By Ann Matheson
Women living in a rural community run a far greater risk of being killed by a spouse than women in a city, according to the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in New South Wales. A 1986 bureau study reported that while the murder rate in cities was the same as in the country, a significantly higher number of victims in rural areas were female spouses.
Being a victim of domestic violence in a rural area meant women were trapped in violent and dangerous situations. Frequently there was nowhere to run, no way of getting out of town and no-one they could call for help.
Women on farms and in isolated housing were at even more risk because there was no-one to hear their screams.
If the women came from a non-English speaking background, even more obstacles were in place. They were away from social networks which would have protected them back home, like male relatives or elders. They were isolated socially and by language, and were affected by cultural taboos about leaving, or charging, a husband, while the abuser could feel confidence that nobody knew about his assaults.
But all rural women face many major difficulties in trying to escape. These include:
- Lack of public transport. Buses and trains run infrequently and there is rarely an air service.
- Lack of a town refuge. Even if there is one, everyone knows its location, including the men they are trying to escape.
- Lack of trust in police. The attending officer may be the abuser's mate, or their children play sport together. They may meet socially, and in some cases the victims know which officers abuse their own spouses.
- Local gossip networks. These often keep the spouse informed of where the woman is and what she is doing.
- Community attitudes that are oppressive, often unsympathetic, and conservative in matters of women's need to feel safe. Sometimes the violent men are the town's "good blokes", holding prominent positions professionally, socially or both, and no-one would believe they were capable of violence.
- Victimisation if they separate and stay in the town where the spouse's family and friends become openly hostile in the streets and public places.
In A Rural Perspective on Domestic Violence, social worker and researcher Lyla Coorey concluded in part that unless country women have the means to get away from their town to a safe location unknown to their partner, and the means to financial support for their children and themselves, they are likely to have to stay and endure ongoing harassment and abuse.
For many women, fear of their partners if they leave, the lack of police protection, a lack of affordable housing, no employment opportunities and the oppressive attitudes of relatives and others, are pressures to stay with their violent partner.
Coorey went on to say that the solution was not in the women leaving but in a multitude of efforts that address the power relations between women and men in all aspects of society. She suggested that the criminal justice, health and welfare systems and other organisations could begin by taking an ideological and educational role in highlighting the oppressive social conditions impinging on women, particularly on those living in country areas, and by incorporating this knowledge in their practices.