I was listening to a podcast recently and they starting speaking about how it’s almost as if the ‘domestic’ in front of ‘violence’ takes away from the severity of the situation. After all, it is just violence…
If a person walked up to another person in the street and bashed their head against a post, then the offender would face criminal charges. If the offender repeated this action, then they would face harsher penalties. So the question in my mind is, why does this not apply to instances behind closed doors?
If anything, it’s worse behind closed doors because with physical abuse often comes emotional abuse. The victim is made to feel like it’s their fault…like their not good enough and that this is what love is like… It’s definitely not love, that’s for sure!
According to Mission Australia, 1.5 million Australian women have experienced domestic violence since the age of 15. I would imagine that these statistics would in fact be higher, as not all women in Australia would have been surveyed and out of the women who were, not all may have been truthful.
One would imagine that all of this has been heightened since the commencement of Covid restrictions. Couples forced to stay at home together for days on end is the fuel that sparks any underlying fire. However, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, no increase in reports of domestic violence in Queensland or New South Wales was recorded in March or April of 2020. But does this actually mean that there wasn’t an increase? I personally don’t think so.
I think that at the end of the day, a large majority of cases don’t get reported as it is and now that so many people are expected to self isolate, it’s likely that an even larger number of cases are going unreported.
The solution to domestic violence situations is difficult, I understand that. Most of the time the women refuse to report their partners and in terms of law enforcement… well their hands are tied. But I think that law enforcement needs to catch up. Even just talking about it more and making people aware, especially young people, that it is not okay to be physically or emotionally harmed. Under any circumstances.
As far as I’m concerned, someone shouldn’t have to die before something is done. When it’s too late, it’s too late.