Domestic Violence: Just How Widespread Is It? Victorian Government In World-First To Find Out

In Australia, domestic violence is the number one cause of death or disability in women under the age of 45 – it’s also one of the most massively under-reported crimes in the country. In a world-first, the Victorian Government has launched an initiative to track the actual scale of family violence – a family violence index.

Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, Fiona Richardson has said “We know we have a crisis on our hands, but what we don’t know is the full extent of the harm caused by family violence”, she told the ABC. Richardson said in 2014, one women was killed by her partner every week. This year, that figure appears to be tracking closer to two per week. Richardson said that while crime statistics have been a good indicator of the scale of the crisis, over time, but that given the rate of under-reporting of domestic violence “the police statistics can’t tell us about the number of women who’ve presented at the hospital emergency rooms, or the number of children in out-of-home care. It gives us a picture, but not a complete picture of the scale of the problem”, she said.

Sadly, the lack of reporting of domestic violence is rife, and not just in the obvious places like hospitals and emergency rooms. “People from non-English speaking backgrounds, people with disabilities, people with mental illness, people from the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual sectors o the community…we’ve got no doubt they’re under-reporting but we just don’t have a picture of how big that problem is”, said Tim Cartwright, Acting Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police.

The family violence index is designed to shine a light on the extent to which domestic violence is penetrating society, and in particular within subsections of the community where little to no data exists, effectively making them invisible in the statistics. Fiona McCormack from Domestic Violence Victoria told the ABC, “women with disabilities is a classic. So how do we even get governments to do something if we don’t even have data about the extent of the issue and what’s going to effect change?”, she said.

What do you think about the Victorian Family Violence Index? Should all Australian states adopt the same initiative to get a national picture? Share your thoughts below…