DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – EMERGING CHALLENGES

The Australian movement against domestic violence is now more than 25 years old. Clearly, a great deal has been achieved. For example, despite ongoing debate about the terminology which is used, women who are subjected to violence and abuse within their intimate relationships, can now name these experiences. Most definitions of domestic violence now recognise that coercive control is at the heart of domestic violence, and that physical violence is but one tactic employed to achieve this control: Domestic violence is the patterned and repeated use of coercive and controlling behavior to limit, direct, and shape a partner’s thoughts, feelings and actions. An array of power and control tactics is used along a continuum in concert with one another. (Almeida & Durkin 1999, p. 313) There is now much greater community awareness about domestic violence and many services and legal reforms have been instigated in response to the recognition that this is a serious social problem. The prevalence of domestic violence, revealed in almost 30 years of research, illustrates that domestic violence is not the product of a few disturbed individuals, but a pervasive social problem