She was a sex worker and she was murdered. One thing doesn't make the other any less tragic.

By WENDY SQUIRES

Last night, around 200 people gathered in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda to mark the one-year anniversary of Tracy Connelly’s death. Tracy Connelly, 40, was found murdered in the back of her van on July 21 last year – but her killer still has not been found. 

This is speech Mamamia contributor Wendy Squires gave at the vigil last night. It has been published with full permission: 

Several years ago I set out to Melbourne from Sydney to start a new life. I decided to settle in St Kilda, a suburb I had often visited and remembered as egalitarian and inclusive, far from the elitist and beautiful people-only attitude I had left behind. It was one of the best moves I’ve ever made.

I didn’t know too many people here when I arrived and, as I was working from home, could go days without human interaction.

But there was a smiling face, albeit shy at first, who soon made me feel part of the community, a statuesque brunette sex worker who worked from a corner close by.

I didn’t know her name – that would come later – but after my dog bounded up to her one day for a cuddle, we became friends of sorts.

Over the ensuing year or so, the woman I now know as Tracy Connelly and I shared many a laugh. She cheered me up if she thought I was flat and I would bring her back a coffee from my morning dog walk in case she was still standing in the cold.

Sometimes Tracy was there when I got back. Often she wasn’t. I always had mixed feeling about her presence on that corner –happiness to know she was safe, and concern knowing she was out working and, as such, in danger again.

I first learnt that a sex worker had been slain mere metres away from my home by reading a small newspaper story. My fear was it was my friend but I had no way of knowing if it was the case. The story wasn’t followed up in days following and the corner nearby now known as Tracy’s corner was eerily vacant.

I decided to write my column for The Age that week asking why Jill Meagher’s murder, some year earlier, was still occupying news print when I still had no idea who the woman in my neighbourhood, who had been viscously stabbed to death and left in the broken down van she lived in, was.

I knew she was a sex worker – the only headlines of her murder screamed that fact – but which girl was it? And why was her occupation so important? Wasn’t she a woman at the end of the day? Didn’t I walk the same streets of St Kilda as she did? Would the headlines have mentioned my profession should I have been the victim of this crime? Could it be that because Tracy was a sex worker, she did not deserve the same public outrage as Jill Meagher? Surely not!

It seems I was not alone in asking these questions. At the same time my friend and fellow journalist Jane Gilmore was writing a similar story, which also received phenomenal response.

A groundswell formed and soon mainstream media came on board, TV and newspapers and with talkback radio, allowing the public to vent their horror and frustration that Tracy’s murder was being ignored.

Some of you gathered here tonight might be these very people who rang in to demand action. Many of you may have been here a year ago when this incredible community I have the privilege to be part of gathered with candles and heavy hearts to farewell Tracy and send a message that violence against women will not be tolerated in this neighbourhood. Ever.

We had lost a visible member of our community, a woman who stood tall every day in the face of adversity and we loved her. This community illustrated with their feet and their hearts that all women are equal and no woman – regardless of occupation or circumstance – should live in fear of violence or become a victim of it as Tracy so brutally was.

In the year since Tracy was left for dead to be discovered by her shattered long time love Tony, 67 other women have been killed in acts of violence. That’s 67 sisters, mothers, lovers, daughters, friends…. 67 women who should be alive today but are not.

These horrific acts did not all happen in St Kilda, for violence against women is endemic and widespread and alarmingly on the rise.

In Victoria the number of family violence incidents reported rose 21.4 per cent last year alone, a statistic sadly similar in most other states.

It is my firm belief that turning the statistics that show more than one in three Australian women have experienced violence from a partner of ex partner is the responsibility of EVERY community, not just ours.

It was in this very place a year ago that Phil Cleary so passionately spoke about challenging grass roots misogyny as the key to turning this situation around. It is about men teaching boys to respect for women. It is about men being strong role models, ones that do not tolerate women being denigrated either mentally of physically.

It’s about not laughing at the sexist joke, tapping a mate on the shoulder you suspect might be hurting a partner, it’s about reporting such crimes. It’s about getting the message across that real men don’t hurt.

It should not just be the people of St Kilda who mass together to say no, to say all women are someone, that love is respect and vice versa.

Tracy Connelly showed me respect as a fellow woman and member of this community. You gathered here tonight are showing respect for her and the 67 other women who have been brutally slain in acts of violence this past year alone.

I can only hope – make that dream – that should we gather in this same place next year, we will be discussing statistics much lower than 67 and one in three.

If there is anything positive to come of my friend, our sister and our valued community member Tracy Connelly’s tragic death, let it be that.

Please share to raise awareness of Tracy Connelly, the hunt for her murderer, and for the thousands of women who are affected by acts of violence every single day.