Youth Fleeing Violence Increases

LAST night the minute of silence to remember women and children who have lost their lives due to domestic violence was disrupted by a couple down the street screaming abuse at each other.

Inspector Guy Guiana had just finished his speech highlighting how the violence cuts across all socio-economic backgrounds and imploring the community, especially men, to change the way women in our society are treated, when he had to leave the vigil in Scone to attend the domestic.

Joplin Higgins, Lenore Little and Lee Watts at the first vigil held in Scone for victims of domestic violence.

The statistics of domestic violence remain high in our community, but services are seeing more young people who need to escape from violent homes said Lenore Little, manager of Upper Hunter Homeless Support.

“We are seeing youth leaving homes because of domestic violence in the home or perpetrating violence,” she said.

“We’ve recently had a 17 year old who had to leave a violent home and we were able to find a place for him and he is going well,” Lenore Little said.

Joplin Higgins, of Joplin Lawyers and intimate partner and domestic violence advocate said it is important for people to understand domestic violence impacts everyone in the home and agrees with recent comments following the coroner’s report into the death of Luke Batty that abusive partners do not make good parents.

“She also said in that article that perpetrators are not good dads and there is a lot of professors who are almost going out on a limb because that’s not what the family law system says,” said Ms Higgins.

“The family law system says both parents should have equal parental responsibility and there’s parts of the legislation that talk about domestic violence but it takes a lot sometimes to prove that case,” she said.

“But it really is true if there is a person perpetrating violence against the mother and the children are being subjected to it, how can you be a good parent?; you are not a good parent,” Joplin Higgins said.

Lenore Little agrees, “with the domestic violence education programs we run we talk about the impact on the children and many think if the children don’t see it, but the brain development of children who live in these environments are impacted, the stress levels of hearing domestic violence, the abuse and the trauma.”

Ms Higgins said we need to educate our youth to identify and manage abuse in relationships.

“Another issue in relation to young people there is a big push in a lot of other nations at the moment about healthy relationships and texting and cyber stalking and how that is really a new issue that teenagers are dealing with and for them to really understand what the red flags are,” she said.

“We are seeing children as young as 14 in these relationships,” Joplin Higgins said.

If you would like support to address domestic violence issues you can phone the domestic violence hotline 1800 656 463 or contact Upper Hunter Homeless Services 02 6542 5051.