Wednesday, 14 May 2025

Gendered violence

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (09:54): Stop killing our women: this was the clear and heartbreakingly familiar message at the What Were You Wearing rally in Naarm on Saturday. I marched alongside hundreds of women, exhausted and outraged that we are still having to attend rallies and vigils to find ways to stop the killing of women and children at the hands of violent perpetrators.

Since January of this year 25 women have had their lives cut short. That number rises to 128 since January of last year. These numbers go beyond private tragedies; they are political failures. Frontline services are already stretched thin. Underfunding and mainstream models leave so many women without meaningful access to help. The voices that are often sidelined are the ones that are disproportionately impacted: multicultural women, First Nations women, transgender women and women with disabilities. These groups should be at the centre of decision-making, not token representatives.

The rally urged six clear actions of the government: (1) invest in primary prevention, (2) guarantee secure housing, (3) mandate trauma-informed training for first responders, (4) reform bail laws to prioritise survivors, (5) adopt consistent, holistic consent laws and (6) boost funding for crisis support services. Further to this, we intensify our calls for the urgent need for culturally specific refuge. To protect the next generation we need bipartisan commitment. We need to stop tinkering around the edges on this epidemic while the violence continues.