PETALING JAYA, Feb 22 — There are more women seeking help and counselling when it comes to domestic abuse, according to the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO).

This is despite the number of telephone counselling experiencing a slight dip to 1,740 calls compared with 1,965 in 2013.

Despite a drop in the annual figures, WAO says it is still an upward trend when statistics are compared with the past five years.

In 2009, WAO attended to 1,228 phone counselling sessions, which went up to 1,544 the next year.

There were 1,347 in 2011, and 2,023 in 2012.

There were also more people who sought refuge at WAO shelters, with 166 women (in 2014), 153 (2013), 133 (2012) and 110 (2011).

Out of the 166 women who took shelter last year, 66 per cent were for domestic violence, 23 per cent were trafficked women, three per cent were for rape, three per cent were migrant domestic worker issues, one per cent were single pregnant women and four per cent were of miscellaneous crises.

In addition, WAO set up a tracking system for their phones and discovered 2,480 calls were made to the helpline, which meant 740 calls were not attended to because of issues like language barrier.

Police statistics in 2013 showed that 1,856 men abused their wives while there were 46 cases involving wives.

A total of 633 children were reported to have abused their parents.

Advocacy officer Yu Ren Chung said the figures showed a need to increase the number of volunteers.

“It has been manageable but based on the new figures, we expect more calls this year and we don’t want to miss calls,” he said.

“In order to serve everyone who calls us, we plan to expand our capacity. So, we are recruiting and training volunteers.”

Yu said the helpline was the most widespread service provided by the WAO and it was currently being handled by seven trained social workers.

WAO social worker S. Yogasri said the increase in statistics could mean one of two things — either awareness efforts have encouraged more people to step up and call or that domestic violence cases have been increasing.

“We have been increasing our awareness efforts over the past five years. However, it is hard to determine which has been the bigger contributor to the statistics,” she said.

“Either way, the action that needs to be taken is the same, which is to increase our efforts.”

WAO recently made a public call for volunteers who want to contribute as para-counsellors.

Volunteers who qualify after the 30 hours of training (24 hours knowledge-based training, six hours practicum) are then given appointment letters, which will be re-evaluated annually.

The recruitment will see volunteers commit to three hours a week of contribution in manning the helpline and provide phone counselling.

Application to be a para-counsellor is open until Feb 28.

For enquiries, contact WAO at [email protected] or 03-7957 0636.Their website iswww.wao.org.my.