There is little information about the women killed by men. Our census is building up a picture that can help save others
On 2 January 2012 Kirsty Treloar was stabbed to death in Hackney. She was 20 years old. Just weeks before she died, Kirsty had been referred to the Nia project of which I am chief executive. Nia is a charity that supports women who have been subjected to men’s violence.
When I searched for information about what had happened to her, I came across so many reports of women who’d been killed by men since the start of that year that I made a list of their names so that I could figure out how many there were. This became a project that I called Counting Dead Women. I wanted to highlight that the women killed were not just statistics, not just numbers, but real women, who were loved and now mourned. I was angry at seeing the killings of eight women in the first three days of the year referred to as “isolated incidents” when I believe they are anything but. If any other circumstances had led to the loss of eight lives in three days in the UK, it wouldn’t be described as a series of isolated incidents. There would be serious questions asked about connections – and prevention.
