VIOLENCE against women is costing Australia $13.6 billion per year and has been tipped to rise by an extra $2 billion in the next decade, with experts warning that the next generation could be worse off due to the impact of cyber bullying.
Social media had become the ''elephant in the room'' in relation to family violence, Victims of Crime Assistance League vice-president for NSW Howard Brown has said.
In Canberra, 4240 incidents of sexual violence and family violence were dealt with by ACT Policing in 2009-10 but those have been estimated as just ''the tip of the iceberg'' with the true figure potentially many times higher.
University of Canberra law lecturer Patricia Easteal said many victims did not seek help.
''Probably only one in five who experience violence end up calling police,'' she said.
''There are so many people who for a myriad of reasons are unable to call police.''
In the ACT, victims of 82 per cent of domestic violence incidents were women, the ACT Prevention of Violence Against Women and Children Strategy 2011-2017 has said.
It warned that both media and social media played an important part in shaping young people's attitudes.
''Children who see violence, whether through traditional media or through social media and cyber bullying, are more likely to view violence as an effective way of settling conflicts,'' the strategy document stated.
Mr Brown said the federal government should introduce legislation to prevent footage of school yard fights being shown on YouTube and stamp out Facebook bullying.
''Once these things go viral you are seeing kids watch this stuff on YouTube and laughing about circumstances they don't understand,'' he said.
''It's not a TV show - it's somebody having the living daylights bashed out of them.
''The legislation should force non-Australian organisations like YouTube and Facebook to prevent it being published, otherwise all of the prevention work you do in the schools or at home is all undone by social media.''
A spokesman for Google Australia, on behalf of YouTube, said that if a video was complained about it could be removed from the site.
He said that 48 hours of video were uploaded to the site every minute.
''If a video violates our community guidelines and is flagged by a user, we act quickly to remove it,'' he said.
''In the case of videos of kids fighting we have a specific flagging category called youth violence. Videos of kids fighting that get flagged should be removed.''
Facebook did not issue a statement but its website features information and advice about bullying.
The ACT strategy document said violence against women cost the economy $13.6 billion per year due to premature mortality, health costs, loss of productivity due to absences from work, damaged property, relocation, child protection, law enforcement and court system costs.
Research also suggested that ''intimate partner violence'' was responsible for more ill-health and premature death in Australian women aged under 45 than any of the other well known risk factors, including high blood pressure, obesity and smoking.
The commonwealth government expects the costs to rise dramatically. A parliamentary library background paper titled Domestic Violence in Australia - An Overview of the Issues, released in November, warned that without action violence against women would cost the Australian economy an estimated $15.6 billion by the year 2021-2022.
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