No one should fear harm at the hands of those they love.
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But the top health risk factor to Australian women aged between 18 and 44 remains intimate partner violence.
In 2016, a Compass report found one-in-three Australian women have experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse by an intimate partner since age 15.
The statistic isn’t new. The problem isn’t new. But it keeps happening.
Last Monday, police allege a 46-year-old woman died at the hands of her partner.
Inspector Winston Woodward said the woman died of head injuries in the unit she shared with her partner.
“She has died alone,” he said.
“Her next of kin were in South Australia and it’s distressing for everybody involved.”
This Monday, police reported a 27-year-old woman was hospitalised with serious injuries after a domestic violence incident.
And if the statistics are to be believed, these incidents are the tip of the iceberg.
Domestic violence still overwhelmingly happens behind closed doors, not necessarily making its way into community consciousness.
But the impacts of violence do not stay contained.
Emotionally it ripples through families and communities.
Economically, it affects everyone, with a report prepared in the wake of the Royal Commission into domestic violence finding the total cost of family violence in the state was $5.3 billion a year.
And it seems after years of campaigns to bring domestic violence out of the shadows, to reduce stigma and create prevention programs – violence is still happening, every day.
On Thursday the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research revealed Safer Pathway, a program designed to support victims of domestic violence, had “limited effect on the incidences of domestic violence in NSW”.
The screening tool at the heart of the Safer Pathway program was found by BOCSAR to be “a very poor instrument for measuring the risk of repeat domestic violence victimisation, often performing little better than chance”.
Those at risk of repeated violence deserve better than chance.
Something must be done, from within our community and within the houses of parliament, to end the decades of violence.
So men, women and children can all feel safe in their homes.