Victoria Police have developed a new range of resources in 13 different languages and easy-to-read English outlining what family violence is, who to call in an emergency, what constitutes an emergency, and the types of violence that can occur.
The languages covered are Arabic, Burmese, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Dari, Farsi, Greek, Italian, Macedonian, Punjabi, Somali, Turkish and Vietnamese.
The new resources also aim to provide information for witnesses and perpetrators of family violence urging them to seek help.
For Aboriginal communities, Victoria Police have listed culturally appropriate referral services.
Victorian Arabic Social Services (VASS) chief executive Leila Alloush has praised the move by the police, but said more needed to be done to eliminate domestic violence in her community.
“I believe the written information is very useful, but the problem from my end is not everybody is literate in Arabic or English, so direct verbal information needs to be combined with written information,’ she told SBS World News.
“They [Victoria Police] need to give organisations like VASS something to verbally communicate and directly educate people who aren’t going to be able to benefit from written information.”
Ms Alloush said male members needed to be targeted more in family violence strategies to change their behaviour.
“This is a warning strategy [to say] this is not right, this is a reporting strategy,’ she said.
“We need a community strategy of winning people’s hearts, especially male members of the community.
“Statistically from our end most [domestic violence] perpetrators are male.”
Family and domestic violence expert Dr Susan Heward-Belle, from the University of Sydney, said the new initiative was "theoretically a good move" but it remained to be seen how it would work on the ground.
"Certainly it's been identified in literature a major obstacle is having a distrust or scepticism about what police do, especially when they're recent arrivals or from countries where there is corruption in police," Dr Heward-Belle said.
"It might be around issues of stigma and racism. If you had an experience of racism during your migration in Australia, there’s also a concern to further stigmatise your culture or your family."
Dr Heward-Belle said people may also be worried about whether their allegations would be taken seriously due to perceived racial bias or the victim's attacker using the threat of deportation as a tactic to exert power or control.
Assistant Commissioner Dean McWhirter said the resources were aimed to help equip people with the right information to empower and compel them to report family violence or to change their own behaviour if they were a perpetrator.
"Family violence doesn’t discriminate and affects people from a diverse range of backgrounds," he said.
"However we know that incidents of family violence are often under-reported so many people are suffering in silence.
"Research suggests one of the reasons why people from [culturally and linguistically diverse] backgrounds are less likely to report to police is because of a perception that these services would not understand their particular situation.
"By providing the right information, we hope we can empower people to report incidents of family violence or change their behaviour. Having easily accessible information is critical in ensuring that people know their rights, and more importantly where to seek help."
Assistant Commissioner McWhirter said his message to community members was "we are here to support you and keep you safe".
The resources will also be handed out to officers on the frontline and those who respond to to family violence incidents.
