Aiia Maasarwe

MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:27:29): Her name was Aiia Maasarwe. She was a Palestinian exchange student. She was vibrant and beautiful, with her entire life ahead of her until it was cut short on 16 January. Like so many others, I sat in silence on the steps of this Parliament a few days later in solidarity with the community. I thought about a life lost, I thought about her tragic end, and I was sad and angry. Her name joins a list, a list that should never be: with Jill, with Eurydice, with Masa. While those women paid the ultimate price for simply just going about their lives, we know that all over this state women suffer the threat of, or actual, violence every single day of the week. At any moment they could join the list of women who have died at the hands of men—deranged, angry men who, unable to take control of their own lives, solve their own problems and deal with their own sometimes tragic circumstances by taking it out on women. I am sorry if some people do not want to hear this but men are the problem, and it is up to men in our community to do something. It is up to men to look at their friends, colleagues and family and say: ‘Something is wrong here, and I need to do something about it before it is too late’. So men: do something. This has to stop.