Stop perpetrators weaponising systems
“I’m trapped by the system. I have to deal with ongoing abuse via my children until they’re 18 … I am not able to escape the abuse completely because of the systems in place that support the abuser…. It’s a life sentence of ongoing abuse even if you manage to leave the relationship.”220
“The current system sent my children with this man, no matter how much they begged not to be sent. They were returned bruised externally, but the biggest damage was internally. They still speak about telling “professionals” that their Dad was hurting them, and not being heard.”221
The Review recognises that government systems, at the Commonwealth, state and territory levels, are being manipulated and abused by perpetrators to control victim-survivors and extend DFSV. Perpetrators may seek to control victim-survivors by manipulating systems and services. Practically, this can manifest as the withholding of payments, not fully disclosing income and assets, prolonging legal proceedings, threats to cancel immigration visas, raising debts against a victim-survivors’ name and making false allegations and complaints.222 Victim-survivors, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and migrant and refugee victim-survivors, may also be at risk to forms of systems abuse through wider family relationships.223
The Review heard that systems that were originally established to support women, children and at-risk communities – such as the family law, child support and child protection systems – are often abused by perpetrators and have a converse effect to their original intent.224 Corporate systems, such as banking and financial services, insurance, utilities and technology, are also exploited.
A well-recognised source of systems abuse includes the family law system, in which perpetrators attempt to drain the resources of victim-survivors through protracted and incessant legal proceedings; insisting on care arrangements which are unsafe and do not reflect the wishes of a child;225 and, as research indicates, undermining the mother-child bond by coaching children to view their mother in a negative light.226
It also includes the taxation system, which perpetrators are able to weaponise by placing tax debts in the names of former partners. This can contribute to debilitating financial burdens for victim-survivors, including insecure housing and prolonged economic instability. Economic abuse in the context of DFSV costs the economy an estimated $10.9 billion per year and affects more than 2.4 million Australians.227
Further, the Review notes that victim-survivors are often primary caregivers of children in separation agreements. Services Australia records more than 660,000 separated families in the child support system228, which perpetrators frequently misuse to abuse former partners through financial abuse and child support non-compliance. Eighty per cent of women involved in a Swinburne University survey have reported that their ex-partner replaced physical abuse with financial abuse via child support as a control tactic since separation.229
The Review heard about work currently underway with the eSafety Commissioner and technology sector to implement Safety by Design principles, as well as the work to embed Safety by Design in parts of the banking and financial services, utilities and other sectors. Safety by Design principles can help organisations and government systems to build DFSV safety principles and considerations proactively into their processes to: prevent processes from being leveraged for abuse, identify where existing risks and harms are occurring, and ensure that they are not being exploited by people who use gender-based violence to cause further harm.230 Taking a Safety by Design approach will help to unlock the prevention potential of these systems by removing opportunities for violence to become more entrenched and empower systems to respond proactively to evolving threats.
Safety by Design principles in the technology industry
Safety by Design puts user safety and rights at the centre of the design and development of online products and services. Rather than retrofitting safeguards after an issue has already occurred, such as gender-based violence, Safety by Design focuses on the ways that technology companies can minimise online threats by anticipating, detecting and eliminating online harms before they occur. Though originally designed for online products and services, Safety by Design is increasingly being used to guide the reform of other systems and institutions.
Safety by Design is underpinned by three key principles:
- Service provider responsibility, which places the burden of safety on the service provider, and not on the user. This principle seeks to address known and anticipated harms during service design and provision.
- User empowerment and autonomy, which prioritises the dignity of users. This principle focuses on ensuring that design features and functions preserve consumer and human rights.
- Transparency and accountability, which recognises transparency and accountability as the hallmarks of a robust approach to safety. This principle focuses on publishing accessible and easy to understand policies and processes and establishing accountable complaints mechanisms.231
The Review recommends that the Commonwealth, state and territory governments assess how their systems are currently being weaponised by perpetrators and apply Safety by Design principles as guidance for programmatic reform of these systems. This process should be agile and responsive, given that perpetrator tactics are adaptive, while future harms cannot always be identified ahead of time.
How have Safety by Design principles been applied to the banking sector?
The banking industry is a critical setting where proactive effort is needed to address financial abuse. This is because banks can often be the first to learn of abusive relationships – with research indicating that victims of financial abuse being more likely to seek assistance from their bank than from domestic and family violence services.232
In recent years, banks in Australia have implemented a range of actions in line with the Safety by Design principles to stop their products from being used for financial abuse.
- In 2019, an investigation by Commonwealth Bank identified 8,000 customers who received multiple low-value deposits, often less than $1, with disturbing and potentially abusive messages in the transaction descriptions.233
- These findings prompted Australian banks to change their terms and conditions and introduce mechanisms that aimed to disrupt the technology-facilitated financial abuse occurring through their platforms.234
- By late 2022, the four major Australian banks had blocked 500,000 messages from across 300,000 individual accounts, as well as cancelling, suspending and/or warning more than 3000 customers of financial abuse.235
- By November 2023, 13 Australian banks had published new terms and conditions that made clear that financial abuse was an unacceptable customer behaviour, and that they would not condone the misuse of their products as a method of coercive control.236
The Review urges the Commonwealth Government to build on work that is already underway. Reform should be prioritised for systems that have been identified as causing the most reported harm, including the family law system, child support system, the immigration system and the taxation system. Given that this is a problem that requires a whole-of-society response, the Review also supports further action to address systems abuse by non-government systems.
This recommendation reinforces Action 5 of the First Action Plan (2023-2027) under the National Plan, which focuses on strengthening systems and services to hold people who choose to use violence more effectively to account, in order to better protect the safety and wellbeing of victim-survivors.
| Recommendation 16 |
|---|
The Commonwealth and state and territory governments to undertake an immediate audit of how DFSV perpetrators are weaponising government systems, and to respond to these findings. This audit and subsequent plans for reform should be informed by Safety by Design principles. The Commonwealth Government should build on work that is already underway and prioritise systems where significant harm is occurring, such as: family law, child support, immigration, and taxation. |
Regulate industries that can do harm
The Review notes that it is standard public health practice to regulate or prevent the availability of products that contribute to harm. Accordingly, regulation must also be factored into our strategies to prevent DFSV. To date, however, industries that are well positioned to reduce harm – particularly alcohol, pornography, and gambling – have not been proactive about addressing the impact that their products and business models have on the rate and severity of violence and abuse against women and children.237
Alcohol has long been known to increase both the incidence and severity of physical and sexual violence within intimate relationships and families.238 The Review notes that a failure to consider DFSV in alcohol policy has allowed unprecedented growth in alcohol availability, both in the density of liquor outlets and the length of online delivery hours.239 This increase in availability has been statistically linked to increases in alcohol-related DFSV.240
Prevention through regulating harmful industries
Over 1 in 3 incidents of physical intimate partner violence involve alcohol, and alcohol-related incidents are twice as likely to involve severe physical violence and life-threatening injuries.241
The Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network Data Report found that over 60 per cent of males who killed a female intimate partner engaged in problematic drug and/or alcohol use in the lead-up to, or at the time of, the homicide.242 Alcohol abuse can also be a factor in child removal, and children who are removed from their families are then at risk of experiencing and/or perpetrating violence in intimate relationships. This risk is magnified for children born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), which occurs between 1.1 to 5.0 per cent of children in western countries.243
Data also shows alcohol-related DFSV is particularly high in wealthy areas. According to 2024 data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, the highest proportion of alcohol-related domestic violence assaults in Sydney occurred in its most affluent areas.244
Predominantly, DFSV-related alcohol restrictions to date have been targeted at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Too often such interventions have been stigmatising and harmful, notably when not done in partnership with local communities. Innovative approaches, however, have also been pioneered by First Nations leaders.245 The Review supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to restrict alcohol in culturally appropriate ways that work best for them.
Lililwan Project
The Lililwan Project was Australia’s first study of the prevalence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) in remote communities.246 Launched in 2010, the project aimed to address the high prevalence of FASD in the Fitzroy Valley region of Western Australia, particularly among Aboriginal children.
The project provided a number of recommendations to inform national efforts to address FASD, including to restrict access to alcohol, for example through volumetric taxes, community-led restrictions and the responsible marketing and sale of alcohol products.247
Critically, the Review recommends that regulatory action must now be extended to the broader Australian population. Evidence indicates that interventions to restrict the hours of sale have resulted in reductions in the number of DFSV victims presenting to hospital in Australia and a reduction in spousal homicide and domestic assaults.248
Given the strong role of alcohol in domestic homicide and DFSV, the Review recommends that state and territory governments adopt clear primary objectives in their liquor regulatory regimes to prevent gender-based violence, alongside existing objectives around alcohol harm reduction. This should be accompanied by evidence-based reforms to address availability and access, including regulations on liquor store density and operating hours, and online delivery.
Additionally, given the statistical increase in DFSV incidents during football grand finals, as well as the high number of children who watch sport on television and mobile apps, the Review recommends that alcohol advertising be restricted during sporting events.249
Gambling
“We have a culture where sport and gambling are intrinsically linked. These behaviours are causing increasingly widespread and serious harm to individuals, families and communities.”
– Peta Murphy MP250
“He got in the car and tried to run me over … for whatever reason it was my fault that … [he] didn’t win at … gambling. So it was, like, well someone has to pay.”
– Interview participant251
“He dragged me through the family law system … and … just continued to gamble and drive himself further into debt.”
– Interview participant252
Minimal attention has been paid to the connection between problem gambling and DFSV, and regulatory decisions to date have barely taken DFSV harm into consideration. Evidence clearly shows that, where gambling co-exists with DFSV, it often escalates its frequency and/or severity.253 Survivor accounts illustrate how men’s gambling harms can create situations that heighten the risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), such as men experiencing anger and shame over losses and responding with violence when female partners object to gambling-behaviours.254 Gambling can also be used to perpetuate financial abuse post-separation.255
The Review heard that there are clear regulatory opportunities for governments to prevent problem gambling both online and through restrictions on electronic gaming machines (EGMs). Online gambling is a growing area of concern in Australia, with around 21 per cent of the population now gambling online and Australians spending more on online gambling than any other country in the world.256
The Review supports the recommendations made in the Murphy Review, which dealt specifically with online gambling, and reiterates the recommendation for a total ban on gambling advertising. Given that EGMs are one of the most harmful forms of gambling in Australia, accounting for between 48 to 60 per cent of the total gambling expenditure in Australia between 2001-02 to 2019-20, the Review also recommends stronger regulation of EGMs.257
Postcodes in Victoria with no electronic gaming machines have 20 per cent fewer family incidents, and 30 per cent fewer domestic violence assaults when compared with postcodes that have 75 electronic gaming machines per 10,000 people.258
Pornography
Evidence shows that nearly half (48 per cent) of boys have seen pornography by the age of 13, and nearly half (48 per cent) of girls by the age of 15.259
Participants in the Beyond Silence study, which explored women’s experiences of intimate partner sexual violence in Australia, spoke about pornography being used as a grooming tool (e.g. “using pornography to make me think those things were normal, and that’s what everybody does”) and having partners demand sexual acts that they had clearly communicated they “hated” (e.g. He didn't really seem to care that I said I hated it. He'd still ask for it and … I would let him do it … because it was something that he just really wanted, but I hated it.”).260
The Review notes with concern that mainstream pornography has, by default, become the most prominent form of sex education for young people.261 Children’s unfettered access to free online pornography has normalised painful and dangerous sexual practices, including non-fatal strangulation – an act that, when used in the context of intimate partner violence, increases the likelihood of future homicide by 700 per cent.262 It also shapes expectations of what is sexually ‘normal’, including the normalisation of request for sexual images among children, and commonly features harmful messaging around male dominance; control, coercion and aggression; and female submission.263
Not all online pornography depicts harmful behaviour, but free mainstream sites commonly depict high levels of hostility, racist stereotypes and degradation, as well as content that fetishises incest. Evidence shows that men who use this kind of pornography are more likely to engage in violent sexual practices, like choking without consent.264 The Review heard that forensic examiners have seen an increase in young women presenting with non-fatal strangulation injuries from sex that began consensually, and then escalated unexpectedly to violence.
This is a global problem, and age verification is a harm minimisation strategy being pursued by governments internationally, including in the United Kingdom, United States of America and the European Union. The Review acknowledges that the Commonwealth Government in May 2024 committed $6.5 million to pilot age verification technology, using guidance from the eSafety Commissioner’s Roadmap for Age Verification.265 The Review recommends that this pilot be a genuine trial that tests both the technology and also how age verification assurance systems will be implemented, including the participation of the major technology platforms that are used by Australian children. For the development of this trial, the Review recommends that the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts liaise closely with the eSafety Commissioner and leverage its role as the regulator and technical expert in this area.
Age verification will not automatically address porn-related harms. To give young people the context they need to navigate the increasing pornification of mainstream culture, the Review recommends continued efforts to give young people literacy on porn, and the associated normalisation of non-fatal strangulation in sex, and therefore also supports increased support and resourcing to specialised sexual violence prevention programs like ‘It’s Time We Talked.’266
Media
The need for ethical journalism
“Immediately after the murder [of my mum] there was some reporting and online commentary where people were saying things like, ‘This woman was murdered because she didn’t pass the salt’ and ‘The religion of peace strikes again’ – just these constant overdone cliches.”
– Amani Haydar267
“As survivors of violence and intense anguish, how our mother’s case was reported on profoundly affected us. … Our mother’s death was not something that should have been dramatised in order to sell papers, my father’s violence was not the result of a religious or cultural value, and it certainly wasn’t because he had a ‘brain snap’. My mother’s death was a result of the deeply entrenched gender-unequal society in which we existed, where my mother, sisters and I were my father’s possessions.”
– Arman Abrahimzadeh268
“The only context in which I have seen the lies told by criminals regularly repeated (without context) in headlines is in reports about men’s violence against women.”
– Jane Gilmore, journalist and author269
The Review notes that the media has a critical role in shaping how Australians think and talk about violence against women and children. Ethical reporting has the power to reinforce community attitudes that condone or tolerate violence; shape the way that women understand their own experiences of violence – including whether they take action or seek support; and also influence the way that perpetrators understand their own choices to use violence and whether to seek support to change their behaviour.270
Currently, there is limited evidence-based education for journalists on the drivers of violence or how to report on cases of DFSV safely and ethically, including DFSV-related homicides and suicides. The Review recommends that the Commonwealth Government build on media initiatives already underway and strengthen guidance and training materials for journalists and media outlets reporting on DFSV to help them address gender inequalities, challenge harmful gender stereotypes, avoid victim-blaming narratives and hold perpetrators to account.
Addressing these industry-based drivers of gender-based violence and ensuring that our systems and institutions are designed to support and protect people impacted by violence, is required to meet Actions 1 and 5 of the First Action Plan (2023-2027).
| Recommendation 17 |
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The Commonwealth and state and territory governments to work with industries that are well positioned to prevent and reduce DFSV, including homicide, with a focus on alcohol and gambling industries, in addition to media and pornography. This includes reviewing and strengthening alcohol and gambling regulatory environments to prioritise the prevention of gender-based violence. This should include:
Further, the Review recommends that the Commonwealth Government work with the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) and other organisations on a framework to ensure the development of an integrated and focused effort to address the role of alcohol in DFSV. |
Protect victim-survivors from tech-facilitated abuse
“[My] mobile phone was used to somehow create a tracking device on my phone that then my ex used to track my movements for over a year … It emerged later that he knew every single place I went to … What initially happened was that he ... sort of started telling me things that he knew I’d been doing. He said “Oh, you’ve been to this place and you’ve been here and there” ... If I went somewhere unusual, he would go there and hang out outside and wait and watch and use that to actually, yeah, locate me, stalk me when he wanted to. So that was bad.”
– Amahle, victim-survivor.271
The Review recognises the work of the Commonwealth Government’s eSafety Commissioner in addressing gender-based violence online. This work is critical in the face of rising rates and evolving means of technology-facilitated gender-based abuse.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner and regime are unique globally and provide a mechanism to regulate the complex and international problem of gender-based abuse and violence online. The eSafety Commissioner is a relatively new body that was established to safeguard all Australians from online harms and to promote safer, more positive online experiences. A significant proportion of the eSafety Commissioner’s work focuses on the safety of women and children, in the context of increased cyberbullying of children and young people, adult cyber abuse and technology-facilitated abuse. The eSafety Commissioner is navigating a complex global regulatory environment and must remain vigilant in responding to forms of online violence against women and children, which are constantly evolving. It investigates online abuse complaints, including those resulting from experiences of DFSV, and also provides online safety programs and resources to all Australians.
Technology-facilitated abuse
- 99.3 per cent of Australian family, domestic and sexual violence practitioners had clients who experienced technology-facilitated family and domestic violence.272
- 62.3 per cent of Australian adults surveyed online (aged 18 to 54) had experienced technology-facilitated sexual violence.273
- 9,060 image-based abuse reports were handled by the eSafety Commissioner in 2022-23, which was a 117 per cent increase on the previous year.274
- Abusers who use tech-based abuse in family and domestic violence are also more likely to use physical violence against their partner and any children involved, and there’s a higher risk of murder.275
- 1 in 4 who purchased GPS tracking devices since 2023 have a history of domestic violence.276
- In 2021-22, according to the PSS, 641,500 Australian women had their movements tracked by an ex-partner. This was a significant increase from earlier years, where this number was 455,100 in the 2016 PSS. These figures record tracking by former partners only. Women in current relationships are also subjected to having their every movement monitored: 56,700 in 2016 and 66,500 in 2021-22.277
Sexploitation
- Of child sexual abuse material reports made to the eSafety Commissioner, 1 in 8 were "self-generated", with children being encouraged and coerced into making sexually explicit videos and images by predators online.278
- The eSafety Commission reports a 1,332 per cent increase in reports of sexual extortion, known as ‘sextortion’ – with 432 reports made in 2018-19 compared to 6,187 reports made in 2022-23. These threats were predominantly issued by criminal enterprises against young men aged 18 to 24.279
A commitment to addressing new and emerging forms of violence online is critical to unlocking the prevention potential – to prevent violence from being perpetrated, escalating and turning into fatality. The Review recommends that the eSafety Commissioner continues and expands on its work with the technology industry, as well as government, to prevent gender-based violence. This should include work to improve policies, practices and accountability around online safety; increase transparency around harm; respond to evolving technologies such as tracking apps, deep fakes and generative AI; and provide support services for victim-survivors.
Women in leadership and online abuse
| Recommendation 18 |
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| The Commonwealth Government to continue to support the eSafety Commissioner to undertake increasingly complex work preventing gender-based violence, which includes working with the technology industry on the improvement of policies, practices and accountability. |