00:00Around a thousand people contacted Kids Helpline aged between 5 and 25 from January last year
00:11and July this year, reporting coercive control behaviours in their peer groups, including
00:17friendships. A lot of the terms that were used most commonly in those reports include
00:22things like controlling behaviour, gaslighting, toxic friendships and isolation. Most of the
00:29reports came from girls and women, about three quarters of those reports in fact, so young
00:34men still not necessarily experiencing or identifying those behaviours for what they
00:40are. And the most common age group of all was around 15 to 18 in terms of people who had
00:47said they had experienced this behaviour. It is important to note here, Gemma, that it
00:51is a very small proportion of the overall contacts that Kids Helpline received over that period,
00:57but as they tell us, it is a growing and emergent issue. So something to keep an eye on for
01:03sure.
01:04And I know you spoke to a number of young people for this story. What were they telling
01:07you about abusive friendships?
01:09Yeah, well we did a shout out on Triple J to ask people what their experiences of this kind
01:15of behaviour had been. And we got dozens and dozens of responses back. Most of them were
01:21from women and a lot of them were really troubling accusations or experiences. Things like being
01:28isolated from a friendship group. Iced out was I think some of the terminology that was
01:33used. A lot of verbal abuse when friends started maybe broadening their horizon, inviting other
01:38friends to things. Control around tracking devices and surveilling friends through location sharing
01:46services was really, really common. And we had also experiences where people became verbally
01:51and sometimes physically abusive to their friends. So it was a range of experiences, some of which
01:57were really quite troubling. And do we know why this kind of behaviour in friendship groups
02:01is becoming more common? So I guess like other relationships, a lot of what we determine
02:08as normal comes from community attitudes. So research out of the ANU has found that young
02:14people actually are the least likely to recognise stalking and surveillance behaviour as troubling
02:21compared to other age groups. And that's because they have grown up with that kind of technology.
02:27Often their parents will use it and use it on them as a way of saying, we're just doing
02:32this to look out for you. It's because we love you. The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant,
02:37has told Hack that sometimes that surveilling behaviour can be disrespectful and can potentially
02:43lead to dangerous situations in relationships going forward if young people don't recognise
02:49that they're in an infringement of their own boundaries. But it's also important to note
02:53that this isn't all doom and gloom here. Kids Helpline says that part of the reason that
02:58young people are using this terminology is because they're becoming more aware of what's a healthy
03:03relationship and what's an unhealthy relationship. They've become quite adept at identifying behaviour
03:11that's problematic and calling it out as well. So there is a silver lining to all of this.
03:15ians.
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