Susie O’Brien: Melbourne streets are not safe for women

EURYDICE Dixon’s death is a reminder that we live in a city divided. Melbourne isn’t a safe place after dark for women. There are extra threats women face that men don’t, writes Susie O’Brien.

THE death of Eurydice Dixon is a reminder that we live in a city divided.

Melbourne isn’t a safe place after dark for women. Our city’s streets contain additional threats for women than men.

Ms Dixon was young, fit and savvy.

TEEN ACCUSED OF KILLING COMEDIAN FRONTS COURT

Eurydice Dixon was a comedian.

She’d finished work at 10.30pm in a crowded public place in the heart of the city. She was on her way home, presumably triumphant about her successful performance at the Highlander Bar.

She should have been safe. And yet some time around 11pm she was attacked, raped and killed.

She never made it home.

Her body was found three hours later, abandoned on a dark soccer pitch in the middle of a popular park.

Jaymes Todd is accused of Ms Dixon’s murder.

It’s a chilling reminder of women’s vulnerability in public places after dark. It’s two years after Masa Vukotic was stabbed in Doncaster in a random evening attack and six years after the death of Jill Meagher on the streets of Brunswick.

Ms Dixon was 22; her life was just beginning. She should not be dead.

What she went through in her final moments doesn’t bear thinking about.

At this stage it appears to have been a crime of opportunity; the man arrested for her rape and murder isn’t thought to be known to her personally.

It could have been any of the thousands of bright young women making their way around the city at night.

Alarmingly, Ms Dixon’s death comes as sexual crimes continue to rise. The latest Victorian crime statistics show sexual offences up 13.4 per cent, from 7493 to 8495. In some areas the rise is even greater: in Geelong it’s up an astonishing 41.6 per cent.

Some — but not all — of this increase is down to a new sexual offences code. So what’s going on?

According to the Centre for Sexual Assault, 17 per cent of women and four per cent of men experience sexual assault over the age of 15.

ABS figures show 93 per cent of offenders are male and that only 17 per cent of sexual assaults result in a conviction. Police data states girls between the ages of 10 and 14 are the greatest proportion of victims, and young women aged between 15 and 24 are the second largest category.

The tragical, brutal and untimely end to Ms Dixon’s life shows more must be done to keep our streets safe, not only for women but all Victorians.