Vigil held to remember women who died in violent circumstances

A vigil is being held on the steps of South Australia's parliament house in memory of the women who died in violent circumstances in the past year.

Transcript

00:00 More than 100 supporters have gathered here on the steps of Parliament, as you can see

00:06 behind me, to pay tribute to victims of gender-based violence right across Australia.

00:11 Now this event is being held by Pay Our Respects, the Adelaide branch, and what they're doing

00:15 is, this is actually their sixth annual event.

00:18 So it's been described as a call to action to reduce the death toll of victims of gender-based

00:23 violence, which we know last year was 71 women, and that is basically one woman every five

00:29 days, which is six more than the previous year.

00:32 Now domestic violence isn't just a huge issue nationally, we know last year in South Australia,

00:37 four women in the space of seven days were allegedly killed in gender-based violence,

00:41 which prompted a huge response from the community, and even brought calls for a Royal Commission.

00:47 Now at today's rally we spoke to the organisers and ministers, and here's what they had to

00:51 say.

00:53 We need the whole of our community to realise that they all need to be involved to make

00:59 a difference.

01:00 We can't just rely on governments, we can't just rely on funding from governments, we

01:05 need everybody working together.

01:07 Women who were sisters, mothers, wives, aunties, daughters, colleagues, who were part of our

01:13 community, we are absolutely devastated, and devastated by the fact that their deaths were

01:19 preventable.

01:21 It's clear as a community that we're not doing enough to eradicate domestic violence.

01:26 I think a lot of us were hopeful that we were making progress.

01:30 It's clear that more needs to be done, and that's why we've supported a Royal Commission,

01:34 so that a Royal Commission can examine all of the gaps.

01:40 Now David, the government has announced that they will hold a Royal Commission, and the

01:44 decision on what will be reviewed and the terms of reference, and the elected Royal

01:48 Commissioner is expected to be announced in coming weeks.

01:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]