10 women have been killed in Australia over the last 20 days and I am so fucking tired.
We are 51 weeks into 2022 and the year is almost over. The holiday period has already begun, but I’m finding it hard to clock off and wind down when all I can think about is how many women have died violently this year — especially those from intimate partner violence.
Part of my job as a journalist is to report on these deaths. In December, I’ve received a police report of a woman’s death almost every 48 hours. Literally every other day, and yet there’s silence from our leaders. It seems the only other people as outraged as me are the other women in my life. What will it take for this issue to actually get the spotlight it needs?
I remember every single woman I’ve either read about or reported on this year.
On Sunday, December 18, 31-year-old Danielle Finlay-Jones was found dead at a “friend’s” home Cranebrook, NSW. Police are now looking for 33-year-old man Ashley Gaddie, who the Daily Mail reported went to a pub with Danielle before the pair returned to the Cranebrook home. The two reportedly met on a dating app. She was the fifth woman to die under violent circumstances just that week.
The same day, a 37-year-old woman was killed in Albion Park, NSW. Police were called after reports of a disturbance, but the paramedics couldn’t save her. A man was charged with her murder today.
Australia,
We need to talk.
Two women have been allegedly murdered in the past 24 hours, both by men they knew.
In the last 16 days, at least eight women have been killed. Things need to change. We can’t let these women’s deaths be in vain.
#NotOneMoreNiki— Tarang / तरंग (he/him) (@tarang_chawla) December 15, 2022
Two women were killed on the same day on December 15. One woman was from Perth. She was 24 and her partner has been charged with unlawful act or omission with intent to harm. The second woman was named April Gela. She was stabbed to death in her home and her son was charged with her murder.
Female police officer Rachel McCrow was fatally shot on December 12.
Lynn Cannon, a mum of two, was killed in December. Her neighbours called police after they heard her screaming. The man charged with her murder is Paul Anthony, a former partner she had been estranged from for two years.
On December 4, a day before Lynn, Helen Jeremy Solomon’s body was found in Success Boat Harbour in WA. A 21-year-old man has been charged with her murder, as well as wilfully destroying evidence and “interfering with a corpse”.
The day before that, Nelomie Perera was allegedly stabbed to death by her former partner, the husband she had recently separated from. I covered what happened to her and cried while writing it. In Australia, an average of one woman a week is killed by a current or former partner. Perera was the 42nd woman to be killed violently in Australia this year, according to gender equality activist account Counting Dead Women.
I have thought about her every day since.
No of Aussies killed by terrorism in Australia since 1916
13
Number of Aussie women killed by male violence since November 30:
10
So I ask again what’s the biggest threat?
If you’re a man tired of me tweeting about this imagine being a 👩 living with threat of this everyday
— Kon Karapanagiotidis (@Kon__K) December 20, 2022
Pregnant woman Dianne Miller was assaulted with a concrete brick on December 2 in Perth. She and her unborn baby died days later due to the severity of her injuries. A teenage boy was charged with her murder. Indigenous women are murdered at up to 12 times the national average.
On November 30, a woman was allegedly beaten to death by her husband in Victoria. He has been charged with her murder.
These are only the most recent deaths — there have been so many more throughout the year.
In October, a 74-year-old man confessed to killing his wife in their Bronte home in Sydney. That same month, a 19-year-old man was charged with murdering his ex-girlfriend after her body was found in Queensland bushland.
In August, five Australian women were killed by violence allegedly perpetrated by men in one week.
In July, a NSW man was charged with murder after a woman who he was dating went missing from her Dural home. She was a mother and her children pleaded for her to be found. Her body was found in local bushland.
On Friday morning another woman was murdered in Australia by a man known to her. She is a First Nations Woman. That’s 17 women murder in Aust in 14 weeks. Where’s the outcry?the media? If only 5% of the energy given to Will Smith was directed at women being killed by DV in Aust.
— Ashlee Donohue (@MissAshlee__) April 9, 2022
May was Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month. But that didn’t slow down the stats. Two women were killed in one weekend that month. By then, 22 women had already lost their lives to violence from men.
The list goes on and on and on, and at some point we have to ask: what the fuck will it take for this to be the issue at the forefront of our society?
How many more articles must be written, studies conducted, stats collected, families traumatised, women mourned before this shit is taken seriously?
I’m so fucking tired. And there’s still 10 days of the year left.
Help is available.
If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
If you’d like to speak to someone about domestic violence, please call the 1800 Respect hotline on 1800 737 732 or chat online.
Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
