By: Kathleen Noonan

I’M ON the road to nowhere. Driving to a domestic violence shelter in any suburb in Queensland, literally driving off the edge of the map.

You can’t find them with an internet search, in the phone book or by following signs. From the outside, they are blandly, defiantly boring.

The whole point is to disappear. This is the secret world of what are called women’s refuges, but they are more often than not filled with children too. They turn up, with mum, holding maybe one grabbed favourite toy, and often no toothbrush, no school uniforms.

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