Domestic Violence: Current Social Issues In Australia

Answer :

Introduction

 Domestic violence is one of the severe issues that create a negative impact on millions of people around the world. Domestic violence creates for various reasons and mainly affects the women than the women. Therefore, for reducing these social issues, the government need to implement a strict strategy or law so that it can be cut. This assignment is intended to describe various aspects of domestic violence in Australia.

 Historical overview of the issue:

 Domestic violence is defined in Australia by the Family law act 1975 that describe a violent as well as threatening behaviour by an individual to control their other family member. However, in early 1970, domestic violence was unrecognised and mainly ignored in the social sphere (Out of the shadows: the rise of domestic violence in Australia, 2018). Domestic violence was first recognised in the year of 1980s in Australia since then domestic violence was considered as one of the criminal justice issues. The family violence was first started among the married couple, but in the present time, the area of domestic violence has been expanded. For this reason, various laws in Australia were established to protect any individual from violent abuse (Out of the shadows: the rise of domestic violence in Australia, 2018). However, after the happening of the Baden Clay case, the law has also been implemented to protect the individual from the non-violent abuses.

 The primary origin of the present day’s family violence was mainly created after the WW2 when there were general problems of wife beating. It is observed that in the era of 1960 to 1970, the first group of women was first set up by organising the refuges for the women who wanted to escape from the violence they face (History of reforms – Domestic Violence Victoria, 2018). In the year 1974, the first team of refuge was first established, and within the two years, more than 16 refugees were set up that also includes the Italian woman and the aboriginal people. When the workers of refugees regularly bought experiences into the specialist’s knowledge body, then it were widely diagnosed (History of reforms – Domestic Violence Victoria, 2018).

 The context of issue:

 In the present time, the violence against the women has become widely recognised as one of the widespread as well as severe problems in Australia that creates an enormous impact on the community as well as individual and creates substantial social costs. According to a current statistics, it has been observed that their former or current partner murders one woman in every week in Australia (OurWatch - Facts and figures, 2018). Since the age of fifteen, one in three women faces the physical violence. One in four women faces sexual assault or physical abuse by their current partner. According to the Australian Institute of health and welfare, it has been observed that family violence is the primary causes of the homelessness’s and the problem is developing in the first five years. It has been found that in general 1 in 6 women that are 1.6 million people in Australia and 1 in 16 male such as 500000 people are facing domestic violence in the present time (OurWatch - Facts and figures, 2018).

 According to the statistics presented by AIHW, there are 72000 women, 9000 men along with the 34000 children’s are there who have faced homelessness situation because of the domestic violence in Australia. It is observed that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 9 men have suffered the sexual abuse before they become the age of 15 (Abc.net.au, 2018). It has been observed that domestic violence caused by the intimate partners causes more disabilities, illnesses along with the deaths among the women from the age group of 25 to 44 years of the age group in the year of 2016 to 2017. Indigenous people in Australia are also facing huge threats due to the domestic violence. It has been observed that indigenous women are 32 times more vulnerable to meet the domestic violence whereas; the native male is 23 times more likely to face domestic violence. Aboriginal children are seven times more vulnerable to suffer domestic violence (Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia, 2018, Summary - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018). The report has represented the fact that indigenous Australians are facing a domestic violence issue because of the over-crowdedness, poor housing facilities, and unemployment along with the financial difficulties. 

 Particular discourse where the issue is discussed:

As per Australian Institute of health and welfare, domestic, sexual along with the family violence is one of the significant health and welfare issues that can be caused to every age, every demographic as well as a socioeconomic group but it predominantly impacts the women and children (Aihw.gov.au, 2018). The report published by AIHW mainly describe that women are most like to face sexual and domestic violence. However, men are likely to experience the violence from the strangers. AIHW has expressed the fact that children’s are more likely to face domestic violence that creates the massive impact on their development.  

 From the journal "causes of domestic violence and implication for primary prevention" domestic violence mainly generated because of gender inequalities in the male-dominated world. According to the author of the journal, for reducing the domestic violence, it is highly relevant to help the women to get escape from the situation where they are facing the domestic violence along with that arranging a counselling for the male is important who is committing the domestic violence (Sutherland & De Paul, 2015). Providing guidelines to both men and women to create a better relationship is necessary here.

 Strategies, policies and programs for addressing the issue:

It has been observed that domestic violence has gained a higher level of community concerns and become a priority of the Australian, territory along with the state governments. For this purposes, the government has taken several initiatives such as investment on the prevention of the domestic violence along with the early level of intervention ('One dead every week': Landmark report reveals the extent of domestic violence, 2018). It also improves the higher level of integration of the service responses for the victims. Along with that, the accountability for the perpetrators such as the NSW ministry of health 2016 etcetera has been increased. 

 The government of Australia has encountered that domestic violence may result in the physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, economic abuse, and social along with the psychological damage. For reducing the tendency of the domestic violence among the individuals in Australia, the government of Australia has implemented varieties of laws in their organisation such as Domestic and family violence act 2007, family violence act 2004, Restraining orders act 1997, family violence protection act 2008. Along with that, the Australian government has also implemented other acts intervention orders act 2004 (Domestic violence: issues and policy challenges – Parliament of Australia., 2018).

 For addressing the issues, the Australian government have effectively involved the police who plays a crucial role in responding to the domestic violence. Polices are engaged in recording the incidents of the violence, interview the victims and police is also associated with the collecting evidence so that they can create the charge against the people who conducted the crime (Domestic violence: issues and policy challenges – Parliament of Australia., 2018). Police are also involved in obtaining the order from the courts and include them in applying various criminal laws to facilitate the arrest, seizure, power of entry, search etcetera. The Australian government has recently announced that they will work with the bench book of national family violence that can create efficiencies in promoting consistency in making judicial decision-making process. Therefore, this strategy can help the Australian government in implementing the best protection strategy for the victim and creating a charge sheet against the criminal. The government of Australia has invested $41.5 million, and they have also invested huge money to provide training to police officers so that they can avoid the domestic violence (Domestic violence: issues and policy challenges – Parliament of Australia., 2018).

 For supporting the victims of the domestic violence, the Australian government has arranged a program named NSW domestic violence proactive support service. It has been found that this program becomes effective to raise awareness’s among various individual that may decrease the chance of domestic violence. The Australian government has also arranged the white ribbon campaign where they have involved the male in influencing the other man to reduce the violence against the domestic violence.

 Suggestion for the alternative strategies:

For the reduction of domestic violence, the government of Australia may target the young people in Australia and in that case, the government may target school students. The primary aim of this violence program can be implementing a sense among the students so that they cannot adopt a feminist’s based approach. This program must create an understanding among students so that they emphasis everything based on the role of control and power (Domestic violence: issues and policy challenges – Parliament of Australia., 2018). This kind of program needs to be implemented for the reduction of the great attitude among the students with the help of education.

 In the present time, most of the people access social media as their daily routine so that the government of the country can develop a better social media campaign to raise the awareness against the domestic violence so that it can be reduced from every place. In that case, the government can involve various families on the campaign for storytelling purposes to demonstrate how poorly the domestic violence and different outcome of the domestic violence so that it can discourage people from domestic violence.

 Conclusion:

 Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that domestic violence creates a higher level of adverse impact on men, women and children so that government need to implement various policies, strategies and program to reduce it. However, only the initiatives of the government cannot create a useful result, for this purpose, it is essential to develop awareness’s among people so that it can reduce domestic violence from the root.