Sydney’s worst DV hotspot faces new crisis.
A woman tied up and raped by her husband in an ice-fuelled rage. Another whose arranged marriage ended with threats to send her back to Pakistan to be stoned to death. A third woman was terrorised by her drug-addicted son who repeatedly came to her home to steal.
These are among the thousands of women helped by Western Sydney Nepean Blue Mountains Domestic Violence Service - until last September known as the Mount Druitt Family Violence Service - which has lost more than half of its seven staff in the past two years. Staffed by two case workers and a trainee, its future is uncertain.
In 2023, NSW Treasury secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter lauded the service as the “gold standard” in his role as secretary of the Department of Communities and Justice, which runs the service.
Staffed by caseworkers from the DCJ, the service is now short-staffed because the DCJ itself is short-staffed and any extra workers are sent to its child protection unit.
The DCJ said the service remains funded for seven full-time employees and it continues to recruit.
Data obtained by this masthead shows Mount Druitt’s 2770 postcode recorded the most domestic violence episodes in the state, with 7119 reports to police over the decade to March 2024.
That figure is more than 1000 incidents ahead of the 2170 Liverpool postcode, an area home to almost twice as many people.
The highest rate of domestic violence reports per 10,000 women in the past 12 months was also in the Mount Druitt area (163 per 10,000 female residents); in Sydney’s CBD, 142 women per 10,000 made reports.
Last month, the Herald revealed that Mount Druitt also experienced Sydney’s most murders over the past decade.
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2GB RADIO SYDNEY-
'Brink of collapse’ - Vital domestic violence service facing closure..
A life-saving domestic violence service is on the brink of collapse.
They’ve warned that they are just one sick day away from shutting down.
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7 сен 2024
