THIS year, at least 48 women have died violently in Australia. The Destroy the Joint group has been keeping the grim toll for its Counting Dead Women campaign.
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It’s a frightening number, and it’s even more frightening when you realise that if the trend continues, Australia will pass the figure of 84 violent deaths recorded last year, often in situations of domestic violence.
Of course, it’s not just women who die in situations of domestic violence. The NSW Ombudsman this week tabled a report that shows 83 children have died in “in circumstances of familial abuse” over a 10-year period to 2013.
NSW Ombudsman Bruce Barbour recommends police and child protection staff work more closely together to improve responses to children living with domestic violence.
“Our child death review work has shown there is a clear link between familial fatal abuse of children and perpetrators who were already known to police as serious violent offenders,” Mr Barbour said.
The report demonstrates the need for the NSW Police Force and department of Family and Community Services to strengthen collaboration on high-risk cases, including better and more swift exchange of information from the police and child protection databases.
“The majority – almost 80 per cent – of children who died in abuse-related circumstances over the past decade in NSW were killed or allegedly killed by a family member,” Mr Barbour said.
“Over half of the persons of interest in the child’s death were birth parents. Notably, intimate partners of birth mothers, particularly new male partners, also featured as persons of interest in one-third of the cases.”
More than half of the “persons of interest” were known to police as perpetrators of domestic and other violence.
Most strikingly, the majority of those with a history of violence were known to police as serious violent offenders, the Ombudsman said. There is something heartbreakingly awful about the fact we in Australia are counting not only dead women, but also dead children, three-quarters of them aged under five.
Mr Barbour’s suggestions, including one for a quicker exchange of information between the police and child protection databases, cannot be implemented too quickly. - Jody Springett
