Family violence is horrific and often paralysing for victim-survivors. For those who make the decision to leave, this is the most dangerous time of all. / (min cost $ 0 ) or signup to continue reading In regional areas, the choice can be even more difficult and dangerous, with police and specialist services further away, less housing and less anonymity making it that much harder to disappear.
For mother of five, Grace*, the obstacles were too great and she decided to stay. She lived on a rural property with dozens of animals her children were closely attached to. It would have been a huge challenge for her to leave with the children, but there was nowhere to take the animals.
"My husband had threatened the animals and he had killed one of our dogs, to show us all that he meant business," Grace said. "Leaving the animals really would have been sentencing some of them to a horrible death." Some family violence services simply weren't an option for her.
"I wouldn't have gone into an Orange Door because everyone in the community would know what I was going in there for," Grace said. "My boy was also 13 by then and there are rules about the age of boys who can come into refuges." Victoria spends more than the rest of Australia's states and territories put together, but there are still gaps in the system, especially in regional areas.
But Safe Steps CEO Chelsea Tobin told it was important for women to know there was always a number to call if they were experiencing family violence..
