Tasmanian family violence and women's legal services have experienced a rapid increase in demand in the past month, but fear there is an even greater number of women unable to access help due to social isolation.
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Women's Legal Service Tasmania is usually able to set up an appointment within a day or two, however this has pushed out to beyond a week as they struggle to cope with the rising demand.
Chief executive officer Yvette Cehtel said the calls were about assistance following family violence incidents, employment issues and parenting orders.
"The types of things we're hearing again and again is of emotional abuse, social isolation, and coercion and control generally," she said.
"This coercion and control includes around women being encouraged to access their superannuation by their partners. The impact of this on women is greater, because generally our savings are lower.
"We are struggling to deal with the calls that are coming in on a daily basis. It is having a flow-on for the number of cases that we can do."
Ms Cehtel said the past two weeks had seen a rapid increase in calls, which they had anticipated at the start of the pandemic. The service has been meeting with Tasmanian federal politicians in an attempt to gain more resources, but has been unsuccessful at this stage.
Tasmania Police this month found there had not been an increase in family violence call outs during COVID-19, however Engendered Equality chief executive officer Alina Thomas pointed to an Australian National Research Organisation for Women's Safety survey that found more than 80 per cent of victims did not report the violence to police.
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Engendered Equality, which offers family violence services across Tasmania, recorded its busiest month on record in April, according to its reporting data. The service has had to scale back the amount of contact it can have with victims due to restriction requirements.
Ms Thomas said stresses within the home had clearly increased at this time, and women were more reluctant to seek support.
"We often expect victim-survivors to be more forgiving around family violence when there's other obvious stresses going on," she said.
"Adding to that, we have the idea of being locked down and socially distanced at this time. That provides a prime condition for family violence, isolating women from the opportunity to make money, the opportunity to escape violent situations, isolation from social contacts and supports."
The Family Court introduced a special COVID-19 list to handle urgent family law matters that have emerged as a direct result of the pandemic.