Domestic Violence

• Is the Hague Convention on child abduction harming women?

  20th Jan 2022

  Women trying to leave abusive relationships and return home with their children are being blocked by the threat of Hague proceedings. When it was signed in 1980, this international treaty was intended to protect mothers and children, but now it's being used as 'legal weapon' against them, writes Anneka Frayne, calling for change.

• Domestic coercive control could soon be criminal in Australia

  14th Oct 2021

  Domestic abuse in the form of coercive control could soon be a criminal act under changes to domestic violence laws being considered by state and territory governments in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, SA and the NT. Anneka Frayne discusses what coercive control is and how the legislation would work, including the difficulties of criminalising it.

• Employers held responsible for domestic violence when staff WFH

  8th Oct 2020

  In Workers Compensation Nominal Insurer v Hill [2020] NSWCA 54, it was found that employers can be held responsible for domestic violence when employees work from home.

  Emily Wittig from Stacks Collins Thompson discusses how this case demonstrates that employers must ensure that there are no safety risks involved with WFH, including the threat of domestic violence. This requires the implementation of informed and proactive policies that will protect workers, particularly relevant in current times with more employees WFH due to COVID-19.

• How NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) facilitates financial abuse

  4th Jun 2020

  In this article, Anna Kerr and Andrea Verteouris explore how the NSW policy of denying the registration of a motor vehicle in joint names can be detrimental to the safety of women and children affected by domestic violence. They call on the NSW government to reinstate the option of registering motor vehicles in joint names or at least enable a second interest in a vehicle to be noted.  

• Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction

  8th Mar 2018

  Is the Convention failing women and children escaping violence?

• Moving beyond legalistic responses in family law

  18th Mar 2016

  Domestic and family violence (D&FV) is a heinous, and omnipresent epidemic in Australia. D&FV is more than physical violence. It is actual and threatened behaviour, and behaviour which is used to incite fear. It is coercive and controlling in nature, and includes emotional, psychological, economic, sexual, social, property, and family abuse. It is insidious and has no boundaries. No social group is immune from attack.