'I was instantly homeless': Women who prepare 'go bags' to escape violence

He had been drinking, she said. It wasn't the first time she had woken up to find him standing there.

"He would make a ticking sound and say 'you have 7 days left'," she said.

These nights scared Laura but after 20 years together, three children and a large mortgage, she said it felt easier to stay and try to make the relationship work.

But Laura wasn't staying in the relationship for purely practical reasons. She was under the coercive control of her husband.

This meant that threats, humiliation and intimidation were used to punish, demean and frighten her.

After the escalating physical violence became too terrifying to endure, Laura fled. She moved herself and her children into her sister's home in April 2023.

She's still living out of a suitcase in her sister's spare room while waiting for a court to deliver a ruling on the couple's financial settlement and custody arrangement.

"Survivors of coercive control and domestic abuse talk about it like intimate terrorism," Women's Community Shelters CEO Annabelle Daniel said.

"It's like living in a hostage situation where you can't do anything for yourself, where you can't think for yourself, where you feel like you're going crazy. You're walking on eggshells and living in fear," she said.

Domestic violence experts are divided on the best way to counter coercive behaviour because of the complexity and variability of each case.

However, many agree that an increased understanding of coercive control warning signs and common manipulation tactics could prevent women from entering or staying in an abusive dynamic.

"Unless we have a broader conversation about what an equitable relationship looks like, I don't think we're ever going to get to the base of eradicating these behaviours," Ms Daniel said.

Breaking the cycle

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour that's strongly linked to domestic violence and homicide.

On average, one woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner, according to Australian Institute of Criminology data from 2020 to 2021.

"Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour which is designed to control, intimidate and threaten the victim into behaving in the way that the perpetrator would like them to behave," Ms Daniel said.

She said perpetrators "use these kinds of behaviors because it gets them what they want, particularly in the short term".

"People in abusive relationships might demand that their partner do all of the childcare, all of the housework and work outside the home as well.

"It's about gaining benefits."

Coercive control was criminalised in Queensland on March 6 and has a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

These laws come into effect in 2025.

Queensland is not the first state to criminalise coercive control. Similar laws in NSW will come into effect in July 2024 and the ACT government is considering its own laws.

In Victoria, coercive control could be classed a criminal offence in cases where a family violence intervention order is breached.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 19 per cent of people found guilty of domestic abuse received a prison sentence in 2022 to 2023.

A fine was the most common penalty, the data found.

CEO of family violence organisation inTouch, Rasha Abbas, said a social and cultural shift was required to tackle coercive behaviour.

"The best thing we could do, instead of relying on legal means, is to actually help the women identify those safety concerns early," she said.

Coercive control doesn't always end when a relationship does, Laura found.

After fleeing, she went to the police station and reported her experience.

"They automatically issued a full intervention order protecting myself and the children," she said.

"I was informed to freeze our joint home loans by my solicitor."

Her ex-husband filed a counter intervention order citing financial abuse shortly afterwards.

"This order was granted with the conditions he requested, I was not to go to or remain within 200 metres of our home," she said.

"I was instantly homeless."

Laura, the family's breadwinner, is paying the entire mortgage for a home she is legally barred from entering. All of her belongings, except the "go bag" she took when she fled, remain in the marital home.

"The system is so flawed, it's horrific," Laura said.

InTouch lawyer Ajsela Siskovic said she's seen many cases similar to Laura's in Victorian courts.

"We had a recent example last week where the husband withdrew from the family law proceedings, filed a notice of discontinuance," Ms Siskovic said.

"And then a couple of weeks later changed his mind and he's filing a review. This is now going to go a drag on in court," she said.

"In family law, we see delayed proceedings using children against our clients, delaying property settlements.

"If our client applies for an intervention order, the perpetrator will then apply for a cross application just to be on par.

"Those perpetrators are actually really good at finding how to manipulate the system and identifying all those weaknesses."

Many of these issues are tough to avoid due to Australia's adversarial legal system but women needed smartly-delivered resources that encouraged safe and healthy relationships, Ms Siskovic said.

Laura would like lawyers, who suggest system abuse tactics to their clients, to face consequences.

She would also like to see greater accountability for magistrates who allow system abuse tactics or grant bail to known family violence perpetrators.

*Laura's name has been changed to protect her identity.

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