Are Media (formerly Bauer Media) has launched its latest Activist Agenda campaign which demands governments around the country introduce a "nationally consistent offence" aimed at non-physical domestic abuse, known as Coercive Control.

The company has built a coalition of significant women’s groups and legal advocates to lobby State and Territory governments to criminalise Coercive Control, which in New South Wales is associated with 99% of cases where a woman is murdered by her partner or ex-partner.

Coercive control is the foundational element of domestic abuse towards women in which the perpetrator uses emotional, psychological and other non-physical abuse to intimidate and control their partner. It is an inevitable lead up to physical abuse and, too often, to domestic homicide.

Developed by Story54, Are Media’s commercial insights, content and marketing division, and spearheaded by The Australian Women’s Weekly and Marie Claire, together with 40 of Are Media’s leading brands, the coalition includes White Ribbon, Small Steps for Hannah, Women’s Safety NSW, Queensland Women’s Legal Service and journalist and author of 'Look What You Made Me Do', Jess Hill. 

An advertising campaign called ‘Join the Dots’ which highlights the indicators of Coercive Control has been created by Story54. Designed to drive education and encourage people to sign a petition calling on laws to be changed, the ads will run across Are Media’s women’s brands with specific ads targeting men across its auto division. 

The Coercive Control campaign is the third iteration of Are Media’s Activist Agenda.

In 2019 the 'Stop Elder Financial Abuse' campaign, launched in partnership with the Australian Banking Association (ABA), secured agreement from governments to establish baseline minimum standards for Power of Attorneys and to create a mandatory national online register.

In 2018, the Federal Government agreed to remove the GST on women’s sanitary products following years of lobbying and Are Media’s ‘No Gender Selective Tax’ campaign.