Sydney's domestic violence shelter offers insight into national crisis

Lou’s Place in Sydney, Australia is the city's only daytime shelter where women can escape and seek support from domestic abuse.

Transcript

00:00 [Indistinct chatter]

00:17 Women come here every day and this is just the general area that they can just come and hang out

00:23 and just take a moment to kind of decompress and work out what their next step is.

00:29 Most people by the time we get to work with them, haven't got anybody to turn to

00:35 because the perpetrator has managed to break down all of their relationships, their families, their friends.

00:44 So they're left with nobody but him.

00:48 Women can come here and do their washing and drying here every day.

00:53 We really support them in their dignity, being able to maintain their personal hygiene

00:59 and have their basic needs met.

01:02 We also provide breakfast and a cook lunch here every day.

01:07 [Indistinct chatter]

01:13 So this is one of the activities that we run in Connecting Through Change.

01:17 We give the participants a scenario that they've got a call from their best friend

01:23 who's asking for their advice and she wants to go back to her ex-partner who's been abusive in the past

01:29 and she feels that she doesn't deserve any better and she feels that she's never going to get anybody better than him.

01:35 People are dying and living in fear all the time, day in and day out.

01:45 Women and children are living in fear and that's not a good enough response.

01:50 We need to stop it.

01:53 [Indistinct chatter]

02:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]