Domestic Violence

About Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence
Domestic violence is an act of violence   between people who have, or have had, an intimate relationship in domestic settings.

These acts include physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse.

What Do we Know About Domestic Violence
Due to the private nature of the relationships and the violence most acts of domestic violence go unreported.  Without victims reporting the violence, it is impossible to measure the real extent of the problem.

We do know, however, that domestic violence in Australia is common and widespread. We know that a woman is more likely to be killed in her home by her male partner than anywhere else or by anyone else.

Examples of Domestic Violence

Is this happening to you
Domestic violence includes:
  • emotional abuse—blaming the victim for all problems in the relationship, undermining the victim’s self-esteem and self-worth through comparisons with others, withdrawing interest and engagement and emotional blackmail
  • verbal abuse—swearing and humiliation in private and public, focusing on intelligence, sexuality, body image or the victim’s capacity as a parent or spouse
  • social abuse—systematic isolation from family and friends, instigating and controlling relocations to a place where the victim has no social circle or employment opportunities and preventing the victim from going out to meet people
  • economic abuse—controlling all money, forbidding access to bank accounts, providing an inadequate ‘allowance’, preventing the victim seeking or holding employment and taking wages earned by the victim
  • psychological abuse—making threats regarding custody of children, asserting the justice system will not believe or support the victim, destroying property, abusing pets and driving dangerously
  • spiritual abuse—denial and/or misuse of religious beliefs or practices to force victims into subordinate roles and misusing religious or spiritual traditions to justify physical violence or other abuse
  • physical abuse—direct assaults on the body, use of weapons (including objects), assault of children, locking the victim out of the house, sleep and food deprivation, and
  • sexual abuse—any form of pressured/unwanted sex or sexual degradation, causing pain during sex, coercive sex without protection against pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, making the victim perform sexual acts unwillingly and criticising or using degrading insults.

The Statistics

Past 12 months - alarming
In the past 12 months just under half a million Australian women reported that they had experienced physical or sexual violence or sexual assault.

Physical Violence
33.3% of women had experienced physical violence since the age of 15.

Sexual Violence
19.1% of women had experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.

1 in 3 Women
An estimated one in three women in non-LGBTI communities experience violence from a partner, former partner or family member


The Costs
DFV and sexual assault costs Australia $13.6 billion each year, a figure that is set to rise to $15.6 billion by 2021

No Data
There is no dedicated Australian data relating to the experiences of violence in relationships for transgender and intersex people




Sources

Reference for above information: 
(1) http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2011-2012/DVAustralia#_Toc309798373
(2)  Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, 2012, Facts about. Women's Safety: Fact Sheet 2