‘Horrific’: decade-high number of women killed in December demands ‘serious investment’ in prevention

A sharp rise in the number of women allegedly killed by men has prompted calls for greater investment in family and domestic violence prevention ahead of the dangerous Christmas period.

At least 10 women have been killed this month in Australia, more than three times the average rate of one woman per week.

The chief executive of Safe and Equal, Tania Farha, said the increase was "really alarming" coming into summer - typically the busiest time of year for domestic violence services and police responders.

The latest deaths come after a relative decline in homicides. There were 61 women killed by family and domestic violence related homicide in 2021 - the latest official reporting period - a decrease of 28% from the previous year.

"It's the highest number for this period in the past 10 years, and a horrific average," Farha said.

"Year after year we see abuse ramp up in December. It's a time of relaxation and happiness for many but such a high-risk time for people experiencing family violence.

"There's heightened tensions around holidays, people are together more often and people reach crisis point. But it's always a choice, driven by gender inequality and power imbalance."

Two-thirds of family violence assaults in Victoria last year occurred between Christmas and new year - the rate of an incident every five minutes.

A Victoria police spokesperson said it had observed a consistent spike in family violence callouts during the end of the year, with "clear increases" on Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

"Perpetrators are skilled at showing respectability or normalising conflict, and victims are kept silent by shame and fear," they said.

In Queensland, the highest days of demand for police responders to domestic and family violence last year were Boxing Day and New Year's Day, with 270 and 254 incidents respectively.

It's a similar picture in New South Wales, where domestic violence incidents consistently spike over summer.

There were 8,796 offences in the most recent summer period and 3,109 in December alone, compared with 7,376 throughout winter.

At the same time, domestic violence-related assault offences have increased annually in NSW by an average of 3.1% in the five years to September 2022.

Journalist Sherele Moody, the founder of the Australian Femicide Watch and the Red Heart Campaign, a memorial to women and children lost to violence, has been documenting the violent deaths of women since 2015.

She said the recent spate of killings was the highest she'd seen in such a short period.

"Clearly something isn't going right, and policies aren't working," she said.

"Women are being killed. What are we doing wrong? Why are we not getting these rates down? The answer to ending violence is with men.

"Gendered violence is the key problem here - it's up to men to fix it."

Moody's database has registered 55 deaths of women and children this year, including 11 in the past three weeks. All but one of the recent deaths were allegedly perpetrated by a male.

"I want us to get to Christmas without any more women being killed. For those families, it's their first Christmas without their loved ones."

Moody said while there was a clear peak in violence around the end of the year, the festive season was also be a time when women tried to maintain the facade of a happy household.

"It's never isolated to stress during Christmas but part of a continuum of abuse," she said. "This is a year-long issue."

Dr Leesa Hooker, a lead researcher into reducing violence against women at La Trobe rural health school, said it was widely accepted domestic violence increased during public holidays.

But its causes were complex.

"While gender inequality is at the heart of it all, we have reinforcing factors and harmful social norms that increase over holiday periods - alcohol and drug use and social stressors," she said.

Hooker said the chronic underreporting of family and domestic violence was another problem. The rate of incidents is commonly accepted to be higher than official figures.

"The true prevalence of domestic violence we're not clear on, until the data improves we just don't know what's happening," Hooker said.

Hooker hoped improved datasets would be partially achieved through the federal government's ambitious National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children.

"We need serious investment in primary prevention and how to monitor that effort over a long period of time," she said.

"It's so complex, you can't have one dataset. We need better ways of collecting hospital data, police data, personal safety.

"It requires significant investment to make generational change, that's the only way we can stop this epidemic of violence towards women. I can't see it yet."

A spokesperson for 1800RESPECT said the end of year holiday season could be a "critical and challenging time" and was a particularly busy period for its domestic, family and sexual violence services.

"For many people, the holiday season initiates family gatherings which can trigger a lot of anxiety and stress and we encourage anyone affected or at risk of violence to contact the service," they said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Social Services said violence against women and children was a problem of "epidemic proportions" in Australia.

They said women's safety was a "national priority", with the latest national plan to be the "cornerstone" of its strategy to address family, domestic and sexual violence.