{"id":105615,"date":"2025-08-30T01:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T01:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/105615\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T01:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T01:24:10","slug":"stop-killing-women-australian-mother-vows-to-be-voice-for-slain-daughter-crime-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/105615\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Stop killing women\u2019: Australian mother vows to be voice for slain daughter | Crime News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne, Australia \u2013 Lee Little recalls the phone call with her daughter in December 2017; it was just minutes before Alicia was killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to her 15 minutes before she died,\u201d Little told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked her, was she OK? Did you want us to come up to pick you up? And she said, \u2018No, I\u2019ve got my car. I\u2019m right, Mum, everything\u2019s packed.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Alicia Little was on the verge of finally leaving an abusive four-and-a-half-year relationship.<\/p>\n

Not only had Alicia rung her mother, but she had also called the police emergency hotline for assistance, as her fiance Charles Evans fell into a drunken rage.<\/p>\n

Alicia knew what to expect from her partner: extreme violence.<\/p>\n

Evans had a history of abuse towards Alicia, with her mother recounting to Al Jazeera the first time it occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time he actually bashed her, she was on the phone to me. And the next minute, I heard him come across and try to grab her phone,\u201d Little said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard her say, \u2018Get your hands off my throat. I can\u2019t breathe.\u2019 And the next minute, you hear him say, \u2018You\u2019re better off dead.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Little told how she had taken photos of her daughter\u2019s terrible injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had broken ribs. She had a broken cheekbone, broken jaw, black eyes, and where he\u2019d had her around the throat, you could see his finger marks. It was a bruise, and where he\u2019d give her a kick, and right down the side, you could see his foot marks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many abusive relationships, a pattern would emerge, whereby Alicia would leave temporarily, only to return after Evans promised to change his behaviour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis went on and off for the four and a half years,\u201d Little said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d bash her, she\u2019d come home, and then she\u2019d say to me, \u2018Mum, he\u2019s told me that he\u2019s gone and got help.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the violence only escalated.<\/p>\n

\"LeeLee Little with a photograph of her daughter, Alicia Little, who was killed by her partner in 2017. Alicia\u2019s killer served only two years and eight months in jail for the crime [Ali MC\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

On the night Alicia decided to leave for good, Evans drove his four-wheel-drive at her, pinning her between the front of the vehicle and a water tank.<\/p>\n

Alicia Little, aged 41 and a mother of two boys, died within minutes before the police she had called could arrive.<\/p>\n

As she lay drawing her final breaths, security camera footage would later show her killer drinking beer at the local pub, where he drove to after running Alicia down.<\/p>\n

Evans was arrested, and after initially being charged with murder, had his charges downgraded to dangerous driving causing death and failing to render assistance after a motor vehicle accident.<\/p>\n

He would walk free from jail after only two years and eight months.<\/p>\n

The statistics<\/p>\n

Alicia Little is just one of the many women in Australia killed every year, in what activists such as The Red Heart Campaign\u2019s<\/a> Sherele Moody are saying is so prevalent that it amounts to a \u201cfemicide\u201d: the targeted killing of women by men.<\/p>\n

According to government data<\/a>, one woman was killed in Australia every eight days on average between 2023-2024.<\/p>\n

Moody, who documents the killings, contests those statistics, telling Al Jazeera they do not represent the true scale of deadly attacks on women in the country.<\/p>\n

Government data records \u201cdomestic homicide\u201d; women killed resulting in a conviction of murder or manslaughter.<\/p>\n

As in the case of Alicia Little, the lesser charges her killer was convicted on related to motoring offences and do not amount to a domestic homicide under government reporting and are not reflected in the statistics.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the key weapons that perpetrators use against women in Australia is vehicles,\u201d Moody told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey almost always get charged with dangerous driving, causing death. That is not a homicide charge. It doesn\u2019t get counted despite it being a domestic violence act, an act of domestic violence perpetrated by a partner,\u201d Moody said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government underrepresents the epidemic of violence. And in the end, the numbers that they\u2019re using influence their policy. It influences their funding decisions. It influences how they speak to us as a community about violence against women,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Moody said that between January 2024 and June this year, she had documented 136 killings of women; many \u2013 like Alicia Little \u2013 by their partners. \u201cNinety-six percent of the deaths I record are perpetrated by men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAround 60 percent of the deaths are the result of domestic and family violence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"ShereleSherele Moody, from The Red Heart Campaign, speaks with the media at a Stop Killing Women protest earlier this year in Melbourne, Australia. Moody says the official government data underrepresents the true scale of \u2018femicide\u2019 in Australia [Ali MC\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

While much focus is on women\u2019s safety in public spaces \u2013 for example, walking home alone at night \u2013 Moody said the least safe place for a woman is actually in her own home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that if you\u2019re going to be killed, whether you\u2019re a man or woman or a child, you\u2019re going to be killed by someone you know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Data shows that only about 10 percent of female victims are killed by strangers, deaths often sensationally covered by the media and prompting public debate about women\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, stranger killings do happen, and when they do, they get a lot of focus and a lot of attention, and it lulls people into a false sense of security about who is perpetrating the violence,\u201d Moody said.<\/p>\n

Male violence in Australia<\/p>\n

Patty Kinnersly, CEO of Our Watch, a national task force to prevent violence against women, said attacks on women are the \u201cmost extreme outcome of broader patterns of gendered violence and inequality\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we refer to the gendered drivers of violence, we are talking about the social conditions and power imbalances that create the environment where this violence occurs,\u201d Kinnersly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese include condoning or excusing violence against women, men\u2019s control of decision-making, rigid gender stereotypes and dominant forms of masculinity, and male peer relations that promote aggression and disrespect towards women,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAddressing the gendered drivers is vital because violence against women is not random; it reflects deeply entrenched inequalities and norms in society. If we do not address these root causes, we cannot achieve long-term prevention,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Patterns of male violence are deeply rooted in Australia\u2019s colonial history, in which men are told they need to be physically and mentally tough, normalising male aggression, write authors Alana Piper and Ana Stevenson.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor much of the 19th century, men far outnumbered women within the European population of the Australian colonies. This produced a culture that prized hyper-masculinity as a national ideal,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n

Colonial male aggression also resulted in extreme violence perpetrated on Indigenous women during the frontier times, through rape and massacres.<\/p>\n

Misogyny and racism were also promoted in Australia\u2019s parliament during the 20th century, as legislators crafted assimilationist laws aimed at controlling the lives of Indigenous women and removing their children as part of what has become known as the \u201cStolen Generations\u201d.<\/p>\n

Up to a third of Indigenous children<\/a> were removed from their families as part of a suite of government policies between 1910 and 1970, resulting in widespread cultural genocide and intergenerational social, economic and health disparities.<\/p>\n

This legacy of colonial racism and discrimination continues to play out in vast socioeconomic inequalities experienced by Indigenous people in the present day, including violence against women, activists say.<\/p>\n

Recent government data shows that Indigenous women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised due to violence than non-Indigenous women in Australia and six times more likely to die as a result of family violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are among the most at-risk groups for family violence and intimate partner homicide in Australia,\u201d First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence (FNAAFV) Chief Executive Officer Kerry Staines told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese disproportionately high rates are the result of historical injustice and ongoing systemic failure,\u201d Staines said, including forced displacement of Indigenous communities, child removals and the breakdown of family structures.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been affected by multigenerational trauma caused by institutional abuse, incarceration and marginalisation. When trauma is left unaddressed, and support services are inadequate or culturally unsafe, the risk of violence, including within relationships, increases,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Indigenous women are also the fastest-growing prison cohort in Australia.<\/p>\n

On any given night, four out of 10 women in prison are Indigenous women, despite making up only 2.5 per cent of the adult female population.<\/p>\n

Staines said there is a nexus between domestic violence and incarceration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a clear and well-documented relationship between the hyper-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the high rates of family violence experienced in our communities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe removal of parents and caregivers from families due to imprisonment increases the likelihood of child protection involvement, housing instability and intergenerational trauma, all of which are risk factors for both perpetration and victimisation of family violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Toxic culture\u2019<\/p>\n

While Australia was one of the first Western countries to grant women voting rights, deeply rooted inequalities persisted through much of the 20th century, with women being excluded from much of public and civic life, including employment in the government sector and the ability to sit on juries, until the 1970s.<\/p>\n

This exclusion from positions of authority \u2013 including the judicial system \u2013 allowed a culture of \u201cvictim blaming\u201d to develop, particularly in instances of domestic abuse and sexual assault, activists say.<\/p>\n

Rather than holding male perpetrators to account and addressing violence, focus remained on the actions of female victims: what they may have been wearing, where they had been, and prior sexual histories as a basis for apportioning blame to those who had suffered the consequences of gender-based violence.<\/p>\n

Such was the case with Isla Bell, a 19-year-old woman from Melbourne, who police allege was beaten to death in October 2024.<\/p>\n

\"MissingA missing poster for Isla Bell, who was beaten to death in October 2024 [Ali MC\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

Media reporting on Isla\u2019s death focused largely on her personal life and provided graphic details about her death, while little attention was given to the two men who were charged with Isla\u2019s alleged murder.<\/p>\n

Isla\u2019s mother, Justine Spokes, said the reporting \u201cfelt really abusive\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way in which my daughter\u2019s murder was reported on just highlights the pervasive toxic culture that is systemic in Australia,\u201d said Spokes, describing a \u201cvictim-blaming narrative\u201d around the killing of her daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was written in a really biased way that felt really disrespectful, devaluing and dehumanising,\u201d she said, adding that society had become desensitised to male violence against women in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just become so normalised, which I think is actually a sign of trauma, that we\u2019re numb to it. It\u2019s been pervasive for that long. If that\u2019s the mainstream psyche in Australia, it\u2019s just so dangerous,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think that this pervasive, toxic, misogynistic culture, it\u2019s definitely written into our law. It\u2019s very colonial,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The Australian government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has committed to the ambitious task of tackling violence against women within a generation.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson from the Department of Social Services told Al Jazeera the government has invested 4 billion Australian dollars ($2.59bn) to deliver on the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Australian Government acknowledges the significant levels of violence against women and children including intimate partner homicides,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnding gender-based violence remains a national priority for the Australian Government. Our efforts to end gender based violence in one generation are not set-and-forget \u2013 we are rigorously tracking, measuring and assessing our efforts, and making change where we must,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

\"AA petition that documents women killed in Australia since 2008 at a Stop Killing Women protest in Melbourne, Australia [Ali MC\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

Yet for Lee Little, mother of Alicia Little who was killed in 2017, not enough is being done, and she does not feel justice was served in the case of her daughter, describing the killer\u2019s light sentence as \u201cgut-wrenching\u201d.<\/p>\n

Little is now petitioning for a national domestic violence database in a bid to hold perpetrators accountable and allow women to gain access to information regarding prior convictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur family would love a national database, because perpetrators, at this moment, anywhere in Australia, can do a crime in one state and move to another, and they\u2019re not recognised\u201d as offenders in their new location, she said.<\/p>\n

Little said public transparency around prior convictions would protect women from entering into potentially abusive relationships in the first place.<\/p>\n

Yet the Australian federal government has yet to implement such a database, in part due to the complexities of state jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

The federal attorney-general\u2019s office told Al Jazeera that \u201cprimary responsibility for family violence and criminal matters rests with the states and territories, with each managing their own law enforcement and justice systems\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreation of a publicly accessible national register of perpetrators of family violence could only be implemented with the support of state and territory governments, who manage the requisite data and legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the apparent intransigence in law, Little remains committed to calling out violence against women wherever she sees it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been to supermarkets where there\u2019s been abuse in front of me, and I\u2019ve stepped in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be a voice for Alicia and for a national database till my last breath,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\"KellieKellie Carter-Bell, a survivor of domestic violence and speaker at the Stop Killing Women protest in Melbourne, told Al Jazeera: \u2018I had my first black eye at 13. I had my last black eye at 36. My mission in being here today is teaching women that you can get out safely and live a successful life.\u2019 [Ali MC\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne, Australia \u2013 Lee Little recalls the phone call with her daughter in December 2017; it was just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77,64,63,48,1379,75911,76,44,12632,75912],"class_list":{"0":"post-105615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-features","13":"tag-gender-equity","14":"tag-indigenous-rights","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-women","17":"tag-womens-rights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}