When Ann O’Neill’s children were violently killed in front of her in 1994, many around her in the aftermath didn’t know how to respond.
“The death of a child presents us all with a moment where we go ‘I don’t know what to say or I don’t know what to do’,” she told the ABC.
“These types of losses are made even harder because we can’t understand and we don’t know how to have those conversations.”
Dr O’Neill’s two children were shot dead by her estranged husband, who also shot her — leading to her leg being amputated — before killing himself.
“People were all very well meaning, but there was very little literature to know what to do.”
On average, a family loses a child or children to filicide almost every fortnight in Australia.
New research into filicides in Australia has found that intimate partner violence and family violence are significant risk factors for such killings.
The research is the first of its kind in Australia, with researchers further examining these cases where intimate partner and/or family violence has been perpetrated before a parent murders their child.
Experts say findings a wake-up call
Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) commissioned the research working with the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network, looking specifically at filicides between 2010 and 2018.
Among the 113 filicides committed during that time, three-quarters were preceded by some kind of domestic, family or sexual violence.
In these 86 cases, 106 children were violently killed by a parent or parents with some perpetrators killing multiple children in a single incident.
Almost half were less than two-years-old.
ANROWS CEO Tessa Boyd-Caine said each of these numbers represented a family’s grief and loss.
“Children are not secondary victims in DFV contexts, what we see in this report is that they are at real risk,” she said.
“Where women are experiencing intimate partner violence in a family context, that is a risk for their children.
“Men were the vast majority of perpetrators of family violence in this context and also of killing their children or step-children.”
Of the perpetrators in these cases, 40 per cent were biological fathers, 30 per cent were biological mothers, 27 per cent were non-biological fathers and 2 per cent were non-biological mothers.
While rates of intimate partner homicide have been trending downwards since the 90s, with a recent uptick in the last year, rates of filicide have remained steady.
Dr Boyd-Caine said examining the stories behind this data has shown where professionals regularly in contact with children can intervene to try to stop these incidents before they happen.
“We see a number of opportunities to intervene in these family contexts and particularly ways to intervene and keep them safe.”
Dr Boyd-Caine said it was essential for healthcare workers and early childhood educators, who had frequent contact with families, knew how to respond.
“People do need to understand what family violence looks like in someone’s life and understand the different ways it can take shape,” she said.
“It’s a real wake-up call for health, childcare, schooling and other practitioners to be able to understand and recognise the impact of family violence in children’s lives and to know what to do about it.”
‘Out of something dark can come light’
For Dr O’Neill, the research is both deeply saddening but also a source of hope.
“It gives us some road maps, it gives us some intervention points, it gives us some places where we can explore a little further and broaden our understanding,” she said.
“For example, how do we support First Nations people to manage the complex dynamics of their experiences and their communities and the extra layers of intergenerational trauma.”
The report found Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were substantially over-represented victims of filicide and noted “the findings from this study should be considered with respect to ongoing harm of colonial disposition, structural violence and lack of culturally appropriate support services”.
Australia has higher rates of filicide than England, Wales, France and Sweden but Dr O’Neill hopes this report can help reduce the rates.
The federal government has established a “rapid review” of how to best prevent violence against women with its advice set to be delivered later this year.
The review signals a potential shift in direction for the government, with its panel including strong critics of current prevention strategies.
As part of this, ANROWS has been tasked with commissioning new research and reviewing available research on prevention.
The Albanese government has been criticised by the domestic, sexual and family violence response sector following the federal budget, with frontline services saying it left them with no choice but to begin winding back services.
But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth have defended the government’s record on the issue, pointing to $3.4 billion in funding to combat the problem since Labor came to government in 2022.
