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	Women abused by partners suffer lifelong health problems – study by Stephanie Ferrier, Melissa Davey ABC News, Guardian Australia, agencies   Apr. 2018   Domestic violence victims suffer shocking rate of brain injury, report finds, by Stephanie Ferrier. (ABC News)   Anj Barker was just 16 when her abusive boyfriend changed her life forever.   "He tried to strangle me and repeatedly bashed my head into a steel bench and made it like jelly … and I ended up with a severe brain injury," she said.   He also stomped on her face, snapping her jaw and leaving her perilously close to death.   "He kicked her in her ear and she bled out of it for three days, with brain fluid leaking out of it as well," Anj''s mother, Helen Barker, said. "We thought she would die and we''re just very lucky that she lived."   Ms Barker was in a coma for three weeks and remained unresponsive for nine months.   "Because all my vocal chords were severed because of the strangling, it took me five years to speak and eight years to walk with a walking frame," Anj, now 32, said.   "They said she''d be a vegetable for life," her mother added. "I''m very proud of the way she gets through everything and has managed to keep going … I don''t think I could have ever done that."   Ms Barker''s speech and mobility have been permanently impaired but her sense of justice remains razor-sharp.   "I hope the world will change and men and women stop abusing the people they say they love. What gives anyone the right?" she said.   While Ms Barker''s case is at the extreme end of brain injuries inflicted by abusive partners, a report by Brain Injury Australia has revealed the extent of damage wrought by family violence.   Researchers from Victoria''s Monash University examined data from hospital admissions between July 2006 and June 2017, and found that 40 per cent of 16,000 family violence victims had sustained a brain injury.   While the victims were most often women, the report found nearly one in three of the victims were children — and one in four of them had sustained a brain injury.   "They''re shocking figures and yet the vast majority of women who experience family violence don''t get medical attention," said Nick Rushworth, chief executive of Brain Injury Australia.   "So it''s bound to be the tip of a very large iceberg. "While around 1,800 victims of family violence go to Victorian hospitals each year, there are 26,000 cases referred to specialist family violence services and 37,000 intervention orders sought in the courts."   Brain Injury Australia has called for the creation of an integrated brain injury and family violence service to support diagnosis, rehabilitation and harm reduction, to bridge what it calls "significant gaps" in service responses and support.   "Australian state and federal governments need to develop a comprehensive system of services for women and children living with the consequences of brain injury from family violence … and that includes everything from screening through to therapeutic supports nationwide," Mr Rushworth said.   Mr Rushworth argues such a move would save money in the long run because the estimated cost of family violence-related brain injury in Victoria was $5.3 billion in 2015-2016 alone.   The report also drew on information from practitioners in the community and family violence sector, and the experiences of women and children who had suffered a brain injury.   "They''ll talk about snapping, they''ll talk about being incredibly tired and having memory problems — but they can attribute that to so many other things: being stressed … potentially mental health problems that may be happening, so brain injury is not on their radar," Monash University researcher Darshini Ayton said.   Many victims were also unaware of the cumulative impact of mild traumatic brain injuries "and the fact that multiple blows to the head over a long period of time can really lead to significant disability and brain injury", Dr Ayton said.   "In the family violence sector, [support workers] are thinking about the safety of the woman and the child, and what you need to address for that family unit, so brain injury isn''t necessarily on their radar either," Dr Ayton said.   "The fact is that waiting lists to get assessed can sometimes take 18 months, so when you consider that along with the complexity and the chaos that might be happening in these situations, that''s just not realistic in terms of being able to get accurate assessments and diagnoses."   She said the report also found that perpetrators were twice as likely to have sustained a brain injury themselves in the past — in some cases, inflicted during childhood — creating "a vicious cycle of inter-generational violence".   The study is the first of its type in Australia focusing on brain injury caused by family violence.   "A lot of the literature on concussion is done in sport and in military and people who are playing rugby and football and getting concussion and that''s where the research has focused on the long-term impacts," Dr Ayton said.   "The practitioners all talked about the need for different agencies and the community and the sectors to come together to work to address this problem, it''s not something that they can do in silos."   Anj Barker said the report was a wake-up call for care-givers and victims alike. She has given talks to more than 38,000 schoolchildren, women and community groups in the hope that telling her story will save other victims from a similar fate.   "It escalates and escalates until you end up disabled," she said. "It makes me happy that I''m able to give people the courage and the awareness to realise that they are in exactly the same situation and get out of it safely."   http://theconversation.com/traumatic-brain-injury-the-unseen-impact-of-domestic-violence-92730 http://www.braininjuryaustralia.org.au/education-campaigns/brain-injury-family-violence/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/08/paid-leave-new-zealand-victims-domestic-violence-praised-globally/   June 2017   Women who are abused by their partner suffer significant physical and mental health problems that persist throughout their lifetime, the first long-term Australian study to investigate the health impacts of intimate partner violence has found.   The research, led by the University of Newcastle’s research centre for generational health and ageing, followed 16,761 participants from the Women’s Health Australia study for 16 years from 1996.   Three cohorts of women, born from 1921-26, 1946-51 and 1973-78, were asked during surveys taken throughout their lives whether they had ever been in a violent relationship, and about their physical and mental health. The study only considered violence from a partner or spouse, and not general family violence, for example perpetrated by other family members.   At the start of the study, 8% of women born 1973-78, and 12% of women born 1946-51, had experienced intimate partner violence. Sixteen years later, 26% of women born 1973-78 had experienced intimate partner violence compared with 16% of women born 1946-51.   Of the 3,568 women born 1921-26, 184 (5%) reported having experienced intimate partner violence in the first survey. This group were only asked about their experience of intimate partner violence during the first survey, given most of those women would be unlikely to have entered into a new relationship, but continued to answer questions about their health in subsequent surveys.   Despite the narrow definition of family violence used by researchers, “The results are striking,” they write in their findings, published in the journal, PLoS ONE, on Tuesday.   Across health measures including physical functioning, social functioning, general health, bodily pain, vitality, and emotional and mental health, women who had experienced intimate partner violence “recorded significantly poorer health than women who never experienced intimate partner violence, across generations and along the life course”.   “Results for physical health are strongly suggestive of a lifetime deficit in physical health that is associated with intimate partner violence,” the paper says.   While health is expected to worsen as people age, the physical functioning and general health of women who experienced intimate partner violence was consistently worse than those who had not experienced it.   While previous research identified similar health problems in family violence survivors, this study showed that the issues persisted for years.   Prof Deborah Loxton led the research and has comprehensively studied the health and wellbeing of women who have lived with violent partners. She said intimate partner violence was associated with a higher prevalence of chronic pain and headaches, cervical cancer, chronic disease and problems with physical function, which affected quality of life.   “I think what was really interesting about our findings was that women in their 20s with poor mental health were more prone to experience domestic violence at a later date,” she said.   “Women with the best mental health at the first survey didn’t enter into a violent relationship as commonly as other women. So we concluded from this research that poor mental health was a risk factor for entering a violent relationship.”   Moo Baulch, the chief executive of Domestic Violence New South Wales, said the findings highlighted the importance of ensuring young women had good mental health and access to health services.   “Studies like this show the better we are at early intervention and education, the better we can be at prevention,” Baulch said.   “I think we are just starting to have a conversation about how significant the impacts of violence are and what sort of investment we need to make to have a positive impact and change this.”   Loxton said much of the focus for interventions and support for family violence was around the immediate crisis period, with many people believing that “if she leaves, then she’ll be all right”.   “Unfortunately, the reality for one in four Australian women is that the physical and mental health impacts of domestic violence could last a lifetime,” she said.   “We need policies and interventions in place to provide support for the women who are still feeling the impact 10 or 20 years later. 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	Domestic violence pushes Central American women to flee for their lives by Thomson Reuters Foundation   24 May 2017   Rampant domestic violence is forcing women to flee their homes in Central America, the U.N. refugee agency said, as it urged governments to work together to address the reasons for migration in the region.   Every year hundreds and thousands of people, including women and children travelling alone, leave the ''Northern Triangle'' nations of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to escape gang violence and poverty.   Most head north to the United States to seek refuge and a better life.   "There is a hidden refugee crisis within these movements of people from Central America," said Volker Turk, assistant high commissioner for protection at the U.N. refugee agency (UNCHR), following a recent visit to the Northern Triangle nations.   He said an important - and often overlooked - factor is domestic violence, with women running for their lives to escape violent relationships in a region known for its high levels of gender-related violence and killings.   "I met people from all three countries where domestic violence was a huge, huge issue," Turk told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.   "I met a woman whose face was disfigured and she had gone through years of beatings and domestic abuse. Then her husband also got involved in criminal activities, and at the end of the day she saved her children by fleeing," he said.   Under the U.N. 1951 refugee convention persecution and crimes against women because of their gender, such as rape, are criteria for which women and their children can claim asylum.   Yet it is only in the last decade that some countries in the Americas have introduced gender-based crimes and persecution in their national laws as grounds for asylum claims.   "I''ve met people who really had absolutely horrific circumstances, which included suppression, exploitation and domestic violence, and if the state is not able to respond to that need to protect women and or her children, indeed they are eligible for refugee protection," Turk said.   No figures exist to show how many women from the Northern Triangle countries are claiming asylum or have been granted refugee status because of domestic violence, Turk said.   But he estimated hundreds of women and their children have been granted asylum in Mexico, Costa Rica and the United States, among other countries in the Americas, on such grounds.   UNHCR said growing numbers of people from Central America are seeking refuge from gang and domestic violence in Mexico, and in other Latin American countries.   Gangs use extortion, sexual violence against women and girls, killings and forced recruitment of children to control entire city neighbourhoods, Turk said.   "I saw the anxiety and fear in their eyes. The people I met, they flee for their lives for good reasons," he said.   Last year, Mexico received almost 9,000 new asylum applications, up 156 percent from 2015, according to the UNHCR.   Since January 2015, the number of asylum applications in Mexico has increased by more than eight percent per month. Based on this trend, UNHCR expects at least 20,000 more asylum claims to be filed in Mexico during this year.   The flow of migrants and refugees from Central America will continue unless the underlying causes are tackled, Turk said.   "Sometimes its abject poverty, sometimes its control by non-state entities.. it''s gangs or organised crime groups and it''s also domestic violence," he said.   "There is almost an exclusive focus on security, security security.. for us what is key is a matching of the security and law enforcement side with a human development side and a protection of people side."   * Reporting by Anastasia Moloney: http://tmsnrt.rs/2rUnedd   http://news.trust.org/womens-rights/
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