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