The sister of a woman who was murdered by her partner in 2018 has let loose at the state of Australia’s violence against women problem, saying it is getting worse.
Katie Haley, the 29-year-old mother-of-two, was one of 63 women killed by a male partner in 2018, after Shane Robertson beat her to death with a dumbbell while the couple’s child slept nearby.
Katie’s father, Boyd, and his wife got a call from police around midnight on March 9 about Robertson’s ex-partner, saying police were trying to get in touch with he and Katie.
They couldn’t get in touch with Katie and after more than three hours, the family learned the awful reason why.
It has been close to six years since Katie’s death but in 2024, the problem remains — 26 women have allegedly been murdered at the hands of a man in Australia.
Katie’s sister Bianca Unwin, who has since become an advocate against domestic violence, recently took to TikTok to share her fury that nothing has changed. In fact, she argued, it’s gotten worse.
“I’m mad. I’m mad that my sister was murdered in 2018 by her partner. She was the 12 woman killed,” Ms Unwin said.
“And, six years later at that exact same date we have 18 women who have lost their lives to violence,
“So, we’re not getting better. We’re getting worse. I’m mad. I’m mad for my sister Katie because no matter how much advocacy work victims and victim survivors put in, it’s never going to be enough. It’s falling on deaf ears.”
She said the people who aren’t impacted by domestic violence and violence against women now simply don’t care. She said initially the statistic was one woman was killed every 10 days. Now, it’s one woman every four days.
“So do not tell me there is not a single person in your life that is not affected by violence against women because statistically there is,” Ms Unwin said.
“You’re just choose to not acknowledge it.”
Ms Unwin said people shouldn’t wait until it impacts their mother, child or friend. She said people wouldn’t want to be in the position she is, watching the world fail them and see another family go through the horrific trauma that hers has.
“Your silence is not helping the issue. The silence and the violence go hand-in-hand. Do better.”
Ms Unwin isn’t the only family member of a murdered woman to express their heartbreak and rage at the growing number of women killed by men in Australia.
Masa Vukotic was just 17 when she was killed by Sean Price while going for a walk near her home in Doncaster, in Melbourne’s southeast, in March 2015.
Price stabbed the schoolgirl a total of 49 times. The day after he murdered Masa, he raped a woman in a bookshop.
He was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 38 years, which he later successfully appealed, resulting in a year being shaved off his sentence.
In light of the five women and a male security guard who were stabbed to death in a rampage by Joel Cauchi at Bondi Junction Westfield earlier this month, Masa’s younger sister Nadja Vukotic spoke out about Australia’s ongoing epidemic of violence towards women.
In a tear-filled video, Ms Vukotic called for more to be done to stop “hatred towards women”, stating this “shouldn’t be happening”.
“Enough has been enough for so long now, even before my sister passed away. Something really needs to be done,” she said in the viral video.
“I really don’t understand the hatred towards women. We all came from a woman.
“My sister went for a walk, about 500m from our house, and she was killed. It wasn’t even night time, it was 6.50pm. She just went to get a bit of a break and lost her life.”
Two in five women (39 per cent) in Australia will have experienced male violence since the age of 15, according to Our Watch. It’s crucial to note that they face the greatest risk of this in the home and other private locations.
Yet in Masa’s case, she was attacked by Price — a complete stranger, on bail at the time as well as under a 10-year serious sex offender supervision order — who had described himself to police as a “ticking time bomb”.
“Masa Vukotic was 17 years old, she wanted to be a lawyer, she wanted to get married and have a big family,” Ms Vukotic said.
“She was the best person that I have ever known. She’s more than just a victim of a man, and she’s more than just a victim of knife violence, and she could have been so much more than she was.”
Ms Vukotic went on to state her sister was “just a kid” when her life was cut short, adding since then she feels like “nothing’s been done” to prevent senseless deaths at the hands of men.
“One (life) is one too many. This shouldn’t happen to anyone,” she said.
“What I go through now and what these people (the families of the Bondi victims) – they’re never going to get over that, they are always going to have that hole in their hearts.”
Pikria Darchia, Yixuan Cheng, Jade Young, Dawn Singleton and Ashlee Good – along with security guard Faraz Tahir – were murdered by Queensland man Joel Cauchi during his rampage at Westfield Bondi Junction on April 13.
While a motive has not been stated, police said last week it was “obvious … the offender had focused on women and avoided the men”.
Meanwhile, Celeste Manno’s mother Aggie Di Mauro appeared on Sunrise on Thursday to share her outrage after her daughter was murdered in November 2020 while she slept in her bed.
Celeste was just days away from her 24th birthday when her ex-colleague Luay Nader Sako, who had been stalking her, broke into her family home in Mernda, on Melbourne’s outskirts.
He murdered Celeste and was sentenced to 36 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 30 years.
“When women are attending police stations, and they are fearing for their life, we need to absolutely detain these people [offenders], regardless of the circumstances,” Di Mauro told Sunrise.
She said women go to the police for a reason and we can’t continue to send them home and release offenders on bail. Ms Di Mauro also took aim at the current legal protections, such as apprehended violence orders.
“I am sick and tired of seeing premiers get up and say what they need to say to calm the waters, I am done with promises,” she said.
“They have been making promises forever — certainly with Celeste’s case for almost four years.”
She said she was outraged and “devastated” that four years after her daughter was murdered that little has changed. She said she was angry for these young women and their families.
The mother has launched a petition to the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal the sentence given to her daughter’s killer.
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