By Christine de Kock
WOMEN who decide to leave situations of domestic violence are offered long-term assistance through Western Women’s Domestic Violence Support Network in Sunshine.
There are a number of ways the network’s volunteers support women, such as attending Family Court proceedings with survivors of domestic violence – proceedings that can sometimes drag on for several years.
No other service in Melbourne offers these women, who have often been stripped of their self-confidence and are grappling to reclaim their lives, with such intensive ongoing support.
Josephine (not her real name) met a support worker by chance at the Family Court three years ago.
“I went to get a restraining order on my own and that’s when I met one of the workers,” she said.
“It was amazing, it was like this angel just standing right next to me listening to everything that I said and it was like she understood everything I said.”
Josephine often feels solicitors or judges who hear her story don’t necessarily understand what she is experiencing but the network volunteers are often survivors of domestic violence and are able to connect with the women they assist.
“They have come with me to child support agencies, they have helped me (draft) letters, they have come to the solicitors, they have come to court with me,” she said.
Josephine lived with an emotionally and psychologically abusive husband for 12 years.
He isolated Josephine by forcing her to walk if she wanted to leave the house, even if she wanted to visit her parents who lived some distance away, he also ridiculed Josephine.
Josephine was three months pregnant when he taunted her about her weight, calling her fat and forcing her to walk-off the weight, he pushed her to exercise to the point where she almost lost the baby.
“The way the doctor described it, it was coming away from the walls of the uterus, he told me I had to stay in bed for three days.”
Josephine left her husband after eight years of abuse, just before she had a second child.
She now fears for the emotional security of her children, who he demands to visit with court approval.
“My daughter is always crying when she comes back from a visit … he refuses to call my son by his given name,” she said.
Josephine faces her husband every time she hands over the children, when he verbally and sometimes physically lashes out at her.
Before meeting the network’s support workers Josephine was living on the edge.
“I couldn’t even sleep before I joined the group,” Josephine said referring to the support group GIFTS that she joined as a result of help from the domestic violence network.
GIFTS is made up of about 12 domestic violence survivors who offer support to each other and is facilitated by network volunteers.
“I just spent the whole first year crying, if you can imagine somebody healing from within, that was me.
“I didn’t like me as a person, the way I looked, the ways I was – he was making me feel that way. They (the network) have changed my whole life.”
For further information on Western Women’s Domestic Violence Support Network contact 9312 0960
