What are the facts about home violence?
It was only in 1974 that ‘Elsie Women’s Refuge’, the first women’s refuge in Australia, was opened to care for women who had been bashed and their children. But by 1981, there were 33 refuges giving shelter to 11,000 women and children during the year – with 3,000 more of them turned away because of the lack of accommodation. During this time, I used the resources of Wesley Mission to open such refuges. Yet, each year, over 20,000 women were still turned away and sent back to their violent homes because all of our refuges were fully occupied. The New South Wales 1981 Task Force on Domestic Violence investigated the range of services available to assist women suffering domestic violence and this is what they found: · 27% of women said they went initially to the police, but fewer than one-third found the police to be helpful. · 22% went initially to a doctor for help, but fewer than one-third found the doctor helpful. · 5.5% of women went first to a women’s refuge for help. Three quarter
