Flowers and
other items at the scene where Hannah Clarke and her three children
were killed in Brisbane.
Hayley Foster, chief executive of Women’s
Safety, New South Wales, has worked in domestic violence support
for 15 years and she’s been shocked by what she’s witnessed this
year.
“2020 will be remembered as the worst year for domestic violence
that any of us who are in the sector now have ever experienced,”
says Foster.
“There [have been] just so many more
strangulation cases, so many threats to kill, so many more
serious head injuries, and sexual assaults [have been] going
through the roof,” she says.
The
coronavirus restrictions, combined with unemployment and financial stress linked
to the pandemic, have caused domestic violence cases to spike across the
country.
In July, a
survey by the Australian Institute of Criminology revealed almost 10% of
Australian women in a relationship had experienced domestic violence during the
coronavirus crisis.
Two-thirds of
the women said the attacks started or became worse during the pandemic. For
women with previous experience of physical or sexual violence, 50% said the
abuse had become more frequent or severe since the start of the pandemic.
The escalation
in abuse is something Ava*, a domestic and family violence specialist working in
regional NSW, has been grappling with in recent months.
She says one
of her clients would have a respite from her abusive husband during work hours
but he has lost work during the pandemic and is now home all the time.
Financial
pressures trigger him “into a rage at minor things (like a) child leaving light
on when leaving a room,” she says. Her client is scared and the man is drinking
steadily, limiting his wife’s access to finances and monitoring her phone.
“This was all
part of the abuse prior to the Covid-19 restrictions but has increased in
intensity and frequency”, says Ava.
Staff at
Illawarra Women’s Health Centre are facing unprecedented demand for support from
women in domestic violence situations. Referrals to the service from January to
August increased 189% compared with the previous year, while phone calls spiked
55% in the same period, says the chief executive, Sally Stevenson.
Waiting lists
for counselling have blown out from two weeks to three months, she says. “We
can’t get a woman in to see a counsellor[for months].”
For women like
Thi*, who is on a temporary visa, access to support services is a lifeline.
She left her
husband after his behaviour escalated from verbal to physical abuse during the
pandemic.
She lost her
job due to the coronavirus and now has no work or savings. She is ineligible for
jobseeker and jobkeeper payments because she is on a bridging visa.
She is one of
many survivors of domestic violence who are reliant on “one-off” emergency
payments and increasingly stretched services, says Michal Morris, chief
executive of
InTouch multicultural domestic violence support.
‘We really need to do better’
Around the
country, states and territories are reporting increases in the number and
severity of domestic violence cases.
In Victoria, over 50% of domestic
violence workers have reported an increase in the frequency and severity of
domestic violence since the start of the pandemic, according to
a survey by Monash
University. Family violence incidents including assault, sexual assault and
harassment increased almost 7% in the period to June compared with the previous
year, according to state crime statistics.
“What we’re
seeing is a greater presentation of risk and more complex cases,” says Rita
Butera, the chief executive of the Safe Steps domestic violence crisis support
in Melbourne.
During stage 4
restrictions in Victoria, calls to the Safe Steps
crisis support hotline spiked by 20%.
However,
Butera is just as concerned about those who haven’t been able to pick up the
phone. “If you’re in lock-in and you need to call for help but you’re under 24/7
surveillance [by a perpetrator], you’ve got no exit, you’ve got no place to go.
You can’t go to your friend’s place, you can’t go drive the kids to school,
because there’s no school,” she says.
In April,
Melbourne’s Safe Steps domestic violence crisis support launched a web chat
service for women who needed to ask for help while their perpetrator was in the
house. Since then the service has been met with increasing demand, particularly
from younger people, says Butera.
In one case, a
woman who was locked in her bedroom with her children, terrified of her
partner’s escalating verbal abuse and agitation, was able to use web chat to ask
Safe Steps to call the police, she says.
Similarly, in South Australia,
police reported a 12%
increase in domestic and family violence-related assaults, sexual assaults,
threatening behaviour and property offences compared with the same time last
year.
Over in Western Australia, domestic
violence-related assault
jumped 10.6%, while domestic
violence-related threatening behaviour spiked by 15.3%.
Kedy Kristal,
acting chief executive of the Women’s Council for Domestic and Family Violence
Services in Perth, says services across Western Australia have been reporting
increases in complex and challenging cases, and legal centres, counselling and
Safe at Home programs have been under particular pressure.
In Queensland, 81% of domestic violence
services
reported an escalation of
controlling behaviour and manipulation in June, and 49% reported an escalation
of perpetrators using Covid-19 as a reason for abuse.
At Brisbane
Domestic Violence Service, demand across all programs, including legal support,
counselling and casework, has increased 30%, says the chief executive, Karyn
Walsh.
Walsh says
increased government support during the pandemic has meant the service has been
able to assist women faster and with more complex issues than before.
This year the
service has taken on an additional five temporary staff members and has worked
with the Queensland government to provide long-term housing to 59 women and
their children escaping domestic violence situations. That number is “around
double” last year’s figures, says Walsh.
But she
expects demand for the service to stay high, and she’s concerned about what will
happen when the funding runs out.
“I don’t think
the numbers are going to go down,” she says. “People have used their super, have
used [increased rates of] jobseeker, and some have taken on leases they probably
can’t afford to just be safe during this time. We’re going to be in turbulent
times [as the economic recession continues].”
“What we’ve
learned is we really need to do better, and we can,” says Walsh. “I think [the
government] should be really considering maintaining that [current] level of
investment.”
‘Failed thousands of women’
Despite the
federal government’s additional domestic violence funding, many of these support
services are chronically underfunded. Hayley Foster, the chief executive of
Women’s Safety NSW, says there hasn’t been enough to meet demand, and essential
services in desperate need of funds have missed out.
Illawarra
Women’s Health Centre’s Sally Stevenson says her centre hasn’t received any
additional funds through the national $150m domestic violence funding package
despite a 27.3% increase in domestic and family violence in the Shellharbour
local government area.
She is
currently competing against other services for a slice of the second round of
federal funding, which is capped at $150,000 per service for 12 months.
“It’s
absolutely ridiculous. It’s shameful, and it’s inefficient,” she says. While
overrun services spend time applying for grants, “the psychological injury that
[women are] experiencing from domestic violence is not being treated,” she says.
Mark Speakman,
NSW attorney general, has defended the competitive funding process. “This
process safeguards the fair and transparent distribution of taxpayer funds,” he
said in a statement.
The federal
budget didn’t offer much hope either, with many services hoping for additional
funds left disappointed. Advocacy group Fair Agenda
condemned the lack of new funding, saying it “failed thousands of women”.
The social
services minister, Anne Ruston, was approached for comment but did not respond
by deadline.
