IT is time to make your own stand against family violence. We may well have the best of intentions to focus on this scourge of society with International White Ribbon Day, but the buck stops with you.

You may be a victim, a perpetrator, a silent neighbour or a loved one or colleague. You may not wish to get involved, understandably, because it is an emotional pressure cooker of alcohol, drugs, anger, violence or sustained abuse.

It may be emotional torment, financial control, stalking, intimidation and it may involve your friend, son or daughter, neighbour or stranger up the street.

He may be a pillar of the community. She may be a tough professional. But family violence is not a stereo-type flaw of the outer suburbs and Housing Tasmania enclaves. It ravages society at all levels.

More than half the children who witness family violence have been subject to abuse including sexual abuse. Women's shelters report that monthly calls from victims have grown from 50 to 90.

We are so fixed on the violence from Europe, with terrorism and the mass refugee flight, but right under our noses there is a culture of cowardly violence, mostly in the form of male partners abusing the lives of their female partners and children.

Paramedics and police will tell you that a fair proportion of their work involves family violence, whether it be preventative or reactive, with arrests, counselling and court.

Alcohol and drugs figure strongly in this tragedy, where there are no winners. The adult partners hurt and the children hurt for a lifetime.

Yes, it's time you made a stand. Don't let the abuser get more chances to rob the lives and freedom of other partners and children involved.

If you know of family violence, report it. If you don't you're a willing accomplice. You're part of a tragedy that you could have helped to avoid.