Violence and abuse are prevalent in teenage relationships and this behaviour can have life-long impacts, according to an Anglicare report that calls for governments and communities to do more to protect young people.
Titled Young, in Love and in Danger, the report paints a disturbing picture of underage relationships in Tasmania, where previous surveys have shown a greater proportion of young people experience violence within relationships than elsewhere in the country.
WARNING: This story contains details that may cause distress.
Elise, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, was one of the women interviewed by Anglicare researchers.
When she was 13, Elise met a 16-year-old boy named David, and together the pair embarked on a nine-year relationship.
Elise said David was intensely jealous and regularly accused her of cheating, so she adopted behaviours to pacify him.
"I kept all my receipts with the times and stuff like that."
"Like Macca's stops, servo receipts ... Woolworths receipts."
"I'd turn on my Google Maps and make sure that my Google was tracking me everywhere I'd go, so I could show him."
This was the first proper relationship Elise had experienced, and she had many examples of the abuse she endured at the hands of David.
At the time, Elise said, she just accepted violent behaviour as a part of her life.
"He used to spit food on me and tell me I'm worthless and I'm nothing, and it was just gross."
"He rammed me into the wall, grabbed me by the throat, choked me."
"Smashed up the whole place, carried on, told me, 'You want to f***ing leave because I'm going to come back, I'm going to f***ing shoot you."
Suffering continues after relationship ends
Anglicare launched the investigation after service providers identified violent and abusive behaviour as a prevalent and culturally embedded problem for young people aged under 18.
Report author Carmel Hobbs said it could have life-long impacts.
"Teenage relationships tend to be viewed as kind of short-term and fickle and it goes badly, and you break up and you kind of move on," she said.
But this wasn't the case with the young people she interviewed. Some were still suffering from former violent relationships, sometimes years after these relationships had ended.
Data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children showed that up to 40 per cent of Tasmanian young people aged 18-19 may have experienced violence in their relationships over the past 12 months, compared to 28.5 per cent nationally.
Young people can sometimes find it difficult to recognise certain behaviours as forms of abuse, Dr Hobbs found.
"There is still a misconception that, 'If they didn't hit me, it's not so bad — it could get worse.'"
Controlling and manipulative behaviour within a relationship is a form of domestic violence known as "coercive control".
New South Wales will be the first jurisdiction in Australia to criminalise coercive control after legislation passed parliament last week.
As well as being a type of abuse, coercive control often precedes physical violence.
A recent review of intimate partner homicides between 2008 and 2016 in NSW found almost all of them were preceded by coercive control.
Choosing between violence and homelessness
Launceston-based community service worker Courtney Adams, who's worked with young people for over a decade, said she's seen coercive behaviour escalate.
"It might be checking all their social media accounts, not letting them go out with their friends, really isolating them."
"Sometimes it stays at that and other times it goes into very horrific situations," Ms Adams said.
"We've seen young people where they could have easily lost their life, their injuries are so horrific, and the violence has been so severe for them."
Ms Adams wants to see specialised services available for young people, as teenagers cannot access those available to adult victim-survivors of domestic violence.
"Sometimes they're choosing between being in a violent relationship and being homeless," she said.
Often, young people were living with their partner's family, she said.
"A lot of the time there's no financial access and they're not on payments, they're not working."
"It might not be an option for them to return home."
Ms Adams advises young people struggling in these relationships to reach out for help.
"That could be through education, a teacher, a service, somebody that you trust."
"If you see a friend and they're in immediate danger, please call the police, please call triple zero."
The report's recommendations include mandatory education on respectful relationships, trauma-informed specialist teen domestic violence services, and better support for those experiencing violence and abuse.
It also calls on governments to review and, where appropriate, reform legislation to ensure children are protected from violence and abuse in their intimate partner relationships.
