Burns suffered by women in domestic violence attacks are often more severe, deeper and lead to worse health outcomes than those suffering accidental burns, according to new research.
The Burns Registry of Australia and New Zealand (Branz), Australia’s top burns datacentre, found that while almost 100 Australian women had been admitted to specialist units as a result of domestic violence between 2009 and 2022, it was likely a significant underestimation.
The figures include adult women admitted for surgery or overnight stays at eight of the country’s biggest burn units over the period. Among them were women who died from their injuries while in the unit, but not those who died before making it to hospital or those who did not seek treatment.
The data was collated by researchers as one of the first major studies of women who experience burn violence, as calls increase for research into the use of fire as a tool of violence .
The new research conducted using Branz data, which will be included in a study to be released later this year, found 6,262 Australian women were admitted into hospital burns units for stays longer than a day or had required surgery between 2009 and 2022.
Of those, 157 were believed to be the result of burn-related violence, and in 60% of those cases, the suspected perpetrator was a current or former partner or a family member.
Monash University’s Yvonne Singer, who collated the research, said that was likely an underestimation because of underreporting due to patients’ fear of further injury and lack of support.
“Comparing [domestic violence victims] to women who had accidents, while it was a small number … it’s an underestimation and they had more severe burns in terms of size and depth and they had worse outcomes in terms of death, surgeries and lengths of stay,” she said.
The Domestic Violence NSW chief executive, Delia Donovan, said agencies needed to be coordinating their efforts to ensure fire was being included in domestic violence responses.
“We need to ensure that the fire services are part of the family safety response and trained accordingly. We need to be working with the health system and the data they have on burns victims to ensure the right links are being made,” she said.
In NSW, four women and one man died in fire-related domestic violence deaths between 2019 and 2021, along with two children, according to the state’s Domestic Violence Death Review Team.
But researchers say the statistics do not show the full extent of the issue, which includes threats of burns, damage or destruction of property including homes and vehicles and injuries, much of which was never categorised as domestic violence.
A University of Melbourne law professor, Heather Douglas, published research in 2022 after reviewing cases involving dozens of people convicted of offences involving arson, causing burning-related injury or making a burning-related threat in the context of domestic and family violence.
The research indicated links between the use of fire or burning threats, and domestic and family violence generally, but Douglass said a lot more research was needed to understand the true extent of the issue.
“This is a neglected space,” she said.
The use of arson as domestic violence was “not surprising” given it could be an “incredibly powerful weapon”, as seen in the murders of Hannah Clarke and her children in 2020 and Doreen Langham in 2021.
“It is very harmful and it spreads very quickly, and it’s very easy to light a fire and cause damage and injury,” Douglas said.
“The injuries people receive as a result of fire, anyone who survives being set on fire or the house being set on fire with them in it, are often terribly bad. Being burned is an incredibly traumatic way to be injured.”
She said fires could often be easily explained away as accidents, meaning they could go under the radar more than other injuries.
The University of Queensland senior lecturer in law Dr Joseph Lelliott co-authored a 2022 paper after speaking with domestic violence workers across Queensland in the wake of Clarke’s murder, as well as the murder of Kelly Wilkinson on the Gold Coast.
The research found repeated examples of copycat behaviour from perpetrators.
• In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org
