The devastating reality of intimate partner violence

A new national report reveals intimate partner violence has dramatically increased in the past year, as mass marches across the country call on the federal government to do more.

Intimate partner homicide (IPH) is the most common form of domestic and family homicide with the majority involving a female victim.

The Homicide in Australia 2022-23, released on Monday night, found that 16 per cent of homicide incidents were intimate partner homicides and 89 per cent of these were inflicted against a female victim aged 18 years or over.

The report found that female IPH increased by 28%, from 0.25 homicides per 100,000 in 2021-22, to 0.32 per 100,000 in 2022-23.

Australian Institute of Criminology research manager Samantha Bricknell said that intimate partner violence levels, while concerning, were at similar levels pre Covid.

Intimate violence numbers so far in 2024 are an increase from the same time period in 2023.

"We will need a few more years of data to see whether this is a continued increase or we are going back to levels pre Covid-19, which continued a decrease in intimate partner homicide that started in the early 1990s," Ms Bricknell said.

This latest report provided an "important baseline" to measure progress towards achieving national targets outlined in the national plan to end violence against women and children by 2032 by the state and federal governments, she said.

The plan aims to "reduce female IPH by 25 per cent per year over five years".

Thirty-two women have been murdered in Australia so far this year.

Over the weekend West Australian police charged Luke Hanif Sekkouah with murdering his partner Erica Hay at their suburban Perth home on Thursday, assaulting her before setting the property alight.

Two weeks ago, Jade Young, 47, Ashlee Good, 38, Dawn Singleton, 25, Pikria Darchia, 55, and Yixuan Cheng, 27, were all killed at a Bondi Junction shopping centre in Sydney when Queensland man Joel Cauchi went on a stabbing rampage.

Police said it was obvious from footage that Cauchi targeted women in the horrific shopping centre attack.

The deaths come as the regional town of Ballarat was rocked by the alleged murders of Samantha Murphy, Rebecca Young and Hannah McGuire at the hands of men within two months.

Seventeen rallies were held across Australia on the weekend including an estimated 15,000 people demonstrating in Melbourne, about 10,000 in Sydney and thousands more in Canberra and Brisbane.

Rally organisers are calling for the government to declare violence against women a national emergency.

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