We can’t solve domestic violence until we acknowledge its pervasive reach

OPINION: Enough with the ‘Enough is Enough’, we cannot ignore how deeply domestic and family violence has infected our region, writes reporter Kate Stephenson.

Picture: File

I hate Wednesdays.

Not because the work week is dragging on or because Friday seems so far away, but for a much more disturbing reason entirely.

I follow the local courts in my role as a reporter, and Wednesdays at Toowoomba Courthouse are reserved for domestic and family violence cases.

Entire courtrooms are dedicated to domestic violence order applications and criminal proceedings yet they still can spill over into the regular courts.

People fill the waiting room, a place often left empty by lunchtime, where support workers and charities lend a hand or offer a hot drink to victim-survivors looking for justice, looking for safety.

I will always remember walking into court that first Wednesday, astounded by the mass of people, thinking it must just be a bad week. I was wrong.

To protect victim safety, much of what is heard inside the courtroom is closed to me as a reporter – but the message still rings clear: we are facing an epidemic in our own backyard.

Almost daily, I see people confess to breaking protection orders, many are also accused of criminal offending against their victims.

Dozens come through court accused of unimaginable violence – strangulation, assault, sexual violence, murder – but many more are quietly sinister, less overt in their abuse – stalking, harassment, unwarranted messaging.

It’s grim, it’s confronting, it’s alarming.

Two women in our community are suspected to have been killed by their partners less than a year apart from one another.

Our loved ones are dying, this is something we cannot ignore.

Let’s make Wednesday just another day.

Originally published as We can’t solve domestic violence until we acknowledge its pervasive reach