New Study Reveals Long Term Impact of Domestic Violence to Employment
Monday 26 May 2014 @ 10.48 a.m. | Crime | Legal Research
A new Australian study released jointly by Curtin University and University of South Australia has illustrated the long term impact of domestic violence on women especially in the area of employment.
Results of the Study
The study has found that of 175 female domestic violence victims, including a sample of Western Australian women, at least half had left their jobs.
Furthermore, about 30 per cent had also moved out of their home towns or Interstate after being abused. And while a majority of women had jointly owned a home before the attacks, they had since moved into rental housing with increased costs.
Lead researcher and University of South Australia expert, Dr Sarah Wendt, said the new research provided much needed information on the lasting impacts of domestic violence:
“The effects of violence and abuse don’t just end when people escape the relationship and now we are hearing about how this impacts on women’s lives later, particularly on their health and wellbeing, working and personal lives...While the cohort of women who have responded to our survey is small in proportion, the voices we have heard already present a powerful insight into the long-term consequences that follow domestic violence in the years and decades afterwards.”
Follow Up to the Study
Due to the long term impacts of domestic violence on the women and children involved, there has been calls to amend Anti-Discrimination legislation to include domestic violence as a category of discrimination.
Unlike Australia, countries such as the USA, the UK and Spain have taken, and continue to take, steps to implement laws that provide a basic right to victims of domestic violence: the right not to be treated unfairly on the basis of their status as a victim of domestic violence. Discrimination against victims of domestic violence can occur in the provision of goods and services (such as child care), in access to accommodation and in the court system. However, a particularly insidious form of discrimination occurs at the workplace.
The unfair treatment isn't always just a straight-forward dismissal either which would fit within current legislative parameters: it quite often manifests as oppressive behaviour aimed at forcing the woman out of the workplace, such as by demotions, performance management, harassment and relocations to out-of-the-way offices.
Some employers and trade unions have taken steps to negotiate workplace entitlements for victims of domestic violence, such as paid leave to attend doctors, police and court appointments, the introduction of workplace policies and training and access to counselling, however it will be necessary to develop these protections further to enable women to mitigate the long term impacts of domestic violence revealed by the study.
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