Fourteen women over the age of 55 were allegedly killed in domestic violence-related homicides last year, according to a tally kept by the online feminist group Destroy the Joint. When the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases its data for the year, this number could well increase.
In 2023, according to ABS data, there were 28 women over the age of 55 allegedly killed in domestic violence related homicides, roughly a third of all such alleged homicides.
Experts have called it a “silent crisis”: older women who are killed by family violence but whose deaths rarely get as much attention as those of younger women, and whose experiences do not figure sufficiently in government responses to violence against women.
“There’s a matricide of older women [and] people aren’t even noticing, there’s no outcry. There’s silence,” says Catherine Barrett, director of Celebrate Ageing. “It’s just being missed.”
A Guardian analysis of government data has found that in the 10 years to 2023, nearly 200 women over the age of 55 were allegedly killed in family violence related homicides, suggesting older women could be at dual risk – from partners and from their children, especially their sons.
The rate of alleged domestic homicides in Australia has more than halved in the past 30 years, from 0.71 deaths per 100,000 in 1992-93, to 0.3 deaths per 100,000 in 2022-23.
However, the rate at which older women are allegedly killed in domestic homicides has not fallen consistently. In the past 10 years, the rate of women aged over 55 killed in family violence homicides has reached 0.7 deaths per 100,000 (the same rate for all women 30 years ago) three times – in 2017, 2018 and 2023.
The number of cases of alleged parricide – the killing of a parent – has also remained high over the past 25 years, even increasing from nine cases in 2013-14 to 16 cases in 2022-23. In contrast, the number of alleged intimate partner homicides recorded by the ABS fell by more than a third during that time, from 61 in 2013-14 to 38 in 2022-23.
Women appear more likely to be killed by their children than men are: 61 mothers in Australia were allegedly killed by their children in the 10 years to mid-2023, compared with 52 fathers, with sons the overwhelming majority of alleged offenders for both groups (95% for fathers, 75% for mothers), according to data from the Australian Institute of Criminology National Homicide Monitoring Program. Three fathers and 15 mothers were allegedly killed by their daughters.
The problem is a global one. In England and Wales, the number of women killed by sons has risen since 2016, after remaining stable for decades. There was also a rise in the number of grandmothers killed by their grandsons, according to the Femicide Census, co-founded by Clarrie O’Callaghan and Karen Ingala Smith.
“It is horrifying, but it did not surprise me at all, because violence against women knows no age barrier,” says Yumi Lee, the chief executive of the Older Women’s Network NSW.
Lee says that while every family violence homicide is a tragedy, some deaths are given more attention than others, with the media and general public often focusing on the deaths of younger, attractive white women, while the deaths of “women who are marginalised … don’t get highlighted”.
“The invisibility and the marginalisation of First Nations women [and] older women means that they remain invisible even when they’re killed.”
One of the main factors, Lee says, is that domestic violence is often considered primarily a problem for younger women so services are often geared towards them. That means older women may not see a family violence service as one that can help them.
“When we talk about violence against women, it’s always a younger woman fleeing with two little kids hanging around her knees. You rarely see any commentary about all the women who grow old with violence, who live with, maybe, sons who are violent. They are really invisible.”
Barrett offers the example of the Staying Home, Leaving Violence payment, a program introduced by the New South Wales government, which offers a lump sum to women leaving a violent relationship and tries to help them avoid homelessness by remaining in the family home.
“The definition around that [program] is if the perpetrator is your intimate partner. But for older women, what actually happens is the range of perpetrators broadens as they age. So, intimate partners for younger women, and then as women get older, it extends to adult sons and grandsons as well.”
Barrett says sometimes, after a violent relationship breaks down between a man and his partner, the man will move back in with his parents – particularly if he has mental health or addiction problems – and continue to perpetrate violence there. The problem has only increased, she says, in light of the cost-of-living crisis.
“The mothers are not reporting their sons … because this is their son, and it’s shame on the family, and they’re worried about his mental health.
“We’ve got this perfect storm, which is: a cost-of-living crisis, a mental health crisis, sons moving in with their mothers, and no one’s talking to mum, or she doesn’t see a service that could actually help.”
What’s needed, say both Lee and Barrett, is a life stages approach that addresses the different ways family violence can affect older women.
The government’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and Their Children does acknowledge that older women, along with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women with disability, migrant and refugee women and LGBTQA+ women are at an increased risk of violence. It recommends increasing access to safe and affordable long-term housing for older women.
But Lee says the government and groups working to stem family violence need to “be really explicit about delivering your service, developing policies that actually help older women”.
Barrett says policy and service delivery needs to change but she wants also to see some anger.
“I have not heard any politicians, any community leaders – anyone – stand up and say, ‘My God! What is happening?’” she says. “And the absence of outrage is part of the problem and I’m calling that out as ageist.”
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 988 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
