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Melbourne, Australia – Lee Little remembers the telephone name along with her daughter in December 2017; it was simply minutes earlier than Alicia was killed.

“I spoke to her quarter-hour earlier than she died,” Little informed Al Jazeera.

“I requested her, was she OK? Did you need us to come back as much as decide you up? And he or she mentioned, ‘No, I’ve obtained my automotive. I’m proper, Mum, every part’s packed.’”

Alicia Little was on the verge of lastly leaving an abusive four-and-a-half-year relationship.

Not solely had Alicia rung her mom, however she had additionally known as the police emergency hotline for help, as her fiance Charles Evans fell right into a drunken rage.

Alicia knew what to anticipate from her accomplice: excessive violence.

Evans had a historical past of abuse in direction of Alicia, along with her mom recounting to Al Jazeera the primary time it occurred.

“The primary time he truly bashed her, she was on the telephone to me. And the following minute, I heard him come throughout and attempt to seize her telephone,” Little mentioned.

“I heard her say, ‘Get your arms off my throat. I can’t breathe.’ And the following minute, you hear him say, ‘You’re higher off lifeless.’”

Little informed how she had taken pictures of her daughter’s horrible accidents.

“She had damaged ribs. She had a damaged cheekbone, damaged jaw, black eyes, and the place he’d had her across the throat, you may see his finger marks. It was a bruise, and the place he’d give her a kick, and proper down the aspect, you may see his foot marks.”

Like many abusive relationships, a sample would emerge, whereby Alicia would depart quickly, solely to return after Evans promised to vary his behaviour.

“This went on and off for the 4 and a half years,” Little mentioned.

“He’d bash her, she’d come residence, after which she’d say to me, ‘Mum, he’s informed me that he’s gone and obtained assist.’”

But the violence solely escalated.

On the evening Alicia determined to depart for good, Evans drove his four-wheel-drive at her, pinning her between the entrance of the car and a water tank.

Alicia Little, aged 41 and a mom of two boys, died inside minutes earlier than the police she had known as may arrive.

As she lay drawing her closing breaths, safety digital camera footage would later present her killer ingesting beer on the native pub, the place he drove to after operating Alicia down.

Evans was arrested, and after initially being charged with homicide, had his fees downgraded to harmful driving inflicting loss of life and failing to render help after a motorcar accident.

He would stroll free from jail after solely two years and eight months.

The statistics

Alicia Little is simply one of many many ladies in Australia killed yearly, in what activists comparable to The Crimson Coronary heart Marketing campaign’s Sherele Moody are saying is so prevalent that it quantities to a “femicide”: the focused killing of ladies by males.

In keeping with authorities knowledge, one girl was killed in Australia each eight days on common between 2023-2024.

Moody, who paperwork the killings, contests these statistics, telling Al Jazeera they don’t symbolize the true scale of lethal assaults on ladies within the nation.

Authorities knowledge information “home murder”; ladies killed leading to a conviction of homicide or manslaughter.

As within the case of Alicia Little, the lesser fees her killer was convicted on associated to motoring offences and don’t quantity to a home murder beneath authorities reporting and are usually not mirrored within the statistics.

“One of many key weapons that perpetrators use towards ladies in Australia is automobiles,” Moody informed Al Jazeera.

“They nearly at all times get charged with harmful driving, inflicting loss of life. That’s not a murder cost. It doesn’t get counted regardless of it being a home violence act, an act of home violence perpetrated by a accomplice,” Moody mentioned.

“The federal government underrepresents the epidemic of violence. And ultimately, the numbers that they’re utilizing affect their coverage. It influences their funding selections. It influences how they converse to us as a neighborhood about violence towards ladies,” she mentioned.

Moody mentioned that between January 2024 and June this yr, she had documented 136 killings of ladies; many – like Alicia Little – by their companions. “Ninety-six % of the deaths I report are perpetrated by males.”

“Round 60 % of the deaths are the results of home and household violence,” she mentioned.

Whereas a lot focus is on ladies’s security in public areas – for instance, strolling residence alone at evening – Moody mentioned the least secure place for a girl is definitely in her own residence.

“The fact is that in case you’re going to be killed, whether or not you’re a person or girl or a baby, you’re going to be killed by somebody you understand,” she mentioned.

Knowledge exhibits that solely about 10 % of feminine victims are killed by strangers, deaths usually sensationally lined by the media and prompting public debate about ladies’s security.

“Sure, stranger killings do occur, and once they do, they get numerous focus and numerous consideration, and it lulls folks right into a false sense of safety about who’s perpetrating the violence,” Moody mentioned.

Male violence in Australia

Patty Kinnersly, CEO of Our Watch, a nationwide activity power to stop violence towards ladies, mentioned assaults on ladies are the “most excessive final result of broader patterns of gendered violence and inequality”.

“After we consult with the gendered drivers of violence, we’re speaking concerning the social circumstances and energy imbalances that create the atmosphere the place this violence happens,” Kinnersly mentioned.

“These embrace condoning or excusing violence towards ladies, males’s management of decision-making, inflexible gender stereotypes and dominant types of masculinity, and male peer relations that promote aggression and disrespect in direction of ladies,” she mentioned.

“Addressing the gendered drivers is significant as a result of violence towards ladies just isn’t random; it displays deeply entrenched inequalities and norms in society. If we don’t tackle these root causes, we can not obtain long-term prevention,” she added.

Patterns of male violence are deeply rooted in Australia’s colonial historical past, through which males are informed they have to be bodily and mentally powerful, normalising male aggression, write authors Alana Piper and Ana Stevenson.

“For a lot of the nineteenth century, males far outnumbered ladies inside the European inhabitants of the Australian colonies. This produced a tradition that prized hyper-masculinity as a nationwide splendid,” they write.

Colonial male aggression additionally resulted in excessive violence perpetrated on Indigenous ladies in the course of the frontier instances, by rape and massacres.

Misogyny and racism have been additionally promoted in Australia’s parliament in the course of the twentieth century, as legislators crafted assimilationist legal guidelines geared toward controlling the lives of Indigenous ladies and eradicating their youngsters as a part of what has turn into referred to as the “Stolen Generations”.

As much as a 3rd of Indigenous youngsters have been faraway from their households as a part of a collection of presidency insurance policies between 1910 and 1970, leading to widespread cultural genocide and intergenerational social, financial and well being disparities.

This legacy of colonial racism and discrimination continues to play out in huge socioeconomic inequalities skilled by Indigenous folks within the current day, together with violence towards ladies, activists say.

Latest authorities knowledge exhibits that Indigenous ladies are 34 instances extra prone to be hospitalised resulting from violence than non-Indigenous ladies in Australia and 6 instances extra prone to die because of household violence.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ladies are among the many most at-risk teams for household violence and intimate accomplice murder in Australia,” First Nations Advocates In opposition to Household Violence (FNAAFV) Chief Government Officer Kerry Staines informed Al Jazeera.

“These disproportionately excessive charges are the results of historic injustice and ongoing systemic failure,” Staines mentioned, together with pressured displacement of Indigenous communities, baby removals and the breakdown of household buildings.

“Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been affected by multigenerational trauma attributable to institutional abuse, incarceration and marginalisation. When trauma is left unaddressed, and assist providers are insufficient or culturally unsafe, the danger of violence, together with inside relationships, will increase,” she mentioned.

Indigenous ladies are additionally the fastest-growing jail cohort in Australia.

On any given evening, 4 out of 10 ladies in jail are Indigenous ladies, regardless of making up solely 2.5 per cent of the grownup feminine inhabitants.

Staines mentioned there’s a nexus between home violence and incarceration.

“There’s a clear and well-documented relationship between the hyper-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the excessive charges of household violence skilled in our communities,” she mentioned.

“The elimination of oldsters and caregivers from households resulting from imprisonment will increase the probability of kid safety involvement, housing instability and intergenerational trauma, all of that are danger elements for each perpetration and victimisation of household violence.”

‘Poisonous tradition’

Whereas Australia was one of many first Western international locations to grant ladies voting rights, deeply rooted inequalities continued by a lot of the twentieth century, with ladies being excluded from a lot of public and civic life, together with employment within the authorities sector and the flexibility to take a seat on juries, till the Nineteen Seventies.

This exclusion from positions of authority – together with the judicial system – allowed a tradition of “sufferer blaming” to develop, significantly in situations of home abuse and sexual assault, activists say.

Fairly than holding male perpetrators to account and addressing violence, focus remained on the actions of feminine victims: what they could have been sporting, the place they’d been, and prior sexual histories as a foundation for apportioning blame to those that had suffered the implications of gender-based violence.

Such was the case with Isla Bell, a 19-year-old girl from Melbourne, who police allege was overwhelmed to loss of life in October 2024.

Media reporting on Isla’s loss of life centered largely on her private life and supplied graphic particulars about her loss of life, whereas little consideration was given to the 2 males who have been charged with Isla’s alleged homicide.

Isla’s mom, Justine Spokes, mentioned the reporting “felt actually abusive”.

“The best way through which my daughter’s homicide was reported on simply highlights the pervasive poisonous tradition that’s systemic in Australia,” mentioned Spokes, describing a “victim-blaming narrative” across the killing of her daughter.

“It was written in a extremely biased manner that felt actually disrespectful, devaluing and dehumanising,” she mentioned, including that society had turn into desensitised to male violence towards ladies in Australia.

“It’s simply turn into so normalised, which I feel is definitely an indication of trauma, that we’re numb to it. It’s been pervasive for that lengthy. If that’s the mainstream psyche in Australia, it’s simply so harmful,” she mentioned.

“I actually assume that this pervasive, poisonous, misogynistic tradition, it’s undoubtedly written into our legislation. It’s very colonial,” she added.

The Australian authorities, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has dedicated to the bold activity of tackling violence towards ladies inside a technology.

A spokesperson from the Division of Social Companies informed Al Jazeera the federal government has invested 4 billion Australian {dollars} ($2.59bn) to ship on the Nationwide Plan to Finish Violence In opposition to Girls and Youngsters 2022-2032.

“The Australian Authorities acknowledges the numerous ranges of violence towards ladies and kids together with intimate accomplice homicides,” the spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.

“Ending gender-based violence stays a nationwide precedence for the Australian Authorities. Our efforts to finish gender based mostly violence in a single technology are usually not set-and-forget – we’re rigorously monitoring, measuring and assessing our efforts, and making change the place we should,” the spokesperson added.

But for Lee Little, mom of Alicia Little who was killed in 2017, not sufficient is being achieved, and he or she doesn’t really feel justice was served within the case of her daughter, describing the killer’s mild sentence as “gut-wrenching”.

Little is now petitioning for a nationwide home violence database in a bid to carry perpetrators accountable and permit ladies to achieve entry to data concerning prior convictions.

“Our household would love a nationwide database, as a result of perpetrators, at this second, anyplace in Australia, can do against the law in a single state and transfer to a different, they usually’re not recognised” as offenders of their new location, she mentioned.

Little mentioned public transparency round prior convictions would shield ladies from coming into into doubtlessly abusive relationships within the first place.

But the Australian federal authorities has but to implement such a database, partially as a result of complexities of state jurisdictions.

The federal attorney-general’s workplace informed Al Jazeera that “major accountability for household violence and legal issues rests with the states and territories, with every managing their very own legislation enforcement and justice techniques”.

“Creation of a publicly accessible nationwide register of perpetrators of household violence may solely be carried out with the assist of state and territory governments, who handle the requisite knowledge and laws.”

Regardless of the obvious intransigence in legislation, Little stays dedicated to calling out violence towards ladies wherever she sees it.

“I’ve been to supermarkets the place there’s been abuse in entrance of me, and I’ve stepped in,” she mentioned.

“I shall be a voice for Alicia and for a nationwide database until my final breath,” she added.