Crowds honour the lives lost to gendered violence

People have gathered across the country to honour the more than 100 lives lost to gendered violence since the start of 2024.

Transcript

00:00As you can hear behind me, the speeches have already commenced, but there's a lot of anger

00:06and sadness and frustration here today.

00:10These people are gathered because they want to see an end to violence against women and

00:14an end to what they say is Australia's femicide epidemic.

00:18This is part of a national day of action.

00:21There are rallies in 14 towns and cities across the country, Perth, Alice, Adelaide, Geelong,

00:26Bendigo, Port Macquarie, Hobart, just to name a few.

00:30According to the Red Heart campaign and Australian Femicide Watch, who's organised these rallies

00:35today, 14 women have so far been lost to violence this year, and the organisation says that

00:41103 were killed in 2024.

00:44These are not just domestic violence and alleged domestic violence deaths, it's all Australian

00:49women lost to violence.

00:51Now I spoke to some of the people gathered here today, let's take a listen.

00:56We don't think that the politicians in our country are doing enough to mitigate the femicide

01:00crisis that's currently happening, so we're hoping that these protests will help draw

01:04attention to the issue, and then politicians will be forced to take action.

01:09I think it's really important that we not only just say, I guess actions speak louder

01:13than words, and I think we've been speaking a really long time for things to change, and

01:17I think we need to have action to do that, and in spaces like this it's really great.

01:22We've been following the totals of murders, fortunately we haven't experienced murders,

01:29but family members with DV, it's got to stop, and I really think it starts at the top.

01:38All politicians have to wake up, they've got blood on their hands, and it won't stop until

01:45men who make this happen, they've got to stop. It's a man's problem.

01:53Now we're set to hear from a number of speakers here in Melbourne, we've just heard from Senator

01:58Lydia Thorpe, a victim survivor of domestic violence, we're set to hear from the family

02:04of Isla Bell, this is the young woman who was allegedly bashed to death by an associate,

02:10her remains found in a Dandenong tip, and we're also set to hear from the family of

02:15Celeste Mano, another young woman, she was stabbed to death in her home, her killer already

02:21sentenced last year, they've been huge in the violence against women space already,

02:27but really what these people are calling for is action, they want to see governments act

02:31on this issue, they want more money for services working with victim survivors of domestic violence,

02:38and more money into prevention.