Jess Hill explores domestic violence in Australia on new podcast The Trap

Acclaimed author Jess Hill has been tapped to host a new podcast exploring the prevalence of domestic abuse, coercive control and violence within Australian society.

Commissioned by the Victorian Women’s Trust and produced by documentary maker Georgina Savage, The Trap will examine domestic violence in Australia and how similar dynamics of control and abuse are perpetuated through governing bodies.

Across 10 episodes, Hill will explore the social, cultural, psychological and institutional elements to scrutinise all aspects of control, highlighting the severity of the issue within Australia today.

Through a number of interviews and first-person accounts from survivors, perpetrators, police officers, counsellors, specialists and academics, the podcast will reveal how abuse patterns start, how to seek help and how coercion persists within everyday life.

Hill, who wrote the 2020 Stella Prize-winning book See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse, said that The Trap was “the show I’ve dreamt of making”, noting that its extreme subject matter is necessary to demonstrate the severity of domestic abuse in Australia.

“The story of domestic abuse and coercive control in Australia is not a niche problem that happens to other people,” Hill explained.

“Every single one of us is affected by domestic abuse and violence in some way, whether it’s something we’ve witnessed or lived through, it’s affected people we love, or it’s hidden within our family histories.

“To truly change society, we need to understand how abuse, coercion and control play out in private and public life, and how we can play a part in changing this: both in our systems, and ourselves.”

Mary Crooks AO, the executive director of the Victorian Women’s Trust, said that The Trap was part of a push to acknowledge the underpinning issues that drive domestic violence in Australian homes.

“For too long we have tip-toed around the problem of abuse and violence in Australia,” Crooks said.

“There is bland talk of perpetrators without acknowledging that it is our society which conditions many men to act out misogynistic attitudes and behaviours.

“We need an honest narrative if we are serious about reducing and eliminating all forms of violence towards women and children.”

The first two episodes of The Trap arrived on Thursday August 5, with new episodes being released weekly across all major podcast platforms.

Content warning: violence. If this raises any issues for you, contact:

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