Phil Cleary says everybody can help end domestic violence

My 25-year-old sister Vicki’s life was blossoming when her former boyfriend attacked and fatally stabbed her in a Coburg street as she parked her car for work on 26 August 1987. 

There were no expressions of outrage, nor mass marches of the kind that followed Jill Meagher’s murder, after Vicki’s killer was found not guilty of murder under the old provocation law and sentenced to less than four years in gaol.

In time I came to understand that the verdict and the sentence handed down to Vicki’s killer was the norm, not the exception.

The truth is, women were routinely blamed for the violence inflicted upon them by violent men.

Thankfully, as the candlelight vigils, the widespread criticism of the courts and the fierce public debate confirms, the community no longer turns a blind eye to violence against women.

The community now expresses horror at the fact that 60 women a year in Australia are killed by men with whom they have shared an intimate relationship and that thousands more experience violence at the hands of controlling men.

So, while violence against women remains a national scandal, those of us on the frontline know the winds of change are roaring through the community.

Conferences such as ‘Violence prevention – It’s Everybody’s Business’ in Bendigo, at which I’ll be speaking, are now a feature of the ongoing campaign to end the violence.

No longer is the community or the family and friends of women killed or hurt by violent men prepared to stay silent.

So too are an increasing number of women coming to accept it’s not their fault the man in their life is violent.

The challenge isn’t only to change the attitudes that sustain the violence, but also to develop and fund strategies that enable women to safely leave bad relationships. We can only do that if we accept that dealing with and stopping the violence is everybody’s business.