Domestic abuse, with pets as a weapon
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
A warning, this podcast has graphic descriptions of coercion through animal abuse.
What shocking examples show pets being used as a tool for coercive control?
What this guy was doing when his children and wife wouldn't do what he wanted was tipping chemicals into the goldfish tank so the kids would sit there and watch their goldfish die. Again, sadistic, kind of psychotic sort of stuff. And then he'd get new goldfish. And so there would always be this constant threat in the home that if they didn't do what he wanted, he would kill the goldfish.
It's a known tactic for abusers, and it could become a specific crime if the ACT Party policy becomes law.
A new crime of coercion by animal abuse added to the Crimes Act, if you abuse an animal to control or coerce a person, or even threaten to do so, you can go away for seven years for that specific crime.
I'm Alexia Russell and today on The Detail we're talking about domestic abuse where pets are in the firing line and the new ways technology is helping abusers to track the animals and with them their ex-partners. The goldfish tale is just one of a horrific line of stories Julie Chapman could tell you. She's the founder of the Pet Refuge Charitable Trust. I met her in her office in Auckland. I can't tell you where the refuge is. No one can. Not even ACT Party leader David Seymour, who had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before going there to announce his new policy. A policy the refuge has been asking for.
They're looking at harsher penalties for people that use pets as a means of coercive control within the Family Violence Act. And they're also looking at, and this is something I've really wanted for a long time and been advocating for, is reporting of pets being present in a household when frontline police are attending family violence incidents. Having the data to back that up. We know it's a big issue, but we don't know how big. And so for us to be able to design our services in the future, we'd really love to have some data on how prevalent this really is. And then we can do more. The other thing they're going to do is include pets and protection orders.
Somebody doesn't have to be afraid that if they complain or seek a protection order, their pet will be left outside it. This can often make people refuse or hesitate to apply for a protection order if they think it will protect the humans in their family at the expense of their pet.
At the moment, you can ask for your pet to be protected, but they're going to be automatically protected. How would that work? So if a person is going for a protection order and they have a pet, they're going to make it so the person who is seeking the protection order has automatic right to the pet. And they've done that in Australia as well, and I think that works quite well. They're also going to bring in legislation that prevents abusers from selling pets giving away, putting to sleep or otherwise getting rid of a pet because that is often a threat as well.
You might be surprised how frequently people threaten to get rid of the pet or give it away in order to control someone in an abusive relationship.
I don't have a fixed opinion on jail sentences or things like that in regards to this. But what I do have a really strong opinion on is bringing the issue of pet abuse as part of family violence more into the light and government actually putting in protections or strengthening protections for family pets more. because we know that we have the highest reporting rates of family violence in the OECD, and 63% of Kiwi households have a family pet. So I think just what we're seeing at Pet Refuge is really the tip of the iceberg of what's going on behind closed doors with abuse and pets being involved. We've advocated across multiple parties for these kinds of things, just to bring the issue more into...
the public view, but also government view. But I think they also have obviously formulated their own policy as well. And I think hopefully they'll continue to broaden out what they're doing in this particular policy in the terms of wider animal welfare as well.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:11
2
What shocking examples show pets being used as a tool for coercive control?
0:11–5:26
3
What is the ACT Party proposing to criminalise regarding animal-related coercive control?
5:26–9:26
4
How does Pet Refuge describe the scale and service response to pet-targeted family violence?
9:26–16:04
5
How would automatic pet protection orders and other ACT policy measures work in practice?
16:04–23:18