User:Mozart/Notes on domestic violence

Broderick — 'Not so straight forward: Domestic violence in Australia'
The Alternative Law Journal published an abridged version of Elizabeth Broderick's September 2011 speech as Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the 3rd biennial (first national) LGBTIQ domestic violence conference.


 * 'Approximately 1.2 million women have experienced domestic violence at the hands of a (usually male) current or former partner.'
 * 'Responses have understandably and necessarily focused on reducing the prevalance of male violence against women.'
 * Domestic violence 'can occur in all relationships, regardless of the sex, sexual orientation or sex or gender identity of the persons involved.'
 * 'Research suggests … that domestic violence occurs at a similar rate in same sex relationships as in heterosexual relationships.'
 * 'Firstly there needs to be a focus on better educating the general community about LGBTIQ domestic violence. People need to know that … domestic violence occurs in these relationships just as it occurs in other relationships. There also needs to be greater awareness about the serious harms of a lack of acceptance and recognition of LGBTIQ communities. Relatedly, people who identify as LGBTIQ … need to know where they can go for help.'
 * 'Secondly, there must be adequate and ongoing funding and resources to ensure that responses to domestic violence are inclusive of LGBTIQ communities.
 * 'Finally, the National Plane to Reduce Violence Against Women and Their Children needs to be implemented in an inclusive way.'[^8]
 * 'Everyone should be able to live their lives free from all forms of violence, including domestic violence.'

Chappell and Curtin, 'Does Federalism Matter? Evaluating State Architecture and Family and Domestic Violence Policy in Australia and New Zealand'
In 2012 Publius: The Journal of Federalism published a comparative evaluation of family and domestic violence policy in Australia (a federation) a New Zealand (a unitary state) by Louise Chappell (University of New South Wales) and Jennifer Curtin (University of Auckland).

Abstract
'Does federalism make a difference to policy making in the area of family and domestic violence (FDV)? This article explores this question through a comparison of Australia and New Zealand whose state architecture aside from federalism is very similar. It argues that Australian federalism has provided laboratories for innovative policy making and the continual articulation of a progres- sive policy response to FDV. By contrast, in New Zealand subnational experiments have occurred, but continuous progressive policy responses have been less evident because centralization accentuates the need for left-wing governments to substantively advance the issue.'

Outline

 * 'It examines federalism’s impact on legal and policy responses to family and domestic violence (FDV)—an area central to women’s equality—through a comparative study of Australia, a centralized federation, and New Zealand, a centralized unitary state.'


 * 'While federalism may offer some advantages to those pursuing any reform, including policy innovation and learning, it can equally pose additional barriers including achieving a coordinated and integrated policy response. By contrast, the unitary alternative offers fewer veto points and coordination challenges, but arguably provides less scope for experimentation and learning. We suggest that in Australia the development of ‘‘progressive’’ FDV policy has been influenced by opportunities for policy innovation and learning on one hand and coordination challenges on the other, whereas in New Zealand capacity for greater coordination has been possible, but innovation has been less ‘‘progressive’’ and more dependent on the presence of a left-wing party in government.'


 * 'A comparative evaluation of the legislative and policy initiatives follows before an analysis that reveals that federalism and left-wing governments are both significant in the pursuit of FDV policy reform.'


 * 'FDV … presents challenges in all settings because it requires an integrated response; that is, it requires horizontal action across a range of policy portfolios—health, housing, policing, criminal and family law, employment—to comprehensively address the problem. … In many federal and decentralized systems, different levels of government hold separate responsibility for relevant policy areas, while sharing others, requiring simultaneous horizontal integration and vertical coordination responses.'


 * 'While domestic violence usually refers to violence by a man against his female partner or ex-partner, a continuum of alternative frames can be identified.'


 * 'At one end is the equality/power frame that sees FDV stemming from power differentials between men and women. In the center sits a de-gendered frame, where victims and perpetrators are defined in gender neutral terms and where violence is understood as the outcome of societal ignorance and state failure.'


 * 'At the opposite end is an individualized view of the problem, where genderless perpetrators are violent towards unidentified victims, and systemic factors are not considered.'


 * 'These variations in diagnoses, lead to different prognoses or reform options.''


 * 'Policy responses to FDV range from efforts to shift gender norms, stereotypes, and power relations to more conservative law and order measures to punish and deter individual offenders.'


 * 'Further complicating the policy frame is the need to add the term ‘‘family’’ to domestic violence. Our use of ‘‘family’’ does not align with the view that the solution to private violence is strengthening family bonds and building greater family harmony in a traditional sense.'


 * 'Rather, it is the frame used by many Maori and Indigenous Australians who prefer it to ‘‘domestic violence’’ because it captures the way violence is "perpetrated by potentially multiple abusers connected by extended family relationships located within the community".'


 * 'In this article we use the gender-neutral nomenclature ‘‘family’’ and ‘‘domestic’’ violence, rather than violence against women, to capture the range of frames outlined above. In doing so we also acknowledge the evidence that demonstrates women globally are the majority of FDV victims while the majority of perpetrators are men including in Australia and New Zealand.'


 * 'All women, regardless of their socioeconomic status and background are at risk of suffering this violence, but some women are particularly vulnerable. In Australia and New Zealand this includes Indigenous, Maori, and Pacifica women.'


 * '… we suggest that federalism is a necessary but not sufficient condition to produce progressive FDV policy reform as left-wing governments within an integrated party system are also likely to be significant to such policy responses. To this end, we explore whether the interaction between these two variables represents an example of a compound causation whereby left-wing governments and federalism mutually influence progressive policy responses, in part because of the built-in learning and competition effects.'

Australia

 * 'In Australia, constitutionally criminal law rests with states and territories leaving them responsible to introduce legislation to criminalize FDV. Since the 1980s states and territories have borrowed from each other in defining the crime of domestic violence and each has criminalized FDV. This is evident in the timing of law reform across jurisdictions. In each case, legislation has been amended at least once to expand the definition of FDV to include a wider range of crimes including economic and emotional forms of abuse while the majority of states recognize a broad spectrum of situations in which violence can occur, including same-sex, patient–carer and non-cohabiting relations.'


 * 'In most jurisdictions the legislation reflects gender neutral language, which discusses the way ‘‘people’’ experience violence,9 thereby failing to identify the fact that women are the majority of victims and men the majority of perpetrators of these crimes.'


 * 'During the same time period, states and territories each adopted a system of civil-law domestic violence protection orders. These allow courts to stop (potential) perpetrators from approaching (potential) victims. Despite some differences in civil schemes, a recent review into their application found that across jurisdictions the provisions largely had similar effect. In respect of the definition of domestic violence, types and speed with which the orders can be made, and, the punishment for contravening orders, the civil provisions across the states are ‘‘clear, comprehensive and robust’’.'


 * 'There is some evidence of intra-jurisdictional policy integration as well as innovation and learning between subnational units regarding legislative responses to FDV.'


 * 'At the Commonwealth level, legislative intervention in FDV occurs primarily through the Family Law Act. This act provides the federal Family Court with powers over ‘‘guardianship, custody, maintenance and access,’’ and insists it take into account family violence matters (issues concerning child protection and adoption remain with the states).'


 * Under the Hawke and Keating ALP governments the legislation maintained a gender neutral frame but this shifted under the Howard Coalition government to a conservative individualized frame. The Coalition’s amendments to the Family Law (Shared Parental Responsibility) Amendment Act 2006 changed coparenting arrangements to reflect the view that FDV is the exception to the norm and a problem of a few ‘‘bad’’ individuals.'


 * 'Among the many problems identified with these amendments was the potential of exposure of victims of FDV to further abuse by the perpetrator through custody orders.'


 * 'The Australian FDV legislative framework has problems. The 2009 National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (NCRVWC) Time for Action report found criminal law was underutilized in all jurisdictions in favor of civil-law provisions with the effect of decriminalizing FDV.'


 * 'Lack of coordination between Commonwealth parenting provisions and state-based domestic violence protection orders that were especially apparent after the 2006 FLA amendments, and the portability of protection orders between jurisdictions have been major concerns.'


 * 'The system has been described as a ‘‘complex maze’’ through which vulnerable people, mostly women and children, have difficulty navigating.'


 * 'In 2009, the Australian Law Reform Commission commenced an investigation into a number of these problems, while the 2011 National Action Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children identifies them as priorities for action. The Gillard ALP government responded with the 2011 Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2011 that overturned many of the 2006 changes by taking better account of violence in custody matters and attempting to better coordinate the FLA with state and territory family services.'

New Zealand

 * 'In New Zealand, the development of law in the area of family and domestic violence has been incremental in its approach. The Domestic Protection Act (1982) enacted by the Nationals but with bipartisan support, was a significant first step. It contained provisions for non-molestation and nonviolence orders, and empowering police to detain for twenty-four hours without charge any person who had breached a nonviolence order. The act gave police considerable discretion about whether or not to arrest in the first place. Evaluations of the law’s impact indicated that without police training and education on domestic violence, little change would result.'


 * 'The National’s 1995 Domestic Violence Act extended the definition of domestic violence to include psychological and emotional abuse, expanded who could apply for protection orders to include siblings, caregivers and those in same-sex relationship, and mandated rehabilitative programs for offenders. It was amended in 2009 to extend police powers to issue safety orders, even where there are insufficient grounds to make an arrest. The orders ensure the immediate safety of a victim, forcing the perpetrator to leave the address for up to five days. Other changes strengthened bail provisions and reduced barriers to police arresting suspects of protection order breaches.'

Similarities between Australia and New Zealand approaches

 * 'In both countries there have been ongoing incremental efforts to close the gap between law and practice, although with more venues in the Australia legislative action there has been more regular and constant reform.'


 * '… in each case a gender-neutral framing of the issue has been the norm.'


 * 'However, there does seem to be some gender sensitivities underlying the ‘‘safe at home’’ initiatives: these laws expect that it is women and children who are victims and who should stay at home, while it is men who are violent and who should leave the domicile.'

Policy plans

 * 'Over the past two decades all Australian jurisdictions have developed FDV strategic plans in an effort to bring about policy integration.'


 * 'These plans have included efforts to engage police and legal services, housing and refuge services, and employment and health service amongst others.'


 * 'Federalism has contributed to the development of these policy integration plans through subnational innovation followed by horizontal policy learning, most obviously in the past ten years. In establishing FDV plans, ‘‘follower’’ states have drawn on earlier blueprints.'


 * 'Compared with legislative initiatives, these plans have applied an overt gender or power frame to the issue and names women as the primary victims of FDV. The NSW definition that ‘‘recognises that domestic violence is gender-based violence and a violation of human rights’’ (NSW Plan 2010) is reflective of that used in the other plans. The gender or power lens is further strengthened in many of these plans through a link to the definition used by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).'


 * 'These plans have not addressed all FDV policy challenges at the subnational level. Ongoing problems exist with ‘‘dis-integrated’’ services, funding, and specialized services for women from indigenous and other minority sectors of the population. Nevertheless, the plans have gone some way in bringing the issue to the fore and pointing out the need for ‘‘joined up’’ responses to FDV.'


 * 'Compared with its state and territory counterparts, the Commonwealth government does not have the same record of integrating FDV areas over which it has responsibility including homelessness, social security, health, and family law.'


 * 'Where the Federal government has had more impact is through driving forward vertical coordination. The 1992 ALP National Strategy on Violence against Women, the 2011 Rudd/Gillard ALP National Plan and to a lesser extent, the 1997 Coalition Partnerships Against Domestic Violence (PADV), have each attempted to secure better intergovernmental coordination across the FDV policy field.'


 * 'The ALP’s 2011 national plan, which picks up many of the initiatives from 1992, is the most comprehensive to date. It has a twelve-year time span, addresses prevention, provision of services, and prosecution elements of violence against women and children across all jurisdictions and horizontally across the Commonwealth.'


 * 'It draws particular attention to the high levels of violence suffered by indigenous women and children and points to the failures in earlier collaborative efforts to address FDV in this community.'


 * 'In an important first, it also seeks to connect with other intergovernmental strategic plans, including indigenous, child protection, health, and homelessness agendas.'


 * 'As with other national plans, the Council of Australian Government’s (COAG)—the intergovernmental machinery through which inter-jurisdictional agreements are made, and implementation, reporting, and evaluation are coordinated—has been given a central role in this latest version.'


 * 'Following other ALP national plans, the 2011 version uses a gender or power frame. It states ‘‘[t]he unequal distribution of power and resources between women and men and adherence to rigid … gender roles and stereotypes reflects gendered patterns in the prevalence and perpetration of violence’’.


 * 'Its prescriptions include achieving greater gender equality in society, increasing women’s position in politics and improving their economic participation and independence (outcome 1.3). This sits in contrast to the frame used in the Howard government’s PADV, which individualized the problem and focused increasingly on perpetrator programs.'


 * 'One area where New Zealand has provided a better integrated response to FDV than Australia is in regards to cultural dimensions associated with family violence. While Australian governments at all levels have undertaken reports into and adopted policies to address FDV issues in indigenous communities, many have failed to address the different context in which this violence occurs, and responses have suffered from lack of vertical and horizontal integration.'


 * 'By contrast, in 1984 the New Zealand Labor government created Te Kakano o te Whanau, which was a nationwide strategy to provide services for Maori women victims of incest, rape, sexual abuse, and related violence. Attention has been given to consultation with Maori and to coordination across agencies and indigenous organizations, as well as a number of preventative programs established by iwi authorities at the subnational level.'


 * 'These efforts have seen the needs of Maori communities and Maori women in law and policy over time have become institutionalized in the policy-making process. Policy initiatives that have sought to address explicit the needs of Maori women across a number of policy domains have tended to be initiated by Labor governments in New Zealand until recently. In addition, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs established a bicultural focus in its gender policy audits from its inception (by Labor) in 1986.'


 * 'In New Zealand FDV policy the preference has been to explicitly focus on family as well as domestic violence, reflecting in part concerns of the Maori community. While this might have constrained the adoption of an explicit feminist-inspired gender or power frame, it has resulted in a more collectively framed and culturally diverse response and facilitated political and cultural traction around the issue FDV. '


 * 'In Australia, there appears to be a cascade effect, where one or two states or territories take the lead in FDV initiatives and others then follow. In New Zealand, substantive outcomes have been more punctuated and policy (as opposed to law) reform dependent on Labor being the party in government; Labor governments in New Zealand have also enabled a greater emphasis on cultural diversity compared to Australia.'


 * '… we have seen in the Australian federal case evidence of laboratory federalism … . Initiatives in FDV have been initiated subnationally followed by horizontal policy transfer across jurisdictions, and there is also evidence of vertical transfer between the Commonwealth and states and territories … . Policy experimentation and learning have also occurred in New Zealand. The central government has been prepared to create FDV pilot projects … . These projects essentially provide the same function as laboratory federalism—an opportunity to test an innovative policy idea without the risk of widespread failure. They also lead to policy learning. The Hamilton experiment was transferred transnationally, from Minnesota, then upwards to the national level in New Zealand and across the Tasman Sea to Australia, where it was adopted across the states and territories. In both New Zealand and Australia, national FDV policy makers have also been influenced by new policy ideas from elsewhere, including UN initiatives, reflecting the increasing importance of the international arena to policy innovation, learning, and diffusion.'


 * 'The second influence of state architecture on FDV policy making relates to integration and coordination. FDV requires intra-jurisdictional integration whatever the state architecture. It is complicated in federal systems because shared competencies require coordination across all subnational units (to enable the portability of protection orders for example), as well as vertically between national and subnational units. The Australian federal government has put significant effort into developing national plans that work across these dimensions.'


 * 'The most obvious variance in policy innovation between these two countries lies in two areas: recognition of cultural diversity and the application of gender or power frames. In New Zealand, since the 1980s FDV legal and policy reforms have reflected a strong commitment and responsiveness to the culture and interests of Maori women. The institutionalization of the Treaty of Waitangi, facilitated in part by a centralized state architecture, is an important explanatory factor here. In Australia, the absence of constitutional recognition for indigenous people and the difficulties in achieving collaboration across governments on indigenous issues generally has combined to produce poorly coordinated legal and policy responses for indigenous women.'


 * 'Evidence of a stronger articulation of the gender or power aspects of FDV in policy responses in Australia compared with New Zealand can also be linked to state architecture arrangements. Arguably, in Australia this frame has been maintained in policy-making because no one conservative government has been able to permanently (re)frame the problem in a de-gendered manner. When the Howard Coalition government shifted toward a conservative frame at the Commonwealth level in the early 2000s, ALP governments at the subnational level maintained a gendered framing of the issue. When the ALP returned to Canberra in 2007, it drew on earlier federal ALP government initiatives as well as subnational and international developments to draw up its national plan. The influence of state and territory ALP government policy in the area on Federal Labor was facilitated by the integrated nature of the Australian party system, where joint party conferences and formal and informal party networks and intergovernmental machinery encouraged the spread of policy ideas from the periphery to the centre. In New Zealand, the absence of alternative domestic gender or power frames has been challenged by nongovernmental organizations, but neither right- nor left-wing governments have sought to shift the framing of this issue from one that is gender-neutral. We would argue the absence of subnational governments (and the built-in incentives for learning and competition that come with multilevel policy capacity) have contributed to inertia in policy framing on this issue in New Zealand, but a commitment to Maori understandings of the importance of ‘‘family’’ have also prevented a feminist frame from gaining further traction.'


 * 'Australia’s centralized federalism and integrated party system has provided some opportunities for innovation but has brought with it coordination challenges, especially for addressing indigenous FDV. New Zealand has not struggled with the same coordination issues, but has had to seek external impetus for its reform agenda.'

Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females'
The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health published a 2003 study conducted by Eleanora Dal Grande, Jacqueline Hickling, Anne Taylor and Tony Woollacott of the South Australian Department of Human Services.

Abstract
The introductory pages discuss the effects of domestic violence, the prevalence, and the shortcomings of previous studies. The abstract provides the following information:


 * Objective: To determine the self-reported prevalence of domestic violence in South Australian adults and to examine the associated risk factors, demographic factors and related health issues using computer-aided telephone interviewing (CATI) methodology.


 * Sample: A representative random sample of South Australian adults aged 18 years and over selected from the Electronic White Pages. Overall, 6,004 interviews were completed (73.1% response rate).


 * Results: In total, 17.8% of adults in South Australia reported some form of domestic violence by a current or an ex-partner. Demographic factors such as low household income, unemployment or part- time employment and health variables such as poor to fair self-reported health status and alcohol abuse problems were found to have a significant relationship with domestic violence.


 * Conclusions: Approximately one in five South Australian adults report physical and emotional abuse from current or ex-partners, of whom the majority are women who are separated, divorced or never married and on lower incomes. Telephone interviewing is a cost-effective method of identifying prevalence estimates of domestic violence when compared with data collection by way of police reports or hospital emergency statistics.


 * Implications: Domestic violence is a serious public health concern often ‘hidden’ by the lack of appropriate data. This study has shown that domestic violence is frequent and has important social, economic and health consequences.

Method
The methodology seems generally sound.


 * 'The data for this research, collected in September and October 1999, used SERCIS (Social, Environmental and Risk Context Information System), a telephone monitoring system designed to collect high-quality health data on large samples of the South Australian population. The proportion of households in South Australia with a telephone connected is 97%, hence the potential for non-coverage bias was negligible.'


 * 'SERCIS utilises the CATI III (computer-assisted telephone interviewing) system to conduct interviews. All households in South Australia with a telephone connected and the telephone number listed in the Electronic White Pages (EWP) were eligible for selection in the sample.'


 * 'At each selected household, the adult with the last birthday was chosen for interview.'


 * 'Interviews were conducted by trained female health interviewers in English, Italian, Greek and Vietnamese. The overall sample response rate was 73.1%, with 6,004 completed interviews.'


 * 'The domestic violence questions were derived and modified from other interpersonal violence household surveys (Australian Women’s Safety Survey, Canadian Violence Against Women Survey) and to accommodate the inclusion of males in this study. Domestic violence questions were asked of both men and women aged over 18 years and over who were in a relationship or who had a previous significant long-term relationship.'


 * 'Respondents were asked if a current partner or an ex-partner had ever physically or emotionally abused them. The definition of domestic violence used in this study is described in Table 1. Respondents were also asked whether they had ever been sexually or physically abused by people other than their partners or ex-partners or whether they had experienced abuse or neglect as a child.'


 * 'Demographic variables included in the analyses were: gender; age; area of residence; country of birth; main language spoken at home; marital status; work status; highest educational attainment; pension from the Department of Social Security; and gross an- nual household income.'


 * 'The data were weighted by area, age, gender and probability of selection in the household using the ABS Estimated Resident Population for 1997.'


 * 'Univariate analyses were conducted for males, females and persons in total who had ever experienced domestic violence com- pared with those who had not. All independent variables that were statistically significant at the 0.25 level in each of the univariate analysis were entered into a logistic regression analysis.'

Results

 * Overall prevalence of domestic violence: 17.8%
 * Prevalence of physically violent or abusive relationships: 12%
 * Prevalence of emotionally abusive relationships: 14.1%
 * Female respondents who experienced domestic violence: 22.9%
 * Male respondents who experienced domestic violence: 12.1%
 * Domestic violence on more than one occasion: 75.9%
 * Persons who reported domestic violence were significantly more likely to
 * be aged between 35 and 54,
 * be separated, divorced or never married,
 * be employed part-time or unemployed,
 * have a gross annual household income of <$40,000,
 * report their health as being fair or poor,
 * have medium self-esteem and alcohol abuse problems,
 * be current smokers,
 * have a mental problem,
 * have suicidal thoughts.
 * Percentage of victims who suffered physical hurt: 38.6% (23.8% male, 44.9% female)
 * Percentage reporting injury: 90% (84.8% male, 91.1% female)
 * Bruising: 89.6% male, 90.7% female
 * Cuts/scratches/burns: 36.1% male, 36.8% female
 * Fractures/broken bones: 0.8% males, 19.9% female.
 * Other injuries reported include internal injuries, broken teeth and miscarriage.
 * Coping mechanisms:
 * Prescribed medications: 19.9% (7.1% male, 25.4% female)
 * Alcohol/non-prescribed drugs: 15.1% (19.2% male, 13.3% female)
 * Percentage who did not contact
 * police: 82% (91.9% male, 77.4% female)
 * non-health services: 72.4% (81.6% male, 68.5% female)
 * health services: 72.1% (73.9% male, 71.3% female)
 * Main reasons for not using services was that victims felt they did not want or need help, it was too minor, too much time had elapsed or they were unaware of the services.

Easteal, 'Violence Against Women in the Home: Kaleidoscopes on a Collision Course?'
In 2003 the Queensland University of Technology Law and Justice Journal published an article by Dr Patricia Easteal (Adjunct Professor in Law at the University of Canberra), that 'first looks at the victims' experiences and then gives examples of how, either through its 'black letter' or implementation, that civil, criminal, family, social security and immigration law obscure and distort the victims' reality through the dominocentric kaleidoscope.' Extracts from a number of letters from victims are published within the article.

Getting the 'Power' Picture into Focus

 * Diagram of the 'Victims' Kaleidoscope Picture of Violence' showing eight forms of violence based on control:
 * emotional denigration,
 * emotional jealousy,
 * threats,
 * financial,
 * using kids, pets, property,
 * physical,
 * sexual,
 * isolation.


 * 'There are many manifestations of violence aside from the more apparent and harder to hide broken bones and bruises. These less visible acts, just like slaps and shoves, are about a need to exert power and are enacted through emotional abuses, rape, financial exploitation, damaging property, injuring pets, harming the children and death threats. The different masks of control are on-going, generally gets more serious and may be joined by a variety of other physical expressions of power. Overall, the abusive behaviours tend to escalate over time but it is a slow, insidious and isolating process punctuated by periods of remorse.'

for more than one third (35.1%) the violence continued after separation.'
 * 'Leaving the relationship does not necessarily mean the violence will stop. In the ABS Women's Safety Survey, of those who had experienced violence by a previous partner,


 * 'Almost half of spousal homicides committed by men targeted the killing of women who had left them, or were attempting to leave them.'


 * 'The mental, psychological and spiritual abuses, generally precede other types of violence. … [L]imiting or preventing contact with friends and family (social control) is frequently reported.


 * 'The "perpetrator" partner in the relationship may take absolute control of the finances doling out little or no money to the other. Immigrant women, particularly those who are sponsored to Australia, are particularly vulnerable due to their relative lack of knowledge about financial and welfare entitlements.'


 * '… economic control does not always stop after estrangement.'


 * 'United States studies have found that 10-14 per cent of all married women in that country have been or will be raped by their spouse and that the highest risk period may be during or after a relationship breakdown.


 * 'The ABS Women's Safety Survey reveals that only 1% of those currently in a relationship admitted to sexual assault by a current partner whilst 10.2% said it had taken place in a previous relationship.'


 * 'We also know from various rape victim surveys that husbands or ex-partners are named as the perpetrator by between 13 and 15 per cent of respondents. And, for just over three-quarters of the marital rape victims in Voices of the Survivors, the sexual assault was part of a general pattern of physical violence. In that study and others, rape by a partner or ex-partner correlated with the highest frequency of additional injuries, even more so than rape by a stranger.'


 * 'When raping his partner, the husband may not use physical force. Within the dynamics of a violent marriage, there are other types of coercion at his disposal. The threat of violence either toward her or the children can act to negate her consent. Given the range of coercion and the mythology about what constitutes resistance, rape and 'conjugal rights', undoubtedly many women do not see their husbands' behaviour as sexual assault.'


 * 'Between four to nine percent of women are abused during their pregnancy and/or after the birth.'


 * 'In the Women's Safety Survey of those who had experienced violence by a previous partner, violence took place during pregnancy for 41.7%, for just about half of these. it began during that time.'


 * 'Theoretical explanations suggest that jealousy or anger toward the unborn child, pregnancy specific violence not directed to the child or 'business (violence) as usual' may be the triggers.'

The Victims' Kaleidoscopes: Effects

 * 'Narrow definitions of violence and the power of words to construct reality may help to obscure the violence from the victim's own vision.'


 * 'Analysis of the ABS data shows that cases without injury, perpetrated by a current partner, experienced by the young and uneducated 'were less likely than other types of assault to be reported and to result in the use of victim services'.


 * 'Amongst the adolescent sample, risk increased with a non-biological male, lower socio-economic and/or indigenous backgrounds. Similarly, in the ABS sample, almost one quarter (23%) of women who had ever been married or in a de facto relationship had experienced violence (physical, sexual, threats or attempts).'


 * 'Only 8% of those currently in relationship reported violence, which is in marked contrast to the 42.4% of those ever in a relationship, who responded affirmatively.'

The Witnesses' Kaleidoscope

 * 'Two Australian research projects looked at frequency of violence against women in the home: the ABS Safety Survey of adult women and their experiences of partner or ex- partner violence and one study that sampled 5,000 Australians aged between 12 and 20. Almost one fourth of the latter respondents had witnessed an incident of physical or domestic violence against their mother or stepmother.


 * 'Often children are a part of the household. For example, in 1997/98, 46 per cent of the children and young people accompanying victims of domestic violence to supported accommodation services were children aged under five years; 43.6 per cent were aged between five and 12 years; and 10.1 per cent were aged 13-16 years. Many of these children had witnessed their mothers' victimisation.'


 * 'It is difficult though to isolate the effects of witnessing since the presence of domestic violence increases the likelihood of other child maltreatment in the family - it has been estimated that between 40-60% of men who abuse their partners also inflict violence upon the children in the family.'


 * 'It is suggested that the degree of effect is affected by age, coping strategies and individual resiliency; gender; the nature, severity and frequency of the violence (witnessing domestic violence and also being physically maltreated, is associated with higher levels of distress and/or acting out, compared with only witnessing violence); whether the pattern of violence has ceased; attendant environmental factors, such as the mother's ability to parent, and the availability of legal and social protection are also important in reducing or exacerbating effects.'


 * 'Having someone caring and trustworthy to talk to has been identified as an important ameliorator.'


 * 'In a recent Australian study involving focus groups, witness/children describe effects on their scholastic performances and impacts on their self-esteem, suicidal ideation and difficulties in trusting others.'


 * 'There are other possible consequences that affect the child's well being at the time of the violence and later in life. These include developing a hyper-vigilance to potential threat, a greater risk of emotional and behavioural problems, and enhanced potential for conflict in relationships.'

Colliding (at times) with the Dominocentric Kaleidoscope

 * 'Without an understanding or willingness-to look at the pattern of domestic violence, the one 'alleged assault' or incident that propels the woman into contact with a friend, acquaintance, police or gate-keeper, may be decontextualised and seen as a spontaneous, impulsive (no premeditation) action (more easily trivialised) … As we have seen though, through the kaleidoscope of the victim, the physical assault is but one, often relatively insignificant, component of the violence. Yet, the courts (and many in the community) tend to look at the seriousness of physical injury, and not at the longer lasting emotional harms.'


 * 'Phrases like "wife abuse" and "battered wives" and the term "domestic violence" understate the seriousness and criminality of violence within the home. "Domestic" means private, or relatively unimportant in contrast to the "real" world outside of the home. By prefixing violence with the word "domestic", as a general category of offence, it becomes less criminal and more easily seen as "relationship problems".


 * 'In one 1988 survey initiated by the Office of the Status of Women, nearly one in five Australians believed that it was acceptable for a man to use physical violence against his wife under certain circumstances. A follow-up 1995 survey did show some enlightenment about these issues with 93% agreeing that domestic violence was criminal and four fifths stating that it was not a private matter. However, 18% still perceived circumstances in which physical force was acceptable (mostly self-defence). Only 8% believed that it was justified when the man is provoked as compared to 14% in 1987 (eg infidelity, nagging).'


 * 'Similarly, in the Partnerships Against Violence research that sampled 5,000 Australians aged between 12 and 20, only a small proportion did not identify extreme acts of violence as domestic violence. Females were more apt to label acts of domestic violence with males normalizing them. Over one quarter (27%) of respondents still believed that that it is private and should be handled by the family. Not surprisingly, those who minimized DV were apt to hold more traditional attitudes about gender roles.'


 * 'Concurrent with community education programming has been a rather strong backlash in Australia by men's rights groups who argue that males experience a similar amount of violence by female partners, that many women obtain domestic violence orders as a strategy in divorce cases and that the criminal justice system is overly sympathetic to the women (as is government funding).'


 * '"... backlash has attempted to reinforce old, and reimpose new, practices of subjugation and silences in relation to sexual and domestic violence."'


 * 'In fact, despite the plethora of legal reform to deal with violence against women in the home, when we next turn to the responses of the criminal justice and other legal systems to domestic violence, we find variation 0 with adherence to that trivialising that results from perception of domestic violence through at least some of the lenses shown in Figure 2.'

In the Context of Issuing Protection Orders

 * 'The wording of domestic violence civil legislation, such as the laws enacted in each Australian jurisdiction through the 1980s, can affect police response. For instance, the Model Criminal Code Committee's "black letter law" has been found wanting with the persistence of: a too narrow definition, a precipitating or 'trigger' incident and proof that the defendant is likely to perpetrate another violent act.


 * 'Further, in most jurisdictions, the onus of prosecution or action is placed upon the victim. Plus to some unknown extent, there is still a view of violence against women as involving mutuality and provocation. As one officer summonsed to a domestic violence call in the ACT told the victim, "The reason men hit women is that you've got the gift of gab and you overpower men in an argument." And in Queensland, recent research has revealed a similar minimising of the violence with more than half of the DVO applications made by the "aggrieved spouse".'


 * 'In NSW where police must apply for orders (except for certain circumstances), they initiated 52% in 1995 in contrast to 16% of the 1994/1995 protection orders applications in Victoria.'


 * 'Research in the ACT revealed that, although empowered to do so (but not required) police were reluctant to take out domestic violence orders (DVOs) on behalf of women, most believing that the victim should be the applicant for an order.'


 * '… studies have shown that some Magistrates do examine women's experiences through at least a few of the dominant lenses. This is illustrated by their occasional lack of acceptance of a woman's reasonable fear as sufficient grounds for granting an intervention order.'


 * 'For these magistrates, physical signs of abuse were necessary to fulfil their image of violence.'


 * 'In the Northern Territory some failed to give women an order by treating the violence as a family problem or as something requiring counselling and as in part the responsibility of the victim. They were able to do this in part by not looking at the pattern of the behaviour and simply noting the most recent action in a decontextualised and trivialising way.'


 * 'Similar requirements of recent physical violence were identified in a survey by the NSW Judicial Commission, in Victorian research and in a Queensland study.'


 * 'Most did believe though (in response to specific queries) that they understood the uniqueness of violence in the home and the need to understand the process and context. "Blaming the victim" or provocation can be discerned though from the 54% in NSW 54 and the 42% of Queensland magistrates who agreed with the statement that "it takes two to tango in any relationship".'


 * '"I think that in some cases this is true. Some perpetrators are simply using victims as punching bags. Others, however, finally snap when outmatched verbally in an argument."'

In the Context of Breaches of Protection Orders

 * 'Three studies of police and breaches (one in Victoria and two in NSW) have found a high rate of non-action with officers certainly not charging if the breach did not include physical assault or property damage.'


 * 'Officers may even witness breaches at police stations during contact ordered handovers and not act by identifying the incident as a family matter or parental conflict. Police may play another more intangible role in decisions not to arrest. As Katzen points out, the woman's wishes can be influenced by officers neither explaining the criminality of the act(s) or the range of options available.'


 * 'Again, this lack of police use of their powers could be, at least in part, a consequence of what they perceive of as a less than punitive approach by the courts on breaches. [The] Department for Justice … found that in Victoria, 1993, bail was granted in 76% of the breaches.'


 * 'Women in a Queensland study did identify such trivializing with complaints that magistrates were failing to either penalize or direct offenders to programs … One possible solution suggested was to enact a specific domestic violence assault offence.'


 * 'A NSW police officer discussing a man arrested four times for breach of a protection order stated that on each of these occasions, the penalty imposed for the breach was a good behaviour bond.'


 * 'Such minimising by magistrates has enabled tragic outcomes to occur by releasing those who breach on bail … Some of these cases, such as Andrea Patrick's murder in 1993, receive a great deal of media coverage in part because they were preceded by a lengthy period of stalking, protection orders and breaches.'


 * '… the breach is perhaps being compared to a male standard of a one-off assault that stands by itself.'


 * '"Arguably then, the effect of domestic violence legislation has been to separate 'intimate partner' violence out from other forms of assault. The repositioning of violence between intimate partners within the private, less publicly accountable sphere has been to subtly construct it against the 'more serious' categories of criminally vilified violence. Violence between intimates can now be legitimately examined in a different light to criminal matters and different assumptions and rules are applied to the way it is dealt with. The construction of domestic violence as a counter poise to 'more serious' forms of violence illustrates the continuing relevance of gender to the issue."'

In the Context of Defining Provocation or Self-Defence

 * '"... many solicitors, judges and/or juries do not possess the requisite knowledge of the dynamics of domestic violence to be in any position to judge the availability of the defence generally and its applicability in the particular case."'


 * 'In their judgments of women who have killed a violent partner, judges sometimes use phrases like "marital problems", "matrimonial discord", "domestic dispute", "difficult relationship" and "stormy" relationship to summarise antecedents (such as extreme jealousy, possessiveness, threats to kill with sharp instruments or guns, and much physical abuse such as violent beatings, punching, poking, prodding) to the homicide. These 'umbrella' labels trivialise even the most horrific acts of violence. They each neutralise the role of the perpetrator allocating responsibility to all parties.'


 * 'Thus, in numerous cases, one finds judges remarking "… [however] even in situations of acute domestic violence, the community cannot condone the extreme measure of the killing of the aggressor party... It cannot be accepted that the victim may take the law into her own hands to the extent of extinguishing the life of another."'


 * 'This denial of the seriousness or the effects of the precipitating violence was evident when in sentencing Lynette Vandersee to a minimum term of five years imprisonment, the judge stated that the degree of provocation "should be assessed as medium, rather than great." He iterated that the dead man: "had sought to control and dominate the defendant and used cruel and abusive language to the prisoner.., made cruel comments about her alleged lack of intelligence and about her physical appearance ... smacking her legs and buttocks with a ruler, pinching her, lightly punching her in the stomach or arm, twisting her nipples and requiring her to have sexual intercourse with him, when she was unwilling, indicating that he was using the prisoner for his own sexual relief."'


 * 'Another example – R v McIntyre, Justice Mclnemey said, "She was free to leave at any time"; a viewpoint that disregards the power of emotional abuses to erode self-esteem and the other dynamics that contribute to making it very difficult for the woman to escape.'


 * 'In R v Vandersee, Justice James highlighted the period of time that "elapsed between the last provocative conduct on the part of the deceased before he went to bed and the killing of the deceased." However, as Stubbs and Tolmie note, such a view of the victim's perception of threat is: "(W)holly inappropriate because the danger that women who are habitually and seriously abused face is not so much embodied in a single attack as in the day to day experience of living under continuous threat."'

In the Context of Marital Rape

 * 'Since 1981, Australian jurisdictions have struck down the immunity of husbands from prosecution and a license to rape.'


 * 'However, very few rapes in marriage make it to court. As mentioned earlier, part of the reason is non-reporting. Yet, even if the victim who is still cohabiting with her perpetrator does report, one suspects from both the virtual absence of these cases (particularly those in which the couple are still cohabiting), plus from comments in which recent consensual sex casts doubt upon the legitimacy of the act as a rape, that the court's ability to construct rape within cohabitation remains highly problematic.'


 * '"Given that the last of those occasions [reconciliation] was only a month or so before this offence took place, it might not be possible to say that the relationship was then obviously at an end. The respondent probably hoped to repair the rupture and resume living with his wife ... However, the fact was that the parties were living apart, and this cannot be explained as the case of a husband losing his self-control during the continuance of the cohabitation."'


 * 'Rape is equated with sex and male sexuality as irrepressible plus the underlying premise appears to be that if the victim had engaged in consensual sex with her ex-partner the day before or in the recent, any future act would be difficult to define as rape.… As a consequence of these values, the cases that are prosecuted are only representative of the most violent (estranged) marital rapes and do not reflect many women's experience of coercion. Neither the language nor the legal interpretation of consent correspond with the victim/women's reality nor capture the range of coercive behaviours such as interpersonal intimidation that involves threats that are not only physical.'

In the Context of Immigration Law

 * 'In the early 1990s, remedies were enacted to ameliorate the plight of women who migrated to Australia as the fianc6 or spouse of an Australian citizen who then abused them and acted to have them denied permanent residency if they left the violent home. These reforms enabled such women to apply for permanent residency if they could show a restraining order, a Family Law Act injunction or a court conviction or finding of guilt against the sponsor for assault. … Modified in 1995 to broaden the means of establishing that violence had taken place, the Regulation added 'acceptable evidence that violence has been suffered' to the other means of proof. 'Acceptable evidence' had to consist of a statutory declaration by the person who had experienced the violence and two by 'competent' people (or one declaration by a 'competent' person and a police record of assault). The two 'experts' stat decs must be from different categories or occupations such as doctors, psychologists plus women's service staff like the coordinator of a woman's refuge.'


 * '… the expert must not just note consistency between a person's presentation and their account of domestic violence, or even the occurrence of domestic violence but that the competent person must "express an opinion in very specific terms, namely, as to whether relevant domestic violence as defined in regulation 1.23 has been suffered by a person. … This involves not only an opinion that past acts of violence have occurred but also an assessment of the state of mind of the alleged victim."'


 * 'Obtaining this degree of specificity can be problematic even for women who have sought help, and more so for those unable to obtain professional assistance due to their fear, shame and lack of access to services. Further, the "stat dec" process is only available if an actual visa application has been made. … A sponsor may also allege that the woman only married him for a visa.'


 * 'Unlike some other areas of law, certain types of emotional abuse do qualify for the label 'domestic violence'; however, they must be considered by tribunal members to have been serious enough to cause fear or apprehension for the individual's personal well-being or safety.'


 * 'Malik is cited in many of the post-2000 relevant cases as further delineating the boundaries of serious emotional abuse as excluding acts that just have the "effect of causing diminution of a person's feeling of well being". Thus, in Wright, the hearing officer included emotional deprivation, financial deprivation and manipulation since their effects extended beyond reduced "well-being" and caused fear or apprehension. And in Kularatne, the tribunal found that the sponsor's hostile conduct, such as raising his voice, refusing to let his partner out of the house, threatening to end the relationship and her fear of physical violence if she argued with him did constitute domestic violence since they caused the woman to suffer"'fear or apprehension about her personal well- being and safety."'

In the Context of Social Security

 * '… duress induced by violence can play another distinct role in the context of social security fraud. Besides forcing the woman to remain in the relationship, the batterer can force her "through physical bashings and threats" to continue to receive payments. Taking the unusual step of introducing experts to testify about the effects of domestic violence, Shirley Stephenson was acquitted of seven counts of imposing upon the Commonwealth, contrary to s 29B of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) by obtaining two unemployment benefits and rent assistance ($45,000) from the Department of Social Security when she was employed. The matter was defended on the basis of duress. Her defence was able to match Shirley Stephenson's behaviour against the standard or test of whether "an average person of ordinary firmness of mind, of like age and sex, in like circumstances, involving like risks in respect of the alternatives open, would have availed herself of the opportunity in question'."

In the Context of the Family Court and Children Matters

 * 'In the Family Court, traditionally, the effects of witnessing and/or the correlation of violence towards a partner with that directed at children have not been understood as illustrated in Justice Murray's comment in Heidt: "there is no suggestion that Mr Heidt has ever mistreated his children with the violence with which he has treated his wife. … Mr H's affection for his children is evident, and in assessing his potential as a custodial parent I have largely disregarded his behaviour as a husband."'


 * 'The mid-1990s evidenced some judicial recognition that spousal violence could be a risk to children's emotional development: "For children to grow up in a climate of potentially violent and dominating relationship between their parents seems to be to be an unacceptable model of family relationships, and would be very likely to create a situation of stress and fear that may well be damaging over a period. It is quite wrong, in my opinion, to assume that violence can be relevant only if it is directed at the children or takes place in their presence."'


 * 'Some judges are still finding that the violence was "somehow a product of the relationship between the parties rather than of the husband's personality", an exaggeration of a histrionic woman or describing pushing or hitting with an open hand which sometimes resulted in bruising to her face and body as "of a relatively minor nature and do not appear to be part of any long term strategy on the part of the husband to cause harm to the wife or to the children".'


 * 'And, post the 1995 reforms discussed next, one still hears judicial comments like those in Heidt that entirely negate the effects of witnessing: "Although there have been allegations made by the wife of violence perpetrated upon her by the husband, culminating in the vicious assault upon her on 28-29 December 1996, there is no evidence to suggest that the husband has behaved inappropriately towards the children, or exhibited any violence towards them."'


 * 'A higher profile for abuse issues was reflected in statutory law with the enactment in late 1995 of the Family Law Reform Act 1995 (Cth). Now specified as a factor relevant to decisions made about the "best interests of the children", the need to ensure safety from family violence was now stated as one of the guiding policy principles. However, while the Act states that DV is a relevant factor in making orders what has not been outlined is how it should be taken into account. Further as Behrens emphasises, the assessment of 'best interests' is an indeterminate process: "There is an attempt in the legislation to give the best interests standard some content. One way in which this occurs is through the mechanism of a checklist of factors (s 68F(2)) ... it leaves a fairly broad discretion. The checklist does not, for example, exclude particular outcomes. Nor is any priority of factors indicated. The normative content of the list consists largely of hints- nothing stronger. For example, paragraph (b) requires the decision-maker to examine the nature of the relationships involved, but does not indicate what kinds of relationships are to be valued. There is a paragraph at the end of the subsection that enables consideration of 'any other fact or circumstance that the court thinks is relevant'".'


 * 'Given the relative heavy weighting of shared parental responsibility, consistency between family violence orders and contact orders can be a problem despite s 68K which "requires (subject to best interests!) that the court ensure the order is consistent with a family violence order and does not expose a person to an unacceptable risk of family violence." If there is inconsistency the order made under the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) prevails. Thus, contact conditions can make enforcement of a civil protection order difficult. In one NSW report, women reported that when they turned to the police for breaches of AVOs, the officers on occasion had advised them that there had not been a breach, as contact was permitted by the order through a pro forma condition, which allowed the defendant to contact the protected person for the purpose of arranging, or exercising contact with the children as ordered by the Family Court.'

Slow Re-Focusing?

 * 'A recent evaluation of … the ACT Interagency Family Violence Intervention Program … showed that over the two years that the integrated model had been operating, there were increases in the number of: family violence cases commenced and completed during a 12 month period, matters finalised by way of an early plea of guilty without the police being required to produce a full brief of evidence and in number of defendants convicted. Certainly the ACT Program has shown a dramatic difference in attitudes between officers who, had participated in special training sessions. They were more likely to disagree (68%) that victims who stay with their violent partners have only themselves to blame. This compared to only 12% ofthenon-trained officers. More than half (56%) of those who had been specially trained disagreed that "Spousal assault is often the result of provocation by the victim". This contrasts markedly with the 61% of untrained who agreed with the assertion.'

Shea Hart and Bagshaw, 'The idealised post-separation family in Australian family law: A dangerous paradigm in cases of domestic violence'
In 2008 the Journal of Family Studies published an article by Amanda Shea Hart (Lecturer, School of Social Work & Human Services, Central Queensland University) and Dale Bagshaw (Associate Professor, School of Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia) that

presents the findings of an in-depth discourse analysis of 20 First Instance unpublished judgments, delivered over a five-and-a-half-year period from one registry of the Family Court of Australia, in contested contact cases where the presence of domestic violence was acknowledged by the Court. A number of dominant themes from the judgments intersected to show how many judicial determinations about children’s ‘best interests’ were underpinned by conservative values that emphasised the importance of the fathers’ presence for children’s future wellbeing and development. In most of the judgments analysed, the fathers’ history of violence was readily excused or ignored, mothers were blamed for failing to support father–child contact, the voices of the children involved were often discounted and a dominant paradigm of the idealised post-separation family took precedence over the special needs of the children. There was little visible consideration of the potential or current effects of domestic violence on the children concerned.

Introduction

 * 'The FCA deals with significant numbers of parenting disputes of which the highest and increasing percentage are applications for contact.'


 * ' Family law is not simply law about separation and divorce, as a significant number of families reflect complex interfamilial relationships, including exposure to violence and abuse.'


 * 'However, as no reliable statistics are kept by the Family Court on cases involving domestic violence, such cases remain undifferentiated from parenting disputes where domestic violence is not an issue.'


 * ' … it is important to understand and make transparent how domestic violence, and the im- pact of exposure to domestic violence on chil- dren, is understood by the judicial officers and expert witnesses who provide evidence to the Family Court about the best interests of the child.'


 * 'One of the most controversial aspects of the Family Law Reform Act 1995 (‘Reform Act’) was the introduction of the child’s right to know and be cared for by both parents and to have direct, regular contact with both parents. Along with the introduction of the first explicit statutory recognition in Australian family law of the rele- vance of family violence to decision-making about children, a dominant discourse has emerged on the ‘rights of the child’ to know both parents. This has led to an emphasis on shared parenting, which in turn has fuelled disputes in the area of family law and made contesting father–child contact a difficult process.


 * 'Separation often occurs because of domestic violence.'


 * '… within the context of family law violent perpetra- tors continue to exercise power and control over their ex-partners and children through ongoing litigation over parenting and use tactical strategies to manipulate the Court’s pro-contact decisions.


 * 'There can be concerning outcomes for children who are required to spend time with their violent fathers following separation, as this contact creates opportunities for children to be exposed to violence, indirectly or directly. The safety and psycho- logical needs of these children must be recognised and understood for their best interests to be served.'


 * 'There are consistent international research findings on the short- and long-term adverse effects on children from exposure to domestic violence.'


 * 'This can include serious physical, psychological, cognitive, behavioural, developmental, emotional and relational problems affecting the children’s life satisfaction, self-esteem and future relationships and can disrupt the normal tasks of childhood.'


 * 'Their problems resemble those of children who have been directly abused by their parents, are similar to the problems of children who have witnessed other traumatic events and are significantly different from the problems children experience from non- violent homes.'


 * Australian and international research shows that children who have been exposed to domestic violence often sustain fear and dread of recurring violence and fear the perpetrator’s unpredictable management of anger.'


 * '… despite the emerging knowledge available, the needs of child victims of domestic violence continue to receive less attention than the needs of their abusive parent.'


 * 'There is some evidence that there may be a lack of specialist knowledge held by legal and social science professionals involved in Family Court proceedings in Australia about the full range of violence to which children can be exposed.'


 * 'Traditionally the law has relied heavily on narrow definitions of domestic violence which is reflected in Section 60D of the 1995 Reform Act that defined ‘family violence’ as: "conduct, whether actual or threatened by a person towards, or towards the property of, a member of a person’s family that causes that or any other member or any other member of the person’s family to fear for, or to be apprehensive about, his or her personal well being or safety."'


 * 'All forms of violence need to be explicitly named and understood, along with the central issue of power and control, which can be subtle and hard to detect.'


 * 'This research study … used the feminist definition of domestic violence emerging from the National Domestic Violence Summit: "Domestic violence is an abuse of power perpetrated mainly (but not only) by men against women both in relationship and after separation. It occurs when one partner attempts physically or psychologically to dominate and control the other. Domestic violence takes a number of forms. The commonly acknowledged forms are physical and sexual violence, threats and intimidation, emotional and social abuse and economic deprivation."'


 * 'Family Court Judges hold powerful and widely discretionary positions and make coercive determinations that "impact upon the lives of litigants to an extent not often encountered in the general courts".'