What is
                            domestic or
                            family violence?

Domestic and family violence takes many forms involving violent, abusive or intimidating behaviours carried out by a partner, carer or family member to control, dominate, humiliate or instil fear.

Domestic violence is
an equal-opportunity
destroyer ignoring all
racial, cultural, religious,
educational, employment
or socio-economic
boundaries.

Domestic and family violence can include the following types of abuse:

1. Verbal including swearing and continual humiliation and verbal attacks that focus on intelligence, sexuality, body image or capacity as a parent and spouse.
   
   

2. Psychological including driving dangerously; destruction of property; abuse of pets in front of family members, making threats regarding child custody, asserting that the police and justice system will not assist, support or believe the victim; or threatening to ‘out’ the person.
   
   

3. Emotional including blaming the victim for all problems in the relationship, constantly comparing the victim with others to undermine self-esteem and self-worth, sporadic sulking, withdrawing all interest and engagement (the 'silent treatment'), emotional blackmail and suicidal threats.
   
   

4. Social including systematic isolation from family and friends through techniques such as ongoing rudeness to family and friends to alienate them; instigating and controlling a move to a location where the victim has no established social circle or employment opportunities; restricting use of the car or phone and forbidding or physically preventing the victim from going out and meeting people.
   
   

5. Financial including complete control of all money matters through forbidding access to bank accounts, providing only an inadequate ‘allowance’; not allowing the victim to seek or hold employment; coercing to sign documents or make false declarations; using all wages earned by the victim for household expenses; controlling the victim’s pension and denying that the victim has an entitlement to joint property.
   
   

6. Physical including strangulation, choking, shaking, eye injuries, biting, slapping, pushing, spitting, punching, or kicking; use of weapons including objects; assault of children; locking the victim in or out of the house; forcing the victim to take drugs; withholding medication, food or medical care and sleep deprivation.
   
   

7. Sexual including any form of pressured or unwanted sex or sexual degradation such as sexual activity without consent, causing pain during sex, assaulting genitals, coercive sex without protection against pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, making the victim perform sexual acts unwillingly (including taking or distributing explicit photos without their consent), and criticising or using sexually degrading insults.
   
   

8. Harassment and stalking including following and watching, telephone and online harassment, tracking with GPS systems or being intimidating.
   
   

9. Spiritual including denying or manipulating religious beliefs or practices to force victims into subordinate roles or to justify other forms of abuse.
   
   
   

A person does not need to be married to the perpetrator for it to be considered ‘domestic and family violence’.

Domestic violence can be perpetrated by a partner, family member, carer, boyfriend or girlfriend.

A person does not need to experience all of these types of abuse for it to be considered domestic or family violence.