Isla Bell
Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (10:01): Isla Bell was about to turn 20 when she went missing over six weeks ago. Last week her body was found. Isla was allegedly murdered by a 53-year-old man. According to Sherele Moody’s Femicide Watch, Isla was the 85th woman in Australia to be killed this year. Since then that number has already grown, because the reality is the risk of a woman being killed by a man is increasing and yet governments continue to defund services and ignore expert advice. The media continues to breach gender-based violence reporting guidelines. The police continue to fail at responding to violence. Men continue to let their friends get away with locker room banter and rape jokes, and we continue to fixate on how we can relate to women in order to advocate for their safety – that they were mothers or daughters, sisters or aunties – when none of that actually matters. What matters is that the system continues to fail us and we continue to be killed. Isla’s mum described her yesterday as a fighter. She described her as a force of nature, and we will ensure that her legacy and her memory is too. As her friend Tamara said recently, ‘Change is coming, and it is in the shape of a woman.’