Manuela Whitford feels really shocked and emotionless because five women were killed in Australia in just 10 days by men they were acquainted with.
“She said we’re used to it now. we often hear it, and I feel emotionally unaffected,” she said. “But on the other hand, I think to myself, ‘Oh, my God,’ I am doing something positive for the people I am able to assist. ”
Whitford started Friends with Dignity, a charity in Brisbane. This charity helps families who have left because of domestic violence. They give these families everything they need to feel comfortable and at home in temporary housing.
Mostly, they are mothers with kids who don’t have a lot of things but feel scared and anxious about where they will go and how they will manage.
They don’t have much contact with others. This means that for many years, people have been made to believe that they are not good enough, that they are not valuable and not worth anything. This statement was made by Whitford from the charity’s warehouse located in the southern part of Brisbane.
Located in a hidden spot in an area with factories, there is a storage building where shelves are filled with items for people’s homes. These items include things like toys and mattresses that have been cleaned and stacked neatly, all set to be brought to apartments that are being taken care of by organizations that support people in need.
We hope that the donations will save lives, but recently in Australia, the focus has been on women who were unable to get away from men who were violent towards them.
Five women were killed within a span of ten days. Among them was a 21-year-old water polo coach who had recently ended her relationship with the person believed to be her killer. Additionally, a 65-year-old woman was killed by her elderly husband, who has been charged with murder.
So far this year, there have been 43 recorded cases of women who have died, according to a research project called Counting Dead Women. This project was started by a feminist group called Destroy the Joint, which got its name from a mean comment made by an Australian shock jock in 2012. The shock jock accused women leaders of “destroying the joint. ”
The latest suspected murder happened on Monday when the security staff at a hotel in Perth, Western Australia called the police after receiving a phone call from concerned family members of Alice McShera, who was a 34-year-old lawyer.
On Tuesday, the police inspector Geoff DeSanges told reporters that they looked in a room and discovered McShera’s dead body. A man who is 42 years old was found in a room with injuries that he caused himself. Later on, he was accused of committing murder.
On the last Sunday, a person named Analyn Osias, who was 46 years old and also went by Logee, was hurt really badly and died in a house in Kangaroo Flats, as said by the police in Victoria. A man who is 44 years old has been accused of killing someone.
A few days ago, a 21-year-old water polo coach named Lilie James was found dead in a school gym bathroom in Sydney. The police believe she had head injuries. They found her ex-boyfriend’s dead body at the bottom of a cliff. They think he killed himself.
During the same week, a 65-year-old woman named Thi Thuy Huong Nguyen was discovered with many stab wounds in her kitchen in Canberra, according to ACT Policing. The police took her husband, who is 70 years old and was also hurt, into custody. He had to appear in court from his hospital bed because he was accused of murder.
According to the police in South Australia, two days ago, they found the body of a 38-year-old woman named Krystal Marshall in the burnt remains of her house after a fire. A man, who is 48 years old, was accused of committing murder.
Between 2012 and now, the number of women killed by violence in Australia has been between 43 and 84 each year. This information is from Counting Dead Women.
Whitford began Friends with Dignity in her garage during the same year. Since that time, she mentioned that she has observed a difference in how people, including the police, react to domestic violence.
“It means having faith and actively hearing the person who has been harmed,” she explained.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said that the number of Australian women reporting domestic violence from their partner in the past year decreased from 1. 7% in 2016 to 0. 9% in 2021-22
However, a recent survey called the National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS) in 2021 found that 23% of people think that it’s okay for domestic violence to happen when someone is feeling stressed in their daily life.
And 91% of people thought that violence against women was a problem in Australia.
People have been asking the government for help many times. The government started a plan to stop violence against women and children from 2022 to 2032.
The First Action Plan for the years 2023-2027 was announced in August. The most important item on the list of 10 things to do is to make progress in achieving equal rights for all genders.
The United Nations says that even though Australia is a modern and rich country, there are still sexist attitudes. This is because women in Australia do more unpaid work at home and earn less money over their lifetime compared to men.
Men continue to hold the majority of positions of power in boardrooms and Parliament. There has only been one female prime minister in the country, Julia Gillard, who gained a lot of attention for her powerful speech on misogyny that has been viewed by millions of people on social media.
A survey conducted in 2022 by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, which is led by Gillard, discovered that Australian men find disrespectful comments about women on the internet more acceptable compared to the rest of the world.
The First Action Plan has allocated 3. 5 million Australian dollars (equivalent to $2. 24 million) to fund a three-year trial of the healthy masculinities project. This project aims to identify effective ways to combat harmful messages that are specifically directed at men and boys on social media.
They didn’t say his name in the government statement, but experts mention Andrew Tate as an example. He is an internet influencer who has described himself as hating women. He will soon go on trial in Romania for human trafficking and rape.
Andrew Lines has been working for over 20 years to stop Tate’s harmful and sexist messages through a program called “The Rite Journey. ” This program helps students in Australia, New Zealand, and other places learn about good role models.
He says it’s becoming harder to stop the negative messages that children see on their cellphones, such as mean comments and easily available explicit content.
Lines said that they wouldn’t have been exposed to the mean and hurtful things that people are saying if they were a child. “It doesn’t have to be a harmful or provocative message. ” You can read mean and judgmental comments in many discussion threads.
The text is saying that nowadays, more men are being involved in being fathers compared to before. However, because families are different now, parents are spending less time with their kids.
On the other hand, being too involved as a parent can cause its own set of issues, he explained.
“If children don’t learn how to handle failure and rejection early on, even in small situations, it could become a problem when they face more significant challenges,” he explained.
But until people understand those lessons, government officials are making their efforts to address domestic violence stronger.
Last month, the police in New South Wales started a registry to keep track of people who repeatedly commit domestic and family violence. Recently, the Western Australian government announced that it wants more offenders to wear electronic tags.
As long as things don’t change much, people like Whitford from Friends with Dignity will continue to do whatever they can to help those who are affected.
On Tuesdays, some helpful people meet at the charity’s building to put together care packages and prepare orders for people who don’t have enough. Businesses are also participating by sending employees on outings as a part of their programs for social responsibility.
A housing shortage means there are not enough apartments for the charity to furnish. Therefore, the charity is giving more necessary items to women who cannot leave abusive relationships.
Whitford believes that everyone in the community needs to work together to stop more women from becoming victims of domestic violence.
She said that many people don’t ask if you’re okay because they are unsure of what to do if you share your answer with them. “So, learn and find out what resources are available near you. “