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Women’s March 4 Justice Canberra By Juliette Baxter & Kristine Giam CW: Rape, sexual assault and sexual harrassment March 15th saw hundreds of thousands of ralliers across Australia participate in the Women’s March 4 Justice. In Canberra, protestors filled up the front lawn of Parliament House, demanding better government response to sexual assault and sexual harrassment issues (SASH). Three familiar faces from ANUSA — President Madhumitha Janagaraja, Education Officer Maddie Chia, and Women’s Officer Avan Daruwalla — addressed the crowds in support of the rally. In her speech, Janagaraja identified herself as “a young disabled woman, as a woman of color, as a survivor, and as a human being who is angry”,
and expressed the need to hold institutions, like Parliament House, to account, because they are not designed to protect victims. She expressed that “our institutions are broken because they are built off the suffering and invisible labour of generations of women” and thus “the system is not on our side”. Additionally, Janagaraja expressed resentment at how the “burden of evidence [in SASH cases] is consistently placed on [the victims]”. She reiterated the demands of the March, calling for government reform to “hold [their] own representatives to account” and protect “the people and the women that you are elected to serve”. She ended her speech with a quote by feminist poet Audre Lorde:
