The Department of Justice and Attorney-General’s independent Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce has produced its first report examining domestic and family violence (DFV).
The Report, Hear Her Voice, includes 89 recommendations.
Attorney-General and Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Shannon Fentiman said the Taskforce had undertaken months of consultation to look at how best to criminalise coercive control.
“We established the taskforce to conduct this crucial review that will inform Government on how we can remove barriers for victims to come forward and how the justice system can operate in a more trauma-informed way,” Ms Fentiman said.
“The Taskforce has listened to the voices of victims and has received more than 700 submissions — the overwhelming majority coming from women with a lived experience of domestic, family and sexual violence,” she said.
Ms Fentiman said coercive control was a dangerous form of domestic violence used to instil fear in victims.
She said perpetrators used tactics such as isolating the woman from her friends and family, tracking her movements, controlling her access to money, where she went and what she wore.
The Attorney-General said the findings and recommendations of the first report would be extensively considered by the Government and would help lay the foundation to criminalise coercive control.
Ms Fentiman said the independent Taskforce was established in March to conduct a wide-ranging review on women’s experiences across the criminal justice system and would deliver its final report by the end of June 2022.
The Taskforce’s Hear Her Voice Volumes 1, 2 and 3 can be accessed at this PS News link.
