At last year’s conference marking the 50th anniversary of Elsie, Australia’s first feminist refuge, numerous speakers reflected on the ultimate aim of the feminist refuge movement, back in the 1970s: that in the near future, domestic violence would no longer exist and their services would no longer be needed.
Half a century later, we’re in the middle of an ongoing “national crisis” – and our federal government has committed itself to ending family and domestic violence “in one generation”.
This year, eight women have already been killed by violence according to Destroy the Joint, which has kept a Counting Dead Women tally since 2012. At the end of 2024, the tally stood at 78. In 2023, the sexual violence crime rate hit a 31-year high, bucking a wider decline in violent crimes.
