Domestic violence services expect spike in a demand over Christmas, summer months as Australian crisis peaks

Women and children are being turned away from shelters with no funding committed to address a feared spike in domestic violence deaths over the summer.

No More anti-domestic violence campaigner Charlie King said Christmas was a challenging time for the sector.

“We worry every Christmas period …. this season is supposed to be joy and goodwill but if anything, we use this as a marker every year to see whether our prevention is working,” she said.

Northern Territory Minister for Prevention of Domestic Violence Robyn Cahill said everyone needed to “stand up” and “prevent” the scourge of domestic violence continuing, but stopped short of committing funds for critical services.

“One of the really challenging things that’s happened over the past few years is we have seen so much of this behaviour in our community — the attacks against women in particular — that to a degree, we’ve become immune to it,” she told reporters on Monday.

“We’re reminding people that when they see an incident of violence in the streets, or if they hear something that’s occurring in their community, that they need to reach out.”

After a 16-day public awareness campaign to reduce domestic violence, Ms Cahill said the summer period was traditionally one of the worst for victims.

“We’ve taken the opportunity to remind our community that as we lead into the Christmas holiday season, this is potentially one of the worst periods we’ll face for an increase in domestic, family and sexual violence incidents,” she said.

Despite the feared spike, Ms Cahill ruled out further funding for homelessness services and domestic and family violence shelters.

Instead, she committed to sending people back to remote communities.

“We’re making sure that there is good support in the network, ideally the best place for people to be at their home,” she said.

“So we’re working with those community groups … to get them home.”

The Country Liberal Party made an election commitment in August to provide $180 million in family and domestic violence funding but has since said it would audit the sector.

Nine Aboriginal women have been killed by domestic violence in the NT since June, according to the territory coroner.

Co-chair of the NT Aboriginal Advisory Board on domestic, family and sexual violence Lauren Peric said the government must invest in frontline services, including crisis shelters.

“Levels of domestic violence are at their worst in this country at the moment,” she said.

Darwin Aboriginal and Islander Women’s Shelter reports showed “multiple families” trying to escape domestic violence were being turned away every week, Ms Peric said.

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