WHILE you were watching the footy and sparking up the barbie at the weekend, 21 locals were the victims of domestic violence.
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That figure is so chilling, you may need a moment to absorb it.
Domestic violence casts a shadow of shame over every corner of our community.
It’s a sub-culture of violence, terror and depravity and it crosses gender, class, race and age lines.
The perpetrators are husbands, wives, partners and even children.
It leaves scars that will never heal.
And according to the latest evidence from the frontline, it’s on the rise.
So why aren’t we talking about it more?
In pockets of our community, frontline workers are desperate to spark a communal conversation about the domestic violence scourge.
What they have encountered is a wall of silence that’s tough to penetrate.
Part of that is because domestic violence is a hidden epidemic.
By its very nature, it’s hard to detect and often even harder to police and punish.
Domestic violence remains the largest killer of Australian women of child-bearing age.
Staggeringly, three out of every four women murdered perish at the hands of an intimate partner.
Given the statistics show we are in the grip of a women’s health crisis, why are we so strangely silent on the issue of people being beaten in their homes?
A mere whiff of racism ignites furious public debate and the issue of same-sex marriage has reached the point of hysteria, yet the alarming rate of domestic violence passes with barely a whimper.
Do people think it’s merely a “woman’s issue” or just some embellished feminist propaganda?
Much like the issue of suicide, we can no longer cringe about domestic violence and hope it will go away.
A more concentrated policy effort from governments to provide help, protection and rehabilitation to the victims of this hidden crime is essential.
And we, as a community, must raise our heads and have the courage to speak openly about one of our most pressing social problems.