Experts say there is a need for governments to allocate resources to support the long-term recovery, rehabilitation and empowerment of domestic violence survivors.
A few months ago, Mira (not her real name) reached breaking point.
The 49-year-old mother of five from Shah Alam, Selangor, stood sobbing hysterically in her bedroom, holding a knife to her skin.
Just moments earlier, her husband had loomed over her, brandishing a machete, demanding the password to her phone.
“It was just before the start of fasting for the day and I was scrolling through social media when he suddenly flew into a rage, and accused me of cheating on him,” she told CNA.
The accusation was followed by physical assault. Hysterical and exhausted by the mental toll of continuous violent abuse over the course of her 20-year marriage, Mira grabbed the knife in a desperate act of self-harm.
Her husband, who is a fisherman, eventually wrestled the blade away, handed her some money, and told her to go shopping for the festive season.
Instead, Mira went to the police. She sat outside the station for a full hour before she finally walked inside and lodged a police report.
She was subsequently admitted to the hospital for three days of treatment. She never returned home and today, she lives in a women’s shelter with other victims of domestic violence.
“I told myself that enough was enough,” she said. “My time with him had to come to an end.”
Mira, who used to operate a cafe, feels she has been granted another chance at life. She compares her case against the recent high-profile news in the country of a civil servant who was so severely beaten by her husband that she suffered a miscarriage.
The woman also reportedly suffered from a broken arm and broken ribs from her husband – whose violent history had left his previous wife in a coma for five years – allegedly punching her in the stomach and using clothes hangers, a garden hose, a curtain rod and a broomstick to beat her.
“I really can’t imagine what she is going through,” said Mira.
These cases paint a grim picture of wider regional statistics. While data collection and tabulation methods vary significantly across Southeast Asian nations, the underlying trend remains: Reported domestic violence cases are climbing sharply.
In Malaysia, the number of recorded domestic violence cases has risen from 5,507 in 2023 to 7,116 in 2024, and 7,391 by 2025, according to media reports citing Women, Family and Community Development Minister Nancy Shukri.
The National Commission on Violence Against Women in Indonesia released its 2025 annual report in March, revealing that gender-based violence cases in the country rose by over 14 per cent last year from 2024, to 376,529 cases.
Almost 90 per cent occurred in the personal sphere, said the commission, reinforcing that the home and intimate relationships remain the most dangerous spaces for women.
And the numbers may not be fully representative of the situation, said experts.
“Reported cases do not tell us the full picture, because many survivors never report to the authorities at all,” Nazreen Nizam, executive director of the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO), a Malaysian non-governmental organisation (NGO) that deals with issues of domestic violence, told CNA.
“When we see numbers rise, it may reflect a real increase in violence, but it can also mean that more survivors are recognising abuse, feeling safer to seek help, or finding more channels to report,” she added.
WHAT IS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND WHY DOES IT OCCUR?
Domestic violence, as defined by the United Nations (UN), is a pattern of behaviour used by one partner to gain control over another in an intimate relationship.
Experts categorise domestic violence into several overlapping dimensions: physical, psychological, social, and financial, all of which serve to isolate and control the victim.
Around one in four reported domestic violence cases in Malaysia last year were against males, according to the country’s women, family and community development deputy minister. Reports citing Lim Hui Ying said that out of 7,391 domestic violence cases reported nationwide, 1,961 involved male victims.
“Abuse happens because domestic violence is about power and control,” said Nazreen of WAO. “So … men can also be subjected to physical, emotional, psychological or financial abuse … but one of the biggest issues is that male survivors often face strong stigma when it comes to speaking up.”
She added that social expectations about masculinity could make it harder for men to admit they are being abused or to seek help, making it possibly even more challenging for them than for women to come forward and report it.
“Many may fear shame, ridicule, disbelief, or not being taken seriously,” she said.
Still, the statistics are skewed towards female victims being the vast majority.
Malaysian civil society organisation Sisters in Islam (SIS) provides legal aid through its free helpline, “Telenisa”. It told CNA that many women reach out only after years, at the point where abuse has escalated to life-threatening physical injury or total psychological breakdown.
“The data from both national reporting and Telenisa cases makes clear that domestic violence is not isolated. It is systemic, often hidden, and deeply tied to issues of power, access, and inequality,” a SIS spokesperson said.
They added that domestic violence was also a leading factor in marital breakdown, ranking among the top three causes of divorce.
Siti Aminah Tardi, executive director of the Indonesian Legal Resource Center (ILRC), told CNA that domestic violence was still a pervasive issue in the archipelago, noting that according to the 2024 UN Population Fund Indonesian Women’s Life Experience Survey, one in five Indonesian women had experienced domestic violence within the past year.
She posited that the society largely adhered to a patriarchal culture, exacerbated through the interpretation of religion, customs, and laws that state the husband as the head of the family and the wife as the manager of the household.
“This social construction triggers the perception and belief that husbands have the right to control, dominate, punish and exploit weaker family members, especially wives and daughters,” she said.
“This unequal relationship will be expressed or worsened when there is poverty, unemployment, financial difficulties, debt bondage, or where women are considered disobedient to patriarchal norms.”
In other countries, societal stigmas keep domestic abuse shielded inside the home, said experts.
“Culturally, it’s considered to be a private family matter and should stay there,” said Am Sam Ath, operations director of the Cambodian human rights group Licadho.
According to Cambodia’s 2021 to 2022 Demographic and Health Survey, 53 per cent of women who have experienced physical or sexual violence have never sought help or told anyone about the violence.
According to the survey, 21 per cent of women who have ever had an intimate relationship have experienced emotional, physical, or sexual violence by their current or most recent partner, with 13 per cent having faced such abuse in the 12 months leading up to the study.
Sam Ath said that women were considered to be subservient partners who had to be obedient and tolerate abuse.
“There is still a lot of shame against divorce and separations,” he added.
The struggle is mirrored in the Philippines, where political and environmental factors have been observed to contribute to cases of reported domestic violence.
Jean Enriquez, who chairs the Civil Society Advisory Group for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in the country, told CNA that the political climate under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte from 2016 to 2022 significantly normalised violence against women.
Enriquez said that Duterte was openly sexist towards women, including those who were in positions of influence and also spoke about how his own abusive acts went unpunished.
In a 2018 speech, Duterte had recounted confessing to a priest how he had sexually assaulted his maid when she was sleeping.
Duterte’s spokesperson, cited in media reports, has since said the former president “made up” and “added and spliced” the speech referencing the confession.
During a 2016 campaign rally, he sparked outrage by joking about the 1989 sexual assault and murder of an Australian missionary in Davao.
Recalling the incident from his time as mayor, he stated he was angry about the crime but added that the victim was so beautiful that, as mayor, he “should have been first”. He has since apologised.
“All these emboldened abusers,” said Enriquez.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns denied women access to resources and kept them trapped inside homes with their abusers, leading to unabated violence, she said, adding that seasonal typhoons and other disasters caused similar stresses.
According to Enriquez, the barriers to safety are even higher for some communities, especially in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas where essential services are nearly inaccessible.
“In these regions, the prevalence of child, early, and forced marriages further complicate the legal and social landscape, leaving young women particularly vulnerable to a cycle of abuse that the state is often too far away to break,” she said.
Survivors can face a “trap” where leaving requires access to financial resources, legal protection, and social support, said experts.
According to Nazreen of WAO, fear heavily prevents survivors in Malaysia from leaving. This includes the fear of bodily harm, the fear that their children will be taken away, the fear of not being believed, and the dread of what comes next.
She said that financial dependence is a huge barrier, especially when the survivor has no income, no savings, or nowhere safe to go.
SIS echoed this and said that women also faced uncertainty around legal processes, concerns about child custody, and social pressures that discourage leaving.
“In many cases, remaining in the relationship is a response to limited options rather than acceptance of abuse,” said the SIS spokesperson.
Another domestic violence survivor from Malaysia, who wanted to be identified only as Siti, 52, told CNA that the physical violence in her marriage began when she sought a divorce from her husband of nine years, following his repeated infidelity.
He subjected her to slapping, choking, pulling her hair, and on one occasion, threw her against a cupboard.
Despite the danger, Siti found herself trapped in the home by her financial constraints and her concern for her son’s schooling.
“It was my house and I was paying for it, but there was no way I could afford to leave because I couldn’t pay rent for another place,” she said, adding that her ex-husband refused to leave the house.
“People ask me why I didn’t leave, but it is not as easy as that. There are so many factors that one has to consider. I had to bear this for nine months.”
Her husband eventually moved out once their divorce was finalised.
LACK OF PROTECTION
Experts said that while there is more awareness around domestic violence, a significant gap remains between the existence of laws and their effective enforcement on the ground.
NGOs in the Philippines for example have to organise workshops in villages, with Enriquez saying that this indicated the lack of accessible legal assistance for marginalised communities.
“More than legal clinics, what has been necessary were trauma-informed and survivor-centered violence against women desk officers within villages, as well as women’s desks within police stations,” she said.
She said that some public hospitals have women and children protection units that have the presence of social workers and police, although there was still a lack of psychological assistance.
According to Sam Ath, in Cambodia, when a survivor first reports domestic violence to the local police or communal authority, the immediate advice is often towards reconciliation rather than protection or legal action.
“They would bring both partners together and tell them to sign a contract where the woman will be told to change her behaviour and not agitate her partner, while the husband would have to agree not to be violent. Typically there is no impact and the solution usually escalates,” said Sam Ath.
He added that the organisation had documented 146 people – 96 women, 46 children, and four men – killed in the context of domestic and sexual violence from 2020 to 2025.
Nazreen of WAO said that despite increased awareness and crucial infrastructure in Malaysia, such as the hospital-based One-Stop Crisis Centre (OSCC) providing integrated medical, legal, and counselling aid, consistency is still an issue.
A survivor’s experience and the quality of support they receive still depend entirely on the specific personnel on duty.
“From our own case management experience – we found that Malaysia’s response system remains uneven and needs strengthening to better match policy intentions with actual service delivery.
“So I would say there has been progress, but not yet the consistency or survivor-centred quality we need across the board,” she said.
Agreeing, SIS said that there have been improvements in awareness and recognition of domestic violence as a public issue, along with better coordination between agencies but that the quality of responses remains inconsistent.
The spokesperson added that responses also tend to be less effective in cases involving non-physical forms of violence, such as psychological abuse or sexual coercion within marriage.
“Survivors still report experiences of being dismissed or advised to resolve matters privately,” said the spokesperson.
Mira said that she was even called to the police station for counselling with her husband, days after she lodged the report.
“I didn’t understand the purpose of it. I want my husband to be sent to prison and I had no intention of getting back with him,” she said, adding that her husband had still not been charged for his abuse.
Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/southeast-asia-increase-in-reported-domestic-violence-6146291