Murder of young teacher makes women in London worry it could have been them
When the women of Kidbrooke in
southeast London learned Sabina Nessa, an elementary school teacher living
in their community, was found murdered in their local park, many had the same
thought: It could have been me.
"Police said that she left her
home to meet her friend in a local pub and it was just five minutes' walk for
her. We often go to this pub and it is also around five, 10 minutes walk for
us. You feel it might have happened to you. It might happen anywhere,"
Aliya Isaeva, a young mother who has been living in the area for about two
years, told CNN.
Isaeva and her husband moved to
Kidbrooke because it felt like a good place to raise a family; a quiet London
suburb, less than 20 minutes by train from central London. As a prime commuter
neighborhood, Kidbrooke has benefited from huge investments in recent years.
Newly-built apartment buildings with carefully landscaped lawns surround the
train station. Across the tracks, many more are being built.
Isaeva and her friend and fellow
mum Sueda Ciftci said they visit the park where the 28-year-old teacher was
killed last Friday at least once a week. They've always felt safe around there.
"We chose this area because there are lots of parks. It's a good family
area," Ciftci said.
The neighborhood is
still struggling to come to terms with the murder. Throughout the
week, people have been laying flowers in the park, lighting candles and leaving
notes for Nessa's family. When a vigil was held at a square just up the road
from the park on Friday evening, large crowds of people, mostly women, turned
up.
Many struggled to hold back their
tears when Nessa's sister Jebina Yasmin Islam told them about the pain she and
her family experienced. "This feels like we're stuck in a bad dream and we
can't get out of it," she said. "We have lost our sister, my parents
lost their daughter and my girls have lost such a brilliant, loving, caring
auntie."
Gender violence epidemic
Nessa's killing has sparked a
renewed outcry about Britain's epidemic of violence against women and
girls. Nessa is thought to have been murdered on her short journey through the
park, with her body found on Saturday afternoon, close to a nearby community center.
"It's just an unending cycle
of violence against women and it's really depressing," Jamie Klingler, one
of the co-founders of the Reclaim These Streets campaign group, told CNN.
The group was formed after the
assault and murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard in March. Everard went missing
after leaving a friend's house in Clapham, south London, on May 3, and her
disappearance sparked an outpouring across social media from women sharing
their own experiences of sexual assault and harassment. A Metropolitan Police
officer later pleaded guilty to murdering her.
Klingler said the murder of Nessa
showed nothing has changed in the six months since Everard was killed in May.
"Violence against women is not [in] the top three priorities of any police
department in England or Wales. We don't even rank. Nobody is taking this
seriously," she said.
According to the safety app
WalkSafe, there were 112 violent and sex crimes reported within a 1.5 kilometer
(0.9 miles) radius of the park where Nessa was killed, just in July, the most
recent month for which police figures are available.
"Right now the [local]
council is giving out panic alarms and they're giving out pieces of paper
saying you have to walk with somebody ... how is it all on us to protect
ourselves rather than on society and the government and the police to keep us
alive?" Klingler said.
At the vigil on Friday, Clive
Efford, the local MP, said 78 women have died in violent attacks since Everard
was murdered in May.
Efford said a cultural change
needed to take place in the UK. "Those sexist jokes that just slip off the
tongue around the coffee machine, that's where it starts, that's the small
steps that create the environment where people feel that they can become
violent and aggressive towards women and girls, so if we want to bring about
change, we have to live that change and be that change," he said to
applause from the crowd.
The British government in July
unveiled a new plan to tackle violence against women and girls. But campaigners
have said it doesn't go far enough. Refuge, a charity helping women who are
victims of domestic violence, said the plan did not provide adequate funding
and missed out on an opportunity to put real changes in place.
Manuela Colombini, who has lived
in the area for about 15 years, said she felt it was her duty to attend the
vigil to express her solidarity with Nessa's family and make her voice heard.
"We want to feel safe. I have two young daughters and I don't want them to
grow up and think that they cannot go out in the streets or to a park that is
near here where we take our dogs," she said. "It's important to be
able to show that we are here and this is not acceptable," she said.
Most of those who gathered in
Kidbrooke on Friday didn't know Nessa personally. Like Colombini, they came
because they wanted to support the community, take a stand and ensure her story
is not forgotten. When one of the speakers encouraged the crowd to say Nessa's
name, they did, the sound of hundreds of voices echoing through the square:
"Sabina Nessa. Sabina Nessa. Sabina Nessa."
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