In just three days, we lost two women and two girls to femicide across the country.
A man has been charged with killing Jana Armstrong - she is the fourth female victim of male violence in Australia since July 4. Jana was reported missing from Newtown, Queensland, on July 7. The alleged killer is known to her and charged with murder (domestic violence).
We also lost 13-year-old Layla Jeffery on July 4, a 17-year-old unnamed girl on July 6 and 39-year-old mum-of-two Lavanya Chappa on July 7.
In all their cases, the accused killers are known to the victims.
This is what a femicide epidemic looks like. It features men and boys killing women and girls because they can.
Jana, Lavanya, Layla, the unnamed girl - indeed all victims of femicide - deserve a national truth-telling. Their families deserve to be heard at a Royal Commission into the Killing of Women and Girls.
Please support Sherele Moody with her objective of making the govt hold a Royal Commission which would:
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Examine all unlawful deaths of women and girls;
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Examine the need for a federal femicide law similar to those already in place in other countries;
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Investigate why First Nations women are more likely than any other woman to experience traumatic injury or death as a result of intimate partner violence;
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Examine the complex and significant needs of women from diverse and marginalised backgrounds including First Nations women, women with English as a second language, women who are chronically ill or living with disability, sex workers, trans and gender non-binary people and women who are lesbian, bisexual, intersex or queer;
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Lay bare the systemic failures that underpin the violent deaths of women and girls, including the ways in which police, the courts and support services routinely fail victims before they are killed;
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Look into increased provision of appropriate resources and funding to ensure all women and girls have access to services including safe and affordable housing and legal supports;
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Examine how the legal system is designed around the rights and needs of perpetrators not the victims and how this impacts sentencing, parole and bail outcomes;
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Examine the factors of violence against women which Our Watch describes as: Condoning of violence against women; Men’s control of decision-making and limits to women’s independence in public and private life; Rigid gender stereotyping and dominant forms of masculinity; and Male peer relations and cultures of masculinity that emphasise aggression, dominance and control; and
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Examine how social media and mainstream media frame attitudes towards women and girls.
You really don't need a royal commission to understand why first nations people bash, rape and kill each other and partners so much. They are extremely over-represented in DV and the murder of women. This is especially true in regional communities where outsiders or whites are not permitted. Any social worker trying to help first nations people in those areas will tell you about the reality of the problem and how much of at uphill battle it is when nobody, including the police, can enter these areas. Children are regularly raped, and children are regularly raping, and nothing can realistically be done to break the cycle. The problem is similar in more urban areas. Interfering is a political disaster waiting to happen, remember the stolen generation? First nations children are taken away from unsafe environments now at a far higher rate than they were in the stolen generation. There's immense pressure to restore the children taken into care back into these unsafe homes/family, or not take them in the fist place which perpetuates harm. The cycle is doomed to repeat itself. The abused children then go on to offend themselves.
A femicide law? It's already illegal to kill people, harm people, stalk people.
The DV issue is pretty simple. Nobody wants to be accused of racism and deal with the fallout for interfering with the complex imported cultures and certain religions (again, very over-represented) in communities where this is prevalent and actually doing something about the problem. We dance around the topic and instead blame men in general which doesn't help the cause and turns sexes against each other. It's a political and societal disaster.
For the remaining cases, police and courts are too busy pursuing speech and whatever other bullshit our govt is pushing them to do next instead of focusing on real violent offenders
For too long women of Australia have suffered, but unless we're prepared to face some hard truths, they will continue to suffer at the hands of these violent people
The DV issue is NOT simple, otherwise it would have been addressed better than it has.
You did not really answer your 'why'. You assert the difficulties of law-enforcement to intervene but that is not the reason why there is DV in these communities.
A general law against homicide is obviously not working is it? Women who report to police they fear for their lives because of threats they get from es-partners often are not investigated properly resulting in their deaths. It is one of the issues that have been documented over and over again.
As to the CALD-related DV incidents being over-represented, I am not saying you are wrong but would you be able to provide a link to statistics comparing DV incidents by background. I have not found the information myself.
My ex hit me in the face thousands of times during our relationship. I was slapped over and over again, whenever she was angry or upset. She threw things at me, poured drinks over my head, she smashed and destroyed my things.
I never did anything remotely close to that, and rarely even spoke in anger against her because I was in fear of her. However, one time I was tired and refused to get out of the bedroom after she ordered me to leave the room. She went to the police and was able to get a IVO on the basis of me refusing to leave the room.
The police said they "didn't care" about her violence and refused to do anything about all the other incidents where she physically attacked me. However on the basis of her just going to the police and asking, they got an IVO for her that required me to leave my home and never return.
If "not leaving the room when your wife tells you to" is sufficient threshold for police to get an IVO requiring a man to leave his home to protect a woman, maybe the problem isn't police not taking Women's reports seriously? Especially if literally being repeatedly hit in the face is not sufficiently bad to get police to do anything to protect me from violence.
The indigenous stats are well documented here. I'm not aware of any stats on other cultures.
This is brutal but I am always very ....curious about men who see a post about systemic violence against women and interject their own stories about how they're the victim. What is the purpose?
To explain how gender-biased the system is - in the opposite way to the stereotype that people expect.
Police are literally required in some states including Victoria to assume that men are perpetrator, as they did in my case. Even the forms you fill in when you get an IVO have a prologue to say they use gendered language such that perpetrator is "gendered male" and victim is "gendered female".
You want to talk about systemic violence? Imagine how that feels to be beaten by your partner and have the entire system assume you are the "bad guy" because you are the guy.
I stay at home all the time now because I can't handle going out by myself, haven't worked for nearly 10 years, because I can't be comfortable being around other people knowing that they could attack me an the system could say they are the victims and just hurt me more.
Edit: The "systemic" nature of it has made my PTSD so much worse. I can't go out alone because I know that the system will not protect me, and will in fact assume I am a perpetrator of any violence that occurs, and my brain is constantly screaming "danger! danger! nobody will help you! danger!".
You literally tell your own tale of police mishandling DV then turn around and say things don't need to change.
Come the fuck on dude.
Where did I say "things don’t need to change"?
I pointed out that the system is already gender-biased in a way that causes further harm to male victims. Clearly it's not fit for purpose. The police should actually investigate DV rather than showing up an assuming things and ticking boxes (Edit: and not actually protecting anyone)
I am sorry about what happened to you. Men are not the only ones that perpetrate violence. Domestic violence takes the lives of adults and children and traumatises those that survive.
However, statistics show that men's domestic violence against women (and other men) result in many more deaths and a lot of permanent harm from such as from broken bones, knocked-out teeth and brain damage. That cannot be ignored.
Also, please don't make statements about other groups (like they are over-represented) if you can't provide evidence. We need to stop the violence, not reinforce prejudices.
I have damage to my left eye and left teeth from taking constant slaps to the face from a right-handed person. I possibly have brain damage that cannot be confirmed without post-mortem examination; I have had difficulty focusing since then but to what extent this is due to PTSD and due to direct neurological damage is unknown.
The official statistics don't account for circular reasoning in cases such as mine where the system assumes guilt due to gender. My wife hitting me thousands of times over years was not recorded even as a single incident of DV by a female perpetrator. Me refusing to leave a room was recorded officially as one with male perpetrator. Apart from the disparity in severity, the use of statistics to make assumptions which are then recorded as statistics and used to make assumptions causes obvious circular reasoning "that cannot be ignored", to use your words.
I did not make any statements about "other groups". I did provide a link to the official indigenous stats, even though I didn't make any statements about them either. What the hell are you talking about?
The problem was that at some point I got you and another man who had suffered from domestic violence mixed up so I apologise if my response did not make sense.
I hope you are getting whatever help you need.
Your own quote in the body of this post states that First Nations women are more likely than any other woman to experience traumatic injury or death as a result of intimate partner violence, and neither you or the article linked to evidence for this.
Ok, here's a start: https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/resources/fdsv-summary
I feel like this is a culture problem as much as anything else. Which is why it's so hard to fix. You can't easily fix police officers, legal systems, etc, not taking women abuse victims seriously… they don't care because they don't have to. Later, something horrible happens, and what happens to the officials that completely failed in their duties? Literally nothing happens.
Imagine if this was any other malpractice that resulted in death. Someone walks in bleeding profusely and the doctor tells them it's not important and sends them home. Then they die, and the malpractice is very obvious and results in severe consequences. That's why doctors are so careful, they have a huge responsibility and duty of care.
I think the strongest lever to start with is to put higher responsibility to other professions. If someone dies after talking to the police and being dismissed, that should terrify the people involved. Right now they just shrug and forget about it, and do it again next month.
If someone reports abuse and fear of their life, make people care about it and take it seriously. That's step one.
You are bloody disgusting