The safety of women is a topic that is always being discussed yet we hardly see any change. The murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa amplifies calls to end violence against women. Like Sarah Everard just seven months ago, Sabina’s case has reignited conversations around women’s safety and the apparent lack of progress in the issue of violence against women and girls.
This is a topic we should not be debating but actively doing something to help stop the violence. On September 17th, Sabina was brutally killed during her walk to meet friends. An act millions of us do daily. Sarah Everard, who was abducted and raped before being killed six months prior to Sabina’s passing. Sarah was horrifically kidnapped, raped and was killed on her walk home from her friends in south London, on March 3rd. Both girls could not even walk five minutes from her home without being killed. We should be allowed to walk places without living in fear, the fact that we can’t just shows how terrible things are. This is a worldwide issue. Women everywhere are being subjected to this violence.
A Met Police officer who killed Sarah Everard after kidnapping her under the guise of an arrest. In an article it describes Sarah’s walk, and she chose well-lit streets and was on the phone to her boyfriend these things that ‘supposedly’ improve women’s safety, yet she did not make it home. Police officers who are a symbol of trust of peace who make the world safer, by this one corrupt Police officer it has shattered all of that. Women have campaigned for the safety and protection of women to be prioritised, and unfortunately it has not been. The continual violence faced by women, girls and marginalised genders is an outrage and needs to be stopped.
The death is part of a wider pattern of systemic male violence we need structural change to overcome this, all the way from our education system to our courts. As a community we need to STOP and prevent victim blaming in articles and defence lawyers in courts dehumanize victims especially women as they are being criminalised by the same measures that were introduced to protect them.
In articles and social media use Implicit journalistic messaging that suggests that women should be more careful, rather than suggesting that men should stop killing women. They use blaming rhetoric and use it in every conversation and across social platforms. Yet again, placing all the focus on the women and her behaviour, rather than the problem: men’s violence and all the toxic masculinity issues surrounding this. This not only suggests that the responsibility is on the victim to not get murdered or attacked, but it also leans into the argument that gender, as a societal construct, frames women and girls as passive victims in need of protection. The culture of victim blaming is at the core of why so many women do not report these crimes to the Police and suffer in silence. Victim blaming is everyone’s problem.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is why there has been a significant lack of media coverage and pleas to the public of Sabina’s death in comparison of the media coverage that Sarah was given. It is not a coincidence when minoritized and women of colour are killed our society looks away. It’s not a competition or whataboutisms but the insidious minimisation of violence against women of colour can’t be ignored.
Stories of women of colour are often unheard and unreported. Violence against women and girls. I am tired of these discussions I am tired of feminism being largely discussed by majority woman. We need a world where men hold these conversations. Where men acknowledge men’s violence. Women don’t need protection. Men, the people statistically committing the most crimes against women, need to unlearn toxic narratives that are entrenched in hegemonic masculinity.
In all my life whenever I am out, I am always on edge, making sure to walk in groups or having someone on speed dial, having my keys gripped in my knuckles, I always feel unsafe. I hate that women can’t walk the streets. I hate that women have to feel like this. I hate that women will be more hesitant to trust the Police I want women to not be blamed. I want women to walk freely without looking over their shoulders. I want more security measures put in place for women, I want victim blaming to stop. I want more people to have these conversations and to discuss and educate themselves always. Enough is enough! How many more? What will it take? Why are women still having to deal with this? Why are the government and the Met Police taking such a lax effort in tackling this, something needs to be done, and quickly, otherwise society is in real danger.
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Fizra, excellent article well addressed. I couldn’t agree with you more, sadly a lot of men deny their behaviour and convince themselves they are not abusers. They will deny even to the abuser that they are abusing her and tell the victim she is lying. Women in co-habitation also fear that they have no recall especially if they have the children. The co-habitation law allows abuse it’s a myth if the relationship breaks down that they are entitled to a settlement such as a divorce woman do. The woman cohabiting has less value - even after twenty years she is not entitled - leaving her at the mercy of the abuser to continue to abusing. The laws need to chan…