Tomorrow, 10 December is the end of 16 days of activism against gender based violence. It’s the 16 days between the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Human Rights Day. 

According to Femicide Watch, an Instagram account dedicated to documenting the murders of Australian women, 95 woman have been killed in Australia this year. It’s a heartbreaking statistic that is only the tip of the iceberg. 

Statistics tell us that one in four women have experienced physical, emotional, or economic abuse at the hands of a partner since the age of 15 and one in three women have endured physical violence from men throughout their lifetime. 

These are not just numbers; they represent countless lives shattered and families torn apart. Each woman impacted by domestic violence is a child witnessing their mother being abused, a parent lying awake at night wondering if their child will be alive the next day, or a sibling weighed down by stress, desperate to remove their sister from a volatile situation. 

Beyond the real cost - devastating loss of life and the ongoing trauma carried by survivors - as a society, we are, quite literally, paying for family and domestic violence. The government's failure to invest adequately in prevention continues to place a growing financial burden on our society, as resources are funnelled into managing the aftermath of violence, rather than addressing the root causes that gendered violence stems from. 

In 2015–16 alone, the estimated cost of family and domestic violence was $22 billion, spent on everything from healthcare and housing to policing. This figure captures not only the direct costs but also the economic toll of lost wages and the long-term generational trauma that perpetuates inequality. 

Three Areas for Immediate Change

While the issue is complex, solutions are within reach. We must demand immediate action and change to create a society where gendered violence is not tolerated, and the safety of women is a top priority. Here are three key areas where government intervention can make a transformative impact.

1. Collective Community Effort: Confronting the Root Cause

Addressing the symptoms of domestic violence is not enough. To create lasting change, we must confront its root causes. This requires a collective effort, one that stretches across every corner of our communities - from schools to police stations, health centres to sports fields.

The Ballarat Community Saturation Model is a powerful example of this approach. This model immerses communities in interconnected, evidence-based programs, such as school workshops, sports clubs, and social media campaigns, each promoting respect, equality, and non-violence. By building on existing initiatives, this model creates a unified, community-wide effort to prevent domestic violence, focusing on early intervention and breaking the cycle of abuse.

2. Targeted Funding: Investing in Prevention and Vulnerable Communities

The scale of domestic violence demands a proportionate response. Prevention and support require adequate investment at every level of society. Funding must be strategically directed where it's needed most; frontline services for victims, legal aid, and shelters. This means investing in safe housing, accessible legal resources, and trauma-informed care - ensuring cultural competency and an understanding of the complexities of gendered violence.

Additionally, it is imperative that support services are accessible and cater to ALL women, with a critical focus on those facing increased risks. Women with disabilities in Australia are twice as likely to experience sexual violence, while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 31 times more likely to be hospitalised due to family violence. LGBTQIA+ individuals, including transgender women and gender diverse people, also face disproportionately high rates of violence. Yet these groups are often the least likely to receive help. At the same time, structural inequalities, fear of criminalisation, and a lack of culturally safe services compound these barriers, denying them the care, dignity, and support they not only need but deserve.

Funding must not only be sufficient, but it must also be strategically distributed, with a focus on the specific needs of the most vulnerable. By investing in prevention and early intervention, we can reduce the need for crisis responses and ultimately stop the violence before it starts.

3. Fixing the System: Protect not Punish

The system must protect, not punish women fleeing domestic violence. Currently, significant gaps in the system actively trap women, making it harder for them to leave abusive and unsafe situations. This isn’t a flaw, it’s a failure.

Women who lose custody of their children while fleeing violence often also lose their single-parent payment, sometimes their only financial lifeline. This leaves them trapped in poverty, unable to access housing, while the prospect of regaining custody slips further away. Meanwhile, migrant women face extensive barriers to essential services such as Medicare and Centrelink, leaving them vulnerable to financial abuse, reproductive coercion, and immigration-related violence, such as threats of deportation, trapping them in dangerous situations with limited options for help.

Furthermore, abusers frequently utilise coercive control tactics to maintain dominance, manipulating systems such as child support, withholding payments or weaponising the system to punish and control. These deep-rooted failures in the system don’t simply fail to protect women, they perpetuate the cycle of abuse, leaving women without the means to escape, rebuild, or reclaim their lives.

The Path Forward

It’s time for comprehensive policy reform that prioritises women’s safety, dignity, and autonomy. We need a system that doesn’t just react to gendered violence and abuse but actively fights to prevent it. A system that supports women’s basic rights and dismantles the structures that reinforce harm and normalise abuse. This means collective community action, properly targeted funding, and systems that protect women, not ones that push them further into danger. We must ensure that all women, particularly those facing multiple layers of oppression, have access to the resources and protections they deserve.

Tomorrow, 10 December, is Human Rights Day - a powerful reminder that everyone has the right to feel safe, to live without fear, and to be treated with dignity and respect. Let’s make this a reality.