Regional Victorian women are being killed at triple the rate of Melbourne

For a long time, Grace struggled to get out of bed.

"It takes a lot to get up in the morning when you've been really done over the night before," she said.

"Every part of your body aches, every little movement."

But with five children on an isolated regional property, leaving never felt like an option.

Through a "dreamlike" stroke of luck, Grace managed to escape the violence, but regional Victoria is littered with similar stories.

Women have told ACM about being headbutted and bashed, being gaslit and manipulated, struggling to access sparse services or be believed by police, and not knowing how to escape in a small community where anonymity is impossible.

It adds up to a "perfect storm" for family and gendered violence, where serious assaults occur at double or triple the rate of Melbourne.

Shepparton, Swan Hill, East Gippsland, Benalla and Horsham make up the top five local government areas (LGAs) for serious family violence assaults in Victoria, and regional LGAs occupy the top 26 spots on the list.

Greater Shepparton, the worst LGA, with a rate of 379.3 incidents per 100,000 people, is nearly three times the rate of Wyndham, the worst Melbourne LGA.

General crime rates in the regions are similar to the metro Melbourne rates, but when you filter down to "family incidents" many regional areas turn a deep red on the map.

Family incidents include family violence incidents as well as domestic sexual offences and child abuse.

East Gippsland, and Mitchell Shire south of Bendigo were the worst areas, with a rate of about 3600 incidents per 100,000 people. Frankston on Melbourne's south-east fringe was the worst metro area with a rate of just over 2000, barely half that of the regional hot spots.

The top 17 LGAs - and 28 of the top 30 - with the highest rates of family incidents were all in regional Victoria.

Four of the six women killed in Victoria so far in 2024 died in the regions, three of them in Ballarat alone, while in Bendigo police responded to 4500 family violence incidents in the past 12 months.

But despite spending more than every other state combined on family violence prevention, the Victorian government hasn't done anything to target the regions.

As well as being a victim-survivor, Grace is a social worker with nearly three decades experience working in family violence.

She asked for her name to be changed for this story because her ex-husband still threatens her.

She said more funding for services outside Melbourne was an absolute must, but real change had to come from the grass roots, inside the football clubs and volunteer organisations that hold together the social fabric in regional areas.

Ballarat is Victoria's third biggest city, but it can still feel like a small town when tragedy strikes.

The community came together in grief and anger in April 2024 after Hannah McGuire became the third woman allegedly murdered in a matter of months.

Libby Jewson runs Ballarat's specialist family violence service, WRISC. She said hard questions had to be asked about the "scourge" of violence in the regions.

"Seeking help generally is much more difficult in rural and regional areas. There are fewer services and fewer police," Ms Jewson said.

"Then in terms of gender equality, the gap is greater and that's generally because of attitudes and understanding of role of men and women and the role that the man within family, employment and social structures.

"So it just seems the whole thing in rural and regional areas is just magnified."

Tania Farha is CEO of Safe and Equal, which represents dozens of family violence services across the state. She said regional services were overrun with demand.

"If you look at our services demand has increased exponentially across the state," Ms Farha said.

She said the prevalence in country areas was shocking, but the lack of services, social insularity and isolation of the regions was a recipe for disaster.

"I think the management of the violence is much more complex in a smaller place," Ms Farha said.

"It's sort of like this perfect storm."

Grace said the isolation of living with a violent husband on a rural property was paralysing.

"Living out there the other thing is is no services anywhere close of course, and the nearest police were an hour away, so when we did call for help by the time they turned up he'd usually calmed down," she said.

"I remember one time he went for my son and I jumped and grabbed at his shirt to pull him off and ripped his shirt.

"Afterwards he cleaned up the stuff he's smashed but he kept his ripped shirt on to show them how 'violent' I'd been."

Grace said the police would arrive and ask her if she wanted to come back to the station to make a statement, but that would mean leaving her five children with her husband for hours.

"There were times the police talked about taking out a family violence safety notice. He told us an intervention order wouldn't make any difference," she said.

"We were absolutely isolated. No one would have heard us screaming for help if he'd come back.

"It was easier letting him stay and knowing where he was than getting the police to make him go somewhere else and then spending all night long awake waiting for the noise of him coming through the window."

But even for those women who make the decision to leave, getting out is still an ordeal.

Ms Farha said the housing crisis was a huge problem for family violence services in the regions.

"There's a housing crisis everywhere, but it's so much more pronounced in rural and regional areas," she said.

"So you know there's not enough refuges generally but if even when there is no refuge we tend to use motels you know to get women out."

But Ms Jewson said even motels often weren't an option.

"In Ballarat the housing situation is just so desperate," Ms Jewson said.

"We have a housing checklist and none of our hotels or motels fit the criteria for safe housing for women fleeing family violence.

"There's not one in Ballarat [a city of 120,000 people]."

But Chelsea Tobin - CEO of 24/7 family violence response service Safe Steps - said the lack of supported accommodation was the real problem.

"If you're lucky you'll go into supported accommodation, but 80 per cent will go to a hotel or motel," she said.

"On any given night we have 100-200 people in hotels across the state."

Ms Tobin said hotels and motels were an option of last resort, but they weren't a solution. A depressingly large proportion of women who came through a hotel or motel quickly ended up calling Safe Steps again for help.

"In the supported accommodation we can build up therapeutic supports around the client, which is impossible in a hotel or motel," she said.

"That's why 96 per cent of exits from supported accommodation are safe, compared with less than 50 per cent from a hotel."

Grace had despaired of escaping the cycle of violence when a stunning turn of events set her free.

"He had injured me quite badly and I ended up in hospital and had to have a big operation," she said.

She took the chance to confide in the doctor, who was also the family GP. When her husband came in she was horrified to see the doctor take him aside to speak to him.

"I thought 'we're for it now', but my husband was mortified, he took off. He went home, packed and left that night," she said.

"I think he was so worried because it was such a small community. I think he was really worried that he just couldn't face it. He couldn't face the community.

"It was like a dream, I couldn't believe it."

Grace had never had the confidence to out her husband because of his local reputation.

"He was a great bloke in the community, so I really didn't think with people believed or if it wasn't even worth trying to have a conversation," she said.

"I didn't know who I could trust there that wouldn't talk to him."

She said her experience showed regional tight-knit communities could be a powerful force to eliminate violence, rather than perpetuate it.

"But it needs to be visible. It needs to be in the local newsletters and in the footy and netball clubs and the CFA, in all those volunteer organisations," she said.

Ms Jewson said proper funding for regional services would also make a huge difference.

"We know that its more complex and expensive to manage family violence cases in regional Victoria, but we get the same unit funding as the metro services," she said.

"That would be a really important thing to consider.

"We really need to address demand and our capacity to respond, because you know demand is just so strong out here."