Reports of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on the internet are rapidly increasing and the number of people accessing it is substantial. Many of these men have partners or families who are impacted by their CSAM use. These families experience negative mental health and social outcomes as a result. Despite this, there are limited services that provide support to this population. In this article, we examine the findings of an evaluation of PartnerSPEAK, a service in Victoria, Australia, that supports the non-offending partners and families of CSAM offenders. The evaluation included a survey of 53 clients as well as seven in-depth interviews. The findings showed that the peer support model utilized by PartnerSPEAK offered effective support for this underserved client group including the reduction of shame and isolation.

Many child sexual abuse material (CSAM) offenders have nonoffending partners and children who are impacted by their CSAM use. However, the specific dynamics of CSAM offending within a relationship or family context have been overlooked in forensic research, while scholarship on domestic violence and coercive control has not focused on CSAM offending as a possible correlate of domestic abuse. This paper presents the findings of the first study to examine the crossover between domestic violence, coercive control and CSAM offending in intimate relationships.

This article describes domestic violence as a key context of online misogyny, foregrounding the role of digital media in mediating, coordinating, and regulating it; and proposing an agenda for future research. Scholars and anti-violence advocates have documented the ways digital media exacerbate existing patterns of gendered violence and introduce new modes of abuse, a trend highlighted by this special issue. We propose the term “technology facilitated coercive control” (TFCC) to encompass the technological and relational aspects of patterns of abuse against intimate partners. Our definition of TFCC is grounded in the understanding of domestic violence (DV) as coercive, controlling, and profoundly contextualised in relationship dynamics, cultural norms, and structural inequality. We situate TFCC within the multiple affordances and modes of governance of digital media platforms for amplifying and ameliorating abuse. In addition to investigating TFCC, scholars are beginning to document the ways platforms can engender counter-misogynistic discourse, and are powerful actors for positive change via the regulation and governance of online abuse. Accordingly, we propose four key directions for a TFCC research agenda that recognises and asks new questions about the role of digital media platforms as both facilitators of abuse and potential partners in TFCC prevention and intervention.

Organized abuse, in which multiple adults sexually abuse multiple children, has an important role to play in the production of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) but has been relegated to the margins of criminological concern. This paper presents the findings of an international survey of 74 adults who described childhood victimization in CSAM and organized abuse, emphasizing the relationship between organized abuse and entrenched ignorance of it. The paper identifies the multiple zones, practices and structures of ignorance that render organized abuse unknowable and advocates for strategic forms of knowledge production in which ignorance features as a provocation towards information-seeking rather than as a defence mechanism against intolerable realities.

There is growing commitment to trauma-informed practice and increased recognition of risks associated with this work. However, the benefits of working with trauma-affected clients are under-studied. Drawing on interviews with sixty-three welfare, health and legal professionals in Australia, we consider the salutogenic dynamics of work with women with experiences of complex trauma. Participants articulated an ethics of care in which professionals ally with clients against abuse and violence as well as transactional neoliberal service models. We identify this approach to trauma work as a form of vicarious resistance that challenges dichotomies of vicarious trauma and resilience.

This is the first article to analyze children’s involvement in technology-facilitated coercive control in Australia. The primary research question was ‘‘How do mothers describe their children’s involvement in technology-facilitated coercive control?”. This article is based on incidental findings from a larger study on Australian women’s experiences of technology-facilitated abuse in the context of domestic violence. Although children were not the focus of the study, semi-structured interviews with twelve mothers yielded discussion of children’s involvement in the abuse. We used thematic analysis to identify key dynamics and contexts of this abuse. We found that mothers and their children are co-victims of coercive control. Mothers interviewed for the study reported that children were involved in technology-facilitated coercive control directly and indirectly. This study bridges the gap between the extant research on children and coercive control and technology-facilitated abuse by highlighting the ways children are involved in technology-facilitated coercive control. The social and legal contexts of co-parenting with abusive fathers exposed mothers and children to ongoing post-separation abuse, extending abusive fathers’ absent presence in the lives of children.

This article draws on interviews with 20 Australian women subjected to technology-facilitated coercive control (TFCC), foregrounding their accounts of grief and institutional betrayal. Findings show that while the harms of TFCC were significant, survivors’ experiences were often minimized and dismissed by justice institutions. Women experienced grief due to abuse and separation from partners who had betrayed them. This loss was compounded when seeking help. We propose that disenfranchised grief is an underexplored response to domestic violence and institutional betrayal as well as a potential intervention site, particularly in relation to technology-facilitated abuse.