There is no Good Reason

There is no good reason to ignore women who die from domestic violence-related suicide.

Today is “White Ribbon Day”. White Ribbon is one of Australia’s leading domestic violence advocacy charities with a vision to free every woman from all forms of men’s violence and abuse. They led this year’s campaign with the slogan “There is no good reason”.

They then go on to say that in Australia, men’s violence against women is a national crisis. That despite the 48,000 news articles this year on the topic of men’s violence against women, we continue to lose 1 woman every 9 days.

I’ve been particularly irritated of late. It’s almost like I now live in a perpetual state of being somewhere between slightly annoyed and raging with anger. Perhaps intense grief does this to you. Perhaps this is why this year’s campaign particularly shits me.

For starters, we don’t lose women to domestic violence. They are not a set of car keys that we have misplaced. They are not in the next room waiting to be found… unless you count being in an urn on a hall table as being in the next room.  They were murdered. They are dead.

And the statistic of 1 dead women every 9 days, murdered by their (ex)intimate partner, is ignoring so many victims.

The WA ombudsman’s report in October 2022, on domestic violence and suicide, reported that in just one year 58 women, over the age of 20, who were known victims of domestic violence (police report, hospital attendance, restraining order) ended their own lives (Investigation into family and domestic violence and suicide Volume 1: Executive Summary (ombudsman.wa.gov.au)). If this data is extrapolated from WA out across Australia, then the number is a staggering 580 Australian women dead from domestic violence-related suicide.

Domestic violence leaves women isolated, helpless, and hopeless. They use every ounce of their energy, each day, just trying to survive. Walking on eggshells. Doing everything they can to not “provoke” their abuser. It is exhausting. And from this space, it can become very difficult to find a way out.

The WA data is supported by a report published in The Guardian in 2023 titled "Women who Suffer Domestic Abuse Three Times as Likely to Attempt Suicide," (Women who suffer domestic abuse three times as likely to attempt suicide | Domestic violence | The Guardian) showing evidence from the UK indicating a direct link between domestic abuse and a higher risk of suicide attempts.

In addition, in Hertfordshire, UK there has recently been a successful prosecution of domestic violence-related suicide. In the case reported by the BBC on "Successful Prosecution in Hertfordshire Domestic Violence-Related Suicide," (Kellie Sutton: New inquest finds abuse victim unlawfully killed - BBC News) a husband who actively discouraged his wife from seeking medical help during a life-threatening situation faced prosecution and was held accountable for his actions. This landmark case serves as a testament to the significance of holding perpetrators responsible for the harm they cause through their actions or inactions.

Make no mistake, domestic violence-related suicide is also murder, using the victims’ own hands as the murder weapon. Plain and simple.

If you add the deaths from suicide to the deaths from homicide the total number of Australian women EACH YEAR who die as a result of intimate partner abuse is 630.

You read that correctly… six hundred and thirty Australian women EACH year.

Or ONE woman every 14 hours.

Why, over a year since the WA Ombudsmen’s report was released, has one of the leading organisations in the fight against domestic violence virtually ignored the suicide data?

Are these women’s deaths less legitimate, less important? Does their lack of survival make their stories irrelevant? Forever lost to everyone, except those who grieve their death.

White Ribbon are correct.

There's no good reason.

In memory of Molly.