Local DV advocates speak out about domestic violence surge during State of Origin

While State of Origin can be a time of celebration, for many it is also a time full of fear as a study shows a spike in domestic violence around game time. Here’s what a Townsville advocate had to say.

Curtis Rayment and Jack Bryant from It's A Man's Issue

For rugby league fans across Queensland and New South Wales, a State of Origin decider is often one of the biggest events of the year but for other families it’s one that is clouded with fear of domestic violence.

Dr Jack Bryant from It’s a Man’s Issue, an organisation spreading awareness and education on consent, rape culture and toxic masculinity, said that a 2018 study by La Trobe University revealed that domestic violence rates surged during State of Origin game days.

“They essentially studied a five-year period where they looked at the data of domestic violence and overall violence rates in New South Wales between 6pm and 6am on the nights of State of Origin and obviously they saw some pretty drastic rise in those stats,” he said.

“There was a 40.7 per cent increase in domestic violence against women and children, and then over a 70% increase in rates of non domestic violence during those time periods.”

“The fact that the perpetrators were pretty much exclusively male as well which is pretty consistent with the literature you see around domestic violence and violence in general.”

Dr Bryant said that the work that he conducts, alongside It’s a Man’s Issue founder, Curtis Rayment, highlights the clear link between the increase in domestic violence and large sporting events.

“It’s essentially men not being able to control their emotions … it starts at home as well. I think as a bloke you’d at least know someone who gets angry or lashes out with sports or video games,” he said.

Dr Jack Bryant is a facilitator with Its A Man's Issue

“First recognising that we have a problem is the first step and then the second step would be recognising that even if you’re not perpetrating is behaviour as men, we have a responsibility to fix the issue that’s in our own backyard.”

“Statistically speaking we know that women have obviously been very active in this discussion and advocating for this issue but for a lot of men that falls on deaf ears and we’ve come to realise that as men we have this space in this discussion to be able to use our voice to talk to other men and I think that’s the most powerful thing we can do.”

Originally published as Local DV advocates speak out about domestic violence surge during State of Origin