Over the past decade in Australia, policy and practice efforts to address all forms of
gendered violence, including domestic and family violence (DFV), have accelerated
regarding the nature, prevalence, impacts and responses. DFV has wide-ranging health,
social and economic impacts for victim-survivors, which are exacerbated by structural
inequalities related to gender as well as experiences of intergenerational trauma, race and
ethnicity, class, sexuality, ability and citizenship status (RCFV, 2016). Research shows
that DFV disproportionately affects women and that the killing of women by a current or
former intimate partner is the most prevalent type of domestic homicide in Australia
(Commonwealth of Australia, 2022). Efforts among researchers, practitioners, advocates
and other stakeholders to understand and account for women’s deaths are critical to
understanding the costs of this violence and how to respond and prevent them (Walklate
et al., 2020).
This interdisciplinary workshop drew together practitioners, advocates, lived experience
experts, policy makers and researchers from a range of disciplines, including law,
criminology, social work, Indigenous studies, public health, sociology, epidemiology and
psychology to share insights on the nature, dynamics and extent of family violence-related
suicides.
Specifically, the workshop aimed to:
- critically examine what is known about risk and incidents of deaths by suicide in the
context of DFV in Australia and internationally - identify and explore the merits and limits of current investigative responses where a
death by suicide has occurred in the context of DFV in Australia and internationally - advance social science scholarship by bringing together social scientists, relevant
practitioners and policy stakeholders to meet and discuss the interdisciplinary
knowledge required to inform prevention of, investigation into and response to
deaths by suicide in the context of DFV.