Today we are so much more aware of the reach of domestic and family violence in our community.

Statistics abound suggesting just how many women and children - for it is they who form the vast majority - are victims.

For now, the estimation is one-in-five, though that's likely to rise.

That's the reckoning from Centre Against Violence chief executive Kerry Burns.

Higher because for too long so many victims of domestic and family violence have not felt able to come forward to tell their stories, to escape the quagmire.

That could have been about fear, about shame, or simply because they did not know what they could do or who they could turn to.

But thanks to the issue becoming so much more front and centre in all our conversations these days, they are finding a way through the trauma of their experiences to hopefully a better life.

For that reason, Ms Burns suspects the prevalence of the problem, or perhaps more pointedly, the numbers who are truly impacted, will become more apparent over the next decade.

Part of that robust conversation has come from Victoria's Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Out of that, says Ms Burns - and others working in the sector right across the Border region - has come "a strong permission" for women to begin naming the problem.

The turnaround though from this violence becoming an unspeakable, hidden part of everyday life to where we are today, where the prevalence of the violence - that experts say is so much about men exercising power and control - is truly shocking.

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No perfect solution can ever be found, for the complexity of the issue is as complex as our shared diversity.

But an enormous amount of effort is being invested by those working in the sector into a way forward, especially tackling the underlying problem of what many say is a culture of disrespect towards women.

Finding solutions to this crisis won't be easy, but we have no other choice; for the sake of the victims and future generations.

STOP THE VIOLENCE - THE SERIES