugh-ters, as interpreters. This was particu-larly the case in their contact withschools. Mothers did not attend schoolfunctions because they could notunderstand proceedings and felt thatthe schools unjustly criticised them forlack of interest and that their childrenwere therefore upset by their non-attendance.

All of the women gained knowledge ofservices through grant-in-aid workers

1 1 5

rri


and the Islamic Centre rather thanthrough official advertising.

It was also felt that the burden ongrant-in-aid workers was increased bythe police relying on them in domesticviolence cases. This was seen as mak-ing the worker's position politicallydifficult and as a way or avoiding cost.

The questions of standards of ethicswere then raised. It was felt that inter-preters should be neutral and objec-tive. The poor standard of translationsof important documents and informa-tion videos (e.g. for AIDS) was men-tioned. There was a need for morewomen interpreters, as it was felt thatmore men were available than wo.nen.In this respect, the level of interpreterwas not seen as relevant. It was gener-ally felt that women were much moreable to access services when femaleinterpreters were available.

The main factor inhibiting women frombecoming interpreters was the need toenrol in mLxed classes.

The final matter mentioned was theneed for information on the Common-wealth Government's New Start pro-gram to be translated into Arabic.

Meeting with Cambodianwomen, Sefton, Sydney,12 June 1991

The meeting with 11 Cambodianwomen was arranged, facilitated andinterpreted by Mrs Sisomar Srey. Onlya few of the participants spoke anyEnglish. The women raised issuesrelating to health, the elderly, availabil-ity of interpreters in crisis services,general availability of interpreters andknowledge of services.

Many of the women had had experi-ence in the public hospital system,with varying degrees of success inobtaining interpreter services. Onewoman had required a number ofoperations and had not always beenable to get an interpreter. She hadused her daughter on other occasions.

Some of the women were confused andworried by the fact that appointmentshad to be made for interpreters in thehospitals, and could not understandhow they should know when they weregoing to need an interpreter. In somecases, the Khmer community hadarranged for interpreters in hcspitals,and in most cases the women werehappy with them, while stressing theneed for women interpreters in suchcases. Many of the women had usedtheir children as interpreters, even incomplicated medical matters.

Only two of the women had used TIS.and one felt that the 'triangular situa-tion' was very slow. The call, in hercase, was made by an English speaker.It was known that the CommonwealthEmployment Service (CES) had aKhmer interpreter, but he was avail-able for only on one day a week inBankstown and for two days inFairfield.

The women found it difficult to getinterpreters at night if there was acrisis. One woman also raised theproblem of using inappropriate inter-preters in cases of domestic violence.Grant-in-aid workers were preferred insuch situations because their commit-ment to confidentiality was trustedabove that of interpreters. While apolice station had been very good inobtaining the services of a womaninterpreter for an appointment to give

1 1 U109


a statement, it was not easy to get theright person in a crisis.

In relation to standards and ethics, itwas felt that the quality of Khmerinterpreting was not high, particularlyin the area of health. This increasedpatient anxiety. Where children wereused for medical matters, they wereoften unaware of medical terminology.It was suggested that there was animmediate need for a Khmer guidebookto medical terminology. It was stressedthat there 'should be a law' to ensureinterpreter confidentiality.

The women recognised that govern-ments were restricted in funds, but feltthat there just were not enough Khmerinterpreters, particularly court inter-preters.

Meeting with Turkish women,lor, Melbourne,

2 July 1991

The meeting with 22 women wasorganised and facilitated jointly by MsSu le Of, Women's Group Co-ordinator.and Mr Hasan Osman, CommunityWorker (who attended at the group'srequest) to coincide with a regularwomen's craft and discussion morning.Although quite a few of the womenspoke English fairly well or very well, aconsiderable number spoke little or noEnglish. The participants raised issuesin relation to health, the law andeducation, and interpreter availability,training and recruitment.

In general, the participants felt thatthe Turkish community was not aswell resourced as some others in theprovision of interpreting and translat-ing services. The first specific issue to

110

117

be raised was health interpreting. TheHealth Interpreter Service had beenused regularly by the participants, andthe quality of interpreting was praised.There were only two Turkish interpret-ers, both of whom were women, andthere were some problems with avail-ability. It was stressed that womeninterpreters were necessary in the areaof health, because of the difficulty ofdiscussing women's health matterswith men. This was a particular prob-lem for those of the women who werepractising Muslims. Women interpret-.ers were generally available in thehospitals, but it was pointed out thatthere were none available at the DentalHospital. Some problems had beenexperienced with the quality of inter-preting at the Preston CommunityHospital, which it was thought werecaused because the interpreter was nota native speaker. The women felt thatit would be preferable if a Turkishwoman doctor were available in thearea, so that they would not have touse interpreters at all for health mat-ters. This had been a matter of con-tinuing concern to the group, whichhad been trying for a number of yearsto have a woman doctor's qualifica-tions recognised.

In relation to dealing with schools,some of the women had been able touse the services of a Turkish teachingaide where there was a considerableenrolment of children of Turkishbackground. However, those whosechildren attended schools where therewere not many others of the samebackground had had no such resource.It was felt that to attend school andparent-teacher meetings without aninterpreter was a waste of time. Manyof the women were unable to readcorrespondence from schools.


Legal interpreting was seen to beanother area of concern, with thegeneral opinion expressed that discus-sion of family matters in a court situa-tion was difficult enough without theadded stress of a male imerpreter. Thequality of legal interpreting was also amatter for concern.

Many of the women had used TIS,although it was considered to bealways busy and difficult to access. TIShad both male and female Turkishinterpreters, and would provide awoman interpreter if sufficient noticewere given. TIS was unsuitable formost medical interpreting for thisreason, with a two-week delay ingetting any interpreter for appoint-ments common.

The women often used the male Com-munity Worker (who is a recognisedNAATI Level 2 interpreter and transla-tor) for interpreting and translating,but would use friends or relatives insituations where no qualified personwas available. Children were notnormally used because they were noteffectively bilingual.

In relation to recruiting and traininginterpreters and translators, the groupraised a number of concerns. It wasthought to be hard for working womenor those with the responsibility for ayoung family to obtain the qualifica-tions, and it was suggested that youngsingle women should be encouraged toqualify. There were, however, very fewcourses available in Turkish. The needfor interpreters to be native speakerswas stressed. In general, the profes-sion was respected and consideredsuitable for women.

Meeting with elderly Italianwomen, Northcote,Melbourne, 3 July 1991

The meeting with 13 women wasarranged, facilitated and interpreted byMrs Bianca Baldassi to coincide with aregular social gathering of the ItalianElderly Citizens Club at the NorthcoteTown Hall. The women, of whom manyspoke very little English, and fivespoke none at all, raised issues relat-ing to health interpreting and theavailability of interpreters. Those whospoke English were keen to point outthat they did not believe that they hadsuffered any loss of language skillswith age.

The women had used a variety ofinterpreters in the public hospitalsystem, and had never had any prob-lem obtaining female interpreters, whothey strongly preferred for explaining'certain delicate matters'. It waspointed out, however, that many of thewomen used family members, espe-cially female relatives, to interpretduring appointments with specialistsand at other times when interpreterswere not available. Many had usedtheir older children to interpret whendealing with schools, but had not feltcomfortable using children to interpretwhen they were likely to be embar-rassed. Some also used the NorthcoteCity Council's female Italian-speakingcommunity workers to assist withinterpreting and translating on occa-sion.

The women felt that interpreting serv-ices had improved greatly over theyears, and were happy that manydoctors now spoke Italian, including

111


some of Anglo-Australian background.It was felt that some doctors stillneeded help in explaining medicationsand treatment to patients. Somewomen doctors had been particularlygood, even bringing interpreters withthem for home visits.

One woman was concerned that StVincent's Hospital had refused to ringfor an interpreter when she hadneeded one, and several others drewattention to delays in getting interpret-ers at the Eye and Ear Hospital.

The women had a high degree of re-spect for the profession of interpreteras a 'job which must be done properly'and felt that there should be ma. iymore women interpreters. Elderlywomen were believed to always needinterpreters because they sufferedmore from problems associated withspeaking a dialect rather than stand-ard Italian, and from never havinglearned English.

The women felt strongly that Govern-ment offices should have permanentinterpreters, and were concerned thatsome Government departments hadnot allowed them to use 'outside'interpreters, but had given them noreason.

V the end of the meeting the womenwere keen to stress, by humorousanecdote, that they had been able tocope in 1....ry difficult situations whenthey first arrived in Australia, despitelanguage difficulties, and were happythat the problems they had faced wereless likely to occur with new arrivalstoday.

112

Discussion with elderly LatinAmerican women,Fitzroy, Melbourne,6 July 1991

The meeting with 15 participants wasorganised and facilitated by MrsNorma Huerta to coincide with aregular social meeting. Although a fewof the women spoke English well, themajority spoke very little or no English.The women raised a range of issues,particularly in relation to the use ofinterpreters in the health area.

Most of the women had used govern-ment-provided interpreters, especiallyin the hospital and in dealings with theDSS. There had been women interpret-ers provided in about half of the cases.In only one case (in relation to a wom-en's health matter) had the provision ofa male interpreter caused a problem.However, the women did complain ofconsiderable delays in relation to TIS,with a ten- to 15-minute wait withoutconnection and a 30-minute wait foran interpreter being a common experi-ence.

The women raised a number of casesin which the provision of interpretershad been inappropriate or unsatisfac-tory. One of these involved an inter-preter leaving in the middle of a medi-cal interview, 'because it was takingtoo long', and another related to theprovision of an interpreter in the wronglanguage. There were also problemswith booked interpreters not beingavailable. In general, the women feltthat there were insufficient interpretersprovided in hospitals and that provi-sion for medical appointments should

119


take account of the fact that doctorsoften took longer than was expected. Itwas strongly felt that public hospitals,and in particular the Eye and EarHospital, should have permanentinterpreters, as elderly patients couldseldom properly express their needs.The hours of hospital interpreterscurrently ended at 4.00 pm, and theywere therefore not available for emer-gencies. This was of particular concernto those women who were caring forsmall grandchildren.

The participants stressed the need forinterpreters in cases of accident orcrisis, and were of the view that theirEnglish capacity decreased markedlyat such times. This could lead topatients being left waiting for longperiods, and some had had experi-ences where the doctor could under-stand them but they could not under-stand the doctor. As well, it was feltthat many doctors were not happy touse interpreters or resented what theysaw as an intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship, and it was consid-ered that there should be an effortmade to sensitise doctors in relation tothis and other issues of cultural differ-ence.

In relation to the use of informal inter-preters, most of the women usedfriends or relatives, especially sons anddaughters, if no interpreter could beprovided. This had led to a number ofproblems, with cases raised of lawyers,hospitals and doctors not acceptingrelatives as interpreters. Communityworkers were often used for interpret-ing, despite their lack of formal qualifi-cations, because of their availabilityand commitment.

In relation to the quality of interpret-ing, the women felt that some legalinterpreters were not of sufficientproficiency, and that legal interpretingrequired Level 3 accreditation. Inaddition, it was pointed out that manyinterpreters were unfamiliar withmedical forms and strongly stressedthat hospital interpreting should beviewed as a special skill requiring full-time employment. There was consid-ered to be insufficient public informa-tion on interpreter qualifications andtraining standards. It was pointed outthat the second generation had oftenlost effective Spanish skills and couldnot become good interpreters withoutfurther training.

The women felt that the elderly shouldnot be prevented or discouraged fromlearning English, and the need forpatience was stressed. Four of theparticipants had never attended Eng-lish classes, and it was considereddifficult to get a home tutor, given longdelays in their allocation.

In relation to the DSS, there wasconsidered to be too much demand onthe available interpreters, and theproblem of cuts to this service were ofparticular concern to the elderly be-cause of their reliance on pensions andbenefits.

Meeting with Hmong women,Fitzroy, Melbourne,7 July 1991

The meeting was arranged by Ms BliaLy to coincide with a regular meeting ofmainly young mothers living in theFitzroy Housing Commission flats. The

120 113


meeting was in the community room ofthe flats, and was attended by 12women, most of whom spoke no Eng-lish. Ms Ly acted as interpreter andfacilitator. Those attending raised anumber of issues relating to lack ofsufficient interpreters, and problemsrelating to use of interpreters in thearea of health, education and emer-gency services

The women were concerned at the lackof interpreters available in the Hmonglanguage. They were strongly of theview that women interpreters werenecessary for cultural reasons, andstated that in many cases they woulduse a friend as an interpreter if nowoman interpreter was available. Manyhad experienced difficulties in thehealth area, with the comment thatdoctors were often unable to get inter-preters when they needed them. Somewomen had not attended a doctorwhen they were sick because of this.

The women mentioned the problem ofolder women, who were looking aftergrandchildren during the day, and whohad no English and little knowledge ofservices. These women had had prob-lems with medical emergencies, espe-cially with using the ambulance serv-ice. In general, they felt that there weregreat problems associated with gettinginterpreters after hours and on week-ends.

In relation to their children, the womenstated that while they sometimesreceived from school written materialwhich had been translated, they hadbeen unable to access interpreters forschool meetings. They felt that thisresulted in their feeling isolated fromthe school and prevented them fromparticipating as they would have liked

114

in their children's education. Thereduction in interpreter services to thelocal Baby Health Clinic was seen asmaking it difficult for women withsmall babies. This was particularlyproblematic for the Hmong, amongwhom children outnumber adults,because many of the women are ofchildbearing age.

The women felt that their need forbetter English language skills wasparamount, and that while several ofthem would like to become interpretersthemselves, they were constrained bythe need to provide for their families,their lack of basic English and theirlack of knowledge of how to become aninterpreter. It was felt that many of theolder women found it difficult to learnEnglish at all, having never been toschool.

Meeting with Hmong and Laowomen, Innisfail,Queensland, 4 October 1991

The meeting with four Hmong and oneLao woman was organised by Ms AnnScott of the Innisfail CommunityAdvice and Information Centre and aHmong interpreter was present. TheLao woman was an interpreter also,and discussion with her was left untilthe end of the meeting.

Three of the Hmong women currentlyattended English classes and only twohad telephones at home. None of theHmong women had used governmentor TIS interpreters. All of the womenused friends or relatives when neces-sary for interpreting. Even when shop-ping they used a self-service supermar-ket so as not to have to use theirlimited Englich. Their impression was

1 21


that none of the ten Hmong womenwho attended English classes wouldreach more than a basic level of Eng-lish. It was felt that the formal teach-ing of English should be accorded ahigher priority in country areas, asopportunities to practise were limitedin daily life.

With regard to their relations with localschools, they mentioned that they weresometimes able to use the two Hmong-speaking teacher aides as first con-tacts with teachers, especially oneteacher whom they felt was quiteapproachable. Translation of writtenmaterial from schools was seen asmore difficult and beyond the compe-tence of the teacher aides.

In health matters, the need for awoman interpreter was stressed forreasons of modesty and privacy. In thepast all the women had used visitors tointerpret when they were in 'mater-nity', sometimes having to wait forconsiderable time before being able toexpress their needs.

In an emergency situation, the womenfelt that they would be most likely tocall their husband or friends, or ifnecessary use their children to inter-pret. None thought that they would becapable of using T1S although somehad heard of it. It was pointed out thatat that time they were not aware thatthere was any TIS-registered Hmonginterpreter.

The problem of older women, whospoke no English at all, was thenraised. It was felt that these women,who were often babysitting youngchildren during the day, had thegreatest need for interpreters. It wasthought that some, but not many, of

these older women might be interestedin learning English.

In general, the women stressed thatface-to-face interpreting was alwayspreferable to a telephone service, butthey felt that they might use TIS if theycould feel assured that a Hmonginterpreter was available.

Finally in relation to translation, theneed for translated information onregistration with CES and DSS wasstressed, and it was also felt thattranslated forms should be available inHmong to make them easier to com-plete.

Discussion with the Lao interpreterthen raised a number of issues ofconcern to the women of the Laocommunity, who had felt shy aboutattending the meeting and who hadtherefore not attended despite agreeingto do so. The main issues were seen tobe the use of informal interpreters, tono good effect in some cases. Oneparticular case was raised of a womanwho had a relatively minor medicalproblem, was not able to understandthe TIS system and for whom no provi-sion for an interpreter had been madeby the particular medical authorities.The result had been that a necessaryoperation had not been performed andthe woman's medical condition hadbeen deteriorating for some months.

The interpreter was also concernedthat as an informal interpreter, whohad been awaiting formal accreditationby NAATI for nearly twelve months, shewas expected by government agencies(including DSS and the Housing Com-mission) to interpret in quite complexsituations for no payment.

122115

Women and Language Serutces

Meeting with Filipino women,Cairns, Queensland,4 October 1991

The mT.etng was arranged by MsAurora Foster of Cairns Family Care inresponse to interest within the Filipinowomen's community. Five womenattended, all of whom spoke excellentEnglish.

The women were keen to point out thatwhile for them the use of English didnot present any problems in daily life,there were some older women in thecommunity whose English capacitywas deteriorating with advancingyears. The problems faced by mostFilipino women related to Australianpronunciation and the cultural ten-dency of Filipino women to shynessand quickness of speech which some-times made it difficult for Australiansto understand them.

It was felt that there was still a needfor Filipino women to have access tointerpreters in complicated matters,especially in the health and legalareas.

Meeting with group of mixedbackground, less than tenyears residence, Townsville,7 October 1991

The meeting with nine women wasarranged by and held at the TownsvilleMigrant Resource Centre. Five of thewomen spoke Spanish and one actedas interpreter when necessary forthose with little English. The othersspoke Tamil. German, Thai and Farsi,with varying levels of English. Thewomen raised issues relating to avail-

116

ability and competence of interpretersand translators, specialist interpreterneeds and related language servicesneeds.

All of the women were aware thatinterpreter services existed but manywere unclear as to who provided them.Most had heard about services fromcompatriots or the MRC, and onewoman noted that a book provided byan Australian Embassy overseas hadmentioned the existence of MRCs butnot of interpreting and tanslatingservices.

Many of the women were confused bythe varying availability of interpretersin Government offices, and had had anumber of problems caused by delaysin getting an interpreter. They stressedthat they were often anxious enoughwhen dealing with official agencies,and that the lack of or delay in gettingan interpreter was extremely upsettingfor them. They were also concerned bythe consequent need to tell the samestory several times, with one womanstating that it was 'like telling a news-paper'. Many stressed their shyness,especially in relation to family matters,which were often compounded whenthey were forced to use a relative forinterpreting.

In relation to interpreter and translatorcompetence and ethics, several of thewomen recounted their experiences. Inone case a male interpreter had misin-terpreted a doctor's diagnosis (goutbeing translated as osteoporosis), amistake which was fortunately recog-nised by the doctor. The same inter-preter had also made offensive corn-ments about the patient's ethnic groupto the doctor allegedly saying, 'If yougive the wrong treatment ... these

1 2,;


people will kill you'. In the case of thislanguage group, such problems hadoccurred repeatedly, with the conse-quence that the group were extremelyhesitant to use TIS.

Most of the Spanish-speaking womenhad also used informal interpretersand members of their families asinterpreters and translators, and itwas noted that a particularly helpfullocal doctor had a Spanish-speakingnurse, who he used if no formal inter-preter was available. In urgent cases,the Spanish-speaking women wereable to access (through a 24 hourmedical centre) a Dutch woman doctorwho spoke some Spanish. Relativeswere considered to be less effectivethan other regularly used informalinterpreters, who were highly respectedfor their commitment to the welfare oftheir communities. In general, how-ever, all the women stressed the needfor specialist training of interpreters inthe medical and legal fields. It was feltthat the need for more women inter-preters was urgent, particularly in thearea of medicine, and that a woman'sright to request a female interpretershould be respected wherever possible.

In relation to rural isolation and age-ing, the women felt that one answerwas better access to English languageclasses. It was felt to be unfair thatthose who were older or of long resi-dence should be restricted in theiraccess to such courses, as these oftenhad needs which were greater thanyounger and often more educatednewly-arrived women.

Meeting with group of mixedbackground, over 10 yearsresidence, Townsville,7 October 1991

The meeting with three women, ofSerbian, Mexican and Thai back-ground, was arranged by the MigrantResource Centre. All of the womenspoke fair to excellent English.

The Thai woman was not confident ofher ability to undertake complexmatters in English. and felt that shewould still require an interpreter ortranslator in such cases because of herlimited ability. She had no experienceof a trained interpreter, there havingbeen none available locally in herlanguage and in her early years LnAustralia she had been totally relianton her husband or her single compa-triot in the area. She saw the majorneed for women in her position asbeing for bridging courses.

The Mexican woman had an excellentcommand of English, having under-taken terUary studies in Australia, andsaw her major need as being in thearea of first-language retention. TheSerbian woman had had a number ofproblems associated with understand-ing written English, a problem whichhad recently been compounded whenpolitical events in her home countryhad isolated her from her usual com-munity contacts. She had never hadany early English language training,because her husband had alwaysexpected that they would return toYugoslavia. Later, when she had triedto learn English she was restrainedfrom undertaking formal classes be-cause of her length of residence, andhad been unable to access the HomeTutor Scheme, despite efforts whichhad continued for several years untilthe present.

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Appendix 3Terms of reference

1. Commonwealth-StateCouncil on NESB Women'sIssues

1) To provide a Commonwealth-Statemechanism for the co-ordinationand development of policies tomeet the particular needs of NESSwomen in Australia.

11) To promote equitable access togovernment services by NESBwomen and more effective servicesand structures through identifyingparticular barriers and otherproblems and proposing specificstrategies.

Hi) To advise Commmonwealth, Stateand Territory governments on theconcerns and needs of NESBwomen through the identificationof specific priorities and the provi-sion of reports on how such priori-ties should be effectively ad-dressed.

iv) To undertake or promote consul-tation and research relevant to theabove objectives.

v) To promote co-operation betweenall levels of government and withnon-government bodies relevant tothe above objectives.

vi) To report annually:to the Prime Minister throughthe Minister for Immigration,Local Government and EthnicAffairs and the MinisterAssisting the Prime Minister

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for Multicultural Affairs andthe Minister Assisting thePrime Minister for the Statusof Women.

to the Conference of Com-monwealth-State/TerritoryMinisters for Immigration andEthnic Affairs through theMinister for Immigration.Local Government and EthnicAffairs and the MinisterAssisting the Prime Ministerfor Multicultural Affairs.

2. Consultancy project todevelop a paper on theinterpreting and translationneedds of NESB women.

The consultants will draft an IssuesPaper looking at women's interpretingand translation needs under the direc-tion of the Commonwealth-State Coun-cil on Non-English Speaking Back-ground Women's Issues.

The project will involve examininggender issues in interpreting servicesin relation to the needs of NESSwomen across Australia, looking at:

States or Territories with developedservices, andStates or Territories with limitedservices.

The study should explore:

NESB women clients' needs:their access to, and the availabilityof, appropriate quality services;related services delivery issues, e.g.,training and information needs andprocedures and access to, and theprotection of, women interpreters;and

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development of options for informa-tion dissemination strategies.

From these studies, the consultantwill:

develop gender-oriented principlesand practices for language servicesand support services;provide a set of recommendationsfrom the Council for service provid-ers, and for consideration in thedevelopment and co-ordination ofservices, e.g., in the establishment ofthe National Language ServicesOrganisation.

The Consultant's drafts will be handedover to the Commonwealth-StateCouncil on NESB Women's Issues forconsideration and publication as aCouncil document. Proper acknowl-edgement will appear in the publica-tion.

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