MELBOURNE, Australia – Wearing black and holding “enough, enough” signs, thousands took to the streets across Australia on Monday to protest violence and discrimination against women, while settling accounts in the salons of The country’s power unleashed by multiple accusations of rape continued to grow.
The marches in at least 40 cities represented a wave of anger among women over a problem that has not been solved for a long time, said organizers, who estimate that 110,000 people participated in the demonstrations across the country.
With the next national election potentially coming in early August, experts say it is something that the conservative government, which has come under heavy criticism for the way it handled the charges, ignores at its own risk.
Public anger in Australia over violence against women came when thousands in London joined the protests last weekend over the murder of Sarah Everard, 33, who disappeared while walking home at night earlier this month.
In Australia, the message to the government was that “there are a large number of women across the country who are frankly fed up with their terrible response to sexual assault and harassment,” said Janine Hendry, the main organizer of the marches. “We want change and we want it now.”
In Canberra, the capital of Australia, police estimated that 5,000 to 6,000 protesters gathered on Monday on the lawn in front of Parliament, where lawmakers gather.
Brittany Higgins, a former political advisor whose accusation of having been raped in Parliament in 2019 shook the country’s corridors of power and motivated Monday’s marches, appeared at the Canberra protest. She said there was a “horrible social acceptance” of sexual violence in Australia.
“My story was on the front page for the sole reason that it is a painful reminder for women that if it can happen in Parliament, it can really happen anywhere,” she said.
She said she felt she was being treated as a “political problem” after making her accusation against colleagues in the center-right Liberal Party in the government. “I was raped inside Parliament by a colleague and, for a long time, it seemed that the people around me only cared about where it happened and what it could mean for them,” she said.
On the other side of Parliament’s doorstep, Prime Minister Scott Morrison drew mockery from the opposition Labor Party. On Sunday, he refused to participate in the protests and instead invited a small delegation of organizers to meet with him in his office.
The organizers refused, saying on Twitter: “We have already arrived at the front door, now it is up to the government to cross the threshold and come to us. We will not meet behind closed doors. “
The prime minister told Parliament that the government “understands and shares the frustrations of women and men across the country”.
But he asked for unity. “We must not allow our frustration with the failure to achieve so many of the results that we hope to undermine the unity needed to continue our shared progress,” said Morrison.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese and several senior labor leaders, as well as a handful of liberal ministers, attended the Canberra march.
Australia’s next federal election is due to take place in May 2022, and experts said the marches should sound a warning to the Liberal Party in government.
Its leader, Morrison, was criticized after saying that the seriousness of Higgins’ accusation hit him only after his wife told him to imagine that one of his daughters had been beaten. And her defense minister, Linda Reynolds, resolved a defamation complaint and agreed to pay damages to Mrs. Higgins after calling her a “lying cow”.
“A government that for several years has been described as having a ‘problem with women’ is now really having problems with women,” said Sarah Maddison, professor of politics at the University of Melbourne.
“I can’t remember a time when I personally saw and experienced the level of anguish that women are experiencing now,” she said. “I think there is something here with this level of distress that is producing a very extraordinary moment in our policy.”
Support for the Liberal Party has been declining slowly among women for years, said Sarah Cameron, a professor of politics at the University of Sydney, although it was not enough to prevent the party from winning the last federal election in 2019. Dr. Cameron added that the party “ignores this trend at its own risk”.
In Sydney, organizers estimated that at least 10,000 people gathered in the central business district.
There, Michael Bradley, the lawyer for a deceased woman who said she was sexually abused in 1988 by a man who is currently a member of Parliament, called for reform of the justice system. Earlier this month, Attorney General Christian Porter, 50, confirmed that he was the subject of the prosecution.
Porter vehemently denied the charge and police said earlier this month that they had closed an investigation, citing a lack of evidence.
The woman died of suicide last year. It is not known whether his death was related to his rape charge.
“It is not fair that the entire burden of the system falls on survivors,” said Bradley.
In Melbourne, organizers rolled out a banner listing the names of women and children who have died from gender-based violence since 2008. Protesters shouted “to hell with patriarchy”. Organizers estimate that at least 5,000 people attended – the maximum number permitted by the state’s coronavirus restrictions.
“We are here today because, for some reason, men are still able to control us,” said Ebonie Grinlaubs, 21, a bartender. “We started on the streets, we started to march and, eventually, we reached the top.”
“In the 1970s and 1980s, we were doing this work, and we still do it now,” said Jill Wilson, a 62-year-old educator who said she had campaigned for women’s rights for decades. “It is time for men and women to make changes,” she said.
The marches took place the same day that Porter filed a defamation suit against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation over an online article on the 33-year-old assault charge. The complaint statement submitted by his lawyers stated that the article, which did not quote Mr. Porter, made defamatory charges.
In an e-mailed statement, ABC said it “will be defending the lawsuit”.