I know Rosie well. I have come to know her especially well these past six months as we have sat together and worked on her upcoming book. I know from personal experience that the articulate campaigner who appears on television and at speaking engagements represents only one side of her.
She’s also a mother grieving in private for her son – trying, in her way, to make sense of his cruel murder by attempting to change the system so that no other mother in Australia has to wake to the yawning emptiness she feels each day.
More than anything else, she is out there doing it all by herself. She has no husband, no partner, no immediate family here in Australia. This crusade she is on: she is largely on it alone. And it is hard.
That’s why looking away is no longer an option. It’s why every woman in Australia needs to stand up and be counted on the issue of domestic violence and show her support for Rosie.
Our bet is that Australian women really do care about the plight of their sisters. Our bet is that given the statistics (one-in-three Australian women either have already or will experience violence at the hands of a former or current partner) each one of us knows a victim. Our bet, overall, is that together we are strong enough to confront this scourge and drag it out of the shadows once and for all.
Read the full story of Rosie Batty in The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine, out now
