Children as the forgotten victims of domestic and family violence: Time for reform in Western Australian Refuges

Domestic and family violence is a crime where the overwhelming majority of victims are women and children and perpetrators are men. While sociopolitical movements in Australia have focused on women, there is a critical need to focus on child victims. The second wave feminist movement strived for the acknowledgement of women as individuals, as opposed to being someone's wife or mother. Children were typically viewed as silent witnesses to violence, unable to comprehend it and therefore, not experience it. This contextualises why historically, Refuges may not have focused on supporting children as much as women. While legislatively children's rights are not protected as such in Australia, non-legal frameworks such as those that promote policy-level reforms can help protect children's rights in Refuges. The Women's Council for Domestic and Family Violence Services (WA) (WCDFVS) developed the Good Practice Guidelines for Working with Children and Young People in Refuges (the Guidelines) to help ensure that children's needs are met while residing in Refuges. The aim of this article is to explain how the Guidelines can support children at individual, relational and collective levels, and create cultural change whereby children are seen as clients in their own right whilst living in Western Australian Refuges.