Violence against women in Australia has become so bad that state and territory leaders called an emergency meeting on May 1 with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to try and work out practical solutions to what has become a national disgrace.
A national register for offenders, electronic monitoring, and national coordination of intelligence on serial violent offenders were all expected to be discussed.
Over April 27 and 28, thousands of men, women, and children took to streets across Australia calling for an end to gender-based violence.
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Speaking at a march in the capital Canberra attended by thousands of protesters, Albanese admitted the government at all levels needed to do better.
“We need to change culture, the attitudes, the legal system, and the approach by all governments,” he said.
“We need to make sure that this isn't up to women, it's up to men to change men's behavior as well,” he added.
A series of recent killings — including five women killed in a popular Sydney shopping mall — has cast a further spotlight on violence against women in Australia.
“Young women don't feel safe. Older women don't feel safe. That's 50 percent of the population in this country,” Australia’s Minister for Women Katy Gallagher said on April 24, after the 25th woman died in gender-based violence in the country this year.
The latest figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that an estimated 3.8 million Australians had reported experiencing physical and/or sexual family and domestic violence since the age of 15 - equating to 20% of the population
Ballarat in Victoria staged a rally on April 12 to remember Samantha Murphy, Rebecca Young, and Hannah McGuire all of whom were killed at the hands of men.
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The following day, Jade Young, 47, Ashlee Good, 38, Dawn Singleton, 25, Pikria Darchia, 55, and Yixuan Cheng, 27, were all killed at a shopping center in Bondi, Sydney, when Queensland man Joel Cauchi went on a stabbing rampage.
On April 22, Molly Ticehurst, 28, was found dead at her home in Forbes in western New South Wales while Emma Bates, 49, was discovered dead at a property in Cobram in Victoria.
Elsewhere, a Perth man is currently on trial accused of the 2021 killing of his heavily pregnant lover with a claw hammer because she would not abort his baby.
The latest figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that an estimated 3.8 million Australians had reported experiencing physical and/or sexual family and domestic violence since the age of 15 — equating to 20 percent of the population.
Professor of Family and Sexual Violence at RMIT University Anastasia Powell and Associate Professor of Criminology at Monash University Asher Flynn
said: “There is a collective grief across our nation.”
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“The headlines express our shared hurt and disbelief that women continue to lose their lives to men’s violence against them,” the Melbourne-based academics wrote on The Conversation website.
Tackling the growth of “misogynistic hate groups” is vital in the ongoing fight against violence towards women, federal MP Murray Watt said.
On the ABC’s Q&A program on April 29, Watt said online media was being used in a way not possible before.
“The growth of those misogynistic hate groups has got to be tackled and that is a new frontier in this ongoing battle,” he said.
“The Andrew Tates of this world are playing a very, very dangerous role in fostering that kind of hatred of women,” he said, referring to Tate, an influencer who has been accused of spreading his misogynistic views amongst young men online. Tate is currently awaiting trial in Romania for rape and human trafficking.
Contact the writer at karlwilson@chinadailyapac.com
