VAWnet News Blog

What Would You Do? campaign, which focuses on the role of bystanders in preventing domestic violence, had 88,000 visits by mid December.

The ubiquity and popularity of social media have made it easier for people to keep track of one another. This has presented professionals who work with victims of domestic violence with a host of opportunities and challenges.

When a woman is murdered in the United States, an intimate partner — a former or current dating partner or spouse — is often to blame. Black women like Dixon, Thornton, and Hammond are especially vulnerable. One government report found that African-American women were four times more likely than white women to be murdered by a boyfriend or girlfriend. Researchers say the phenomenon can be largely explained by the position black women occupy on the socioeconomic scale.

One in four U.S. women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, according to the Center for Disease Control, and 99 percent of those victims will also experience financial abuse, according to the Center for Financial Security.

The research coincides with new figures showing a steep increase in women seeking homelessness services because they are escaping violence. Almost 300 women a day sought support for homelessness last financial year – a 33 per cent increase in four years, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found.

Women who have experienced emotional abuse from a partner are 20 times more likely to experience intimate partner violence, a national study on violence against women, released today by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, has found.